406 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Wavelets of News. 



To Get Rid of Rats. 



Catch one in an ordinary box trap and 

 smear it with soft pine tar all over 

 except head. Then turn it loose where 

 caught. I assure you, you will not be 

 troubled with rats very long. I tried it 

 last Fall, and in three days after there 

 was no rat to be seen, nor has any been 

 seen since. — Practical Farmer. 



Get Young" Bees for Winter. 



This is the month to prepare your bees 

 for Winter. See that you have plenty 

 of young bees. Feed for stimulation. 

 Encourage your queens to lay, in order 

 to have plenty of young brood for win- 

 tering. Get everything in good condi- 

 tion. Re-queen where necessary. 

 Queens are cheap at this season. — Dk. J. 

 W. Vance, in Wisconsin Farmer. 



Bee-Tent for the Apiary. 



A correspondent from Fort Mohave, 

 Arizona, writes to ask if bees would do 

 well in his locality, where the heat in 

 Summer goes to 115^ and 120-, and he 

 asks if this would not melt the combs. 

 If there is plenty of bee-forage, the bees 

 would do just as well with him as any- 

 where else, but the hives should be 

 shaded from the sun's rays ; and if there 

 are no trees near, plant vines on the 

 sunny side of the hives, or fix up some- 

 thing to shade the hives from the heat 

 of the sun. Most of my hives are placed 

 under the shadow of a row of cypress 

 trees, which makes it pleasant to work 

 among them, as well as preventing the 

 melting of combs by the sun's heat. All 

 hives should be shaded from the sun's 

 rays. The natural home of the honey- 

 bee is under the shade of forest trees. 



The queen being the mother of the 

 whole colony, it is important that every 

 colony should have a young, vigorous 

 queen. Never keep a slow-laying queen, 

 or one which lays her eggs at random. 



A good, prolific queen lays her eggs 

 all in one direction, almost invariably 

 with her head toward the bottom of the 

 hive, therefore, her eggs are always 

 straight up and down like the print on 

 this paper. Whenever you see eggs laid 

 crosswise, or in every direction in the 

 cells, your queen is not a good one, or 

 very probably you have a laying worker 

 in that hive. 



Be very careful when opening your 

 hives at this time of the year that you 

 do not set your bees to robbing. An 

 almost indispensable article in the apiary 

 is a bee-tent (to set over a hive wh€n 

 opening it) to keep off robbers. — Wm. 

 Sty AN, in the Pacific Rural Press. 



Feeding and Preparing Bees forWinter 



The result of the season here is one-half 

 crop of white honey, and no surplus Fall 

 honey. The hives are generally stored 

 with honey for Winter, but a portion are 

 light in honey, and the bees must be fed if 

 we wish to save them for next year's work. 



Sugar syrup, made by adding 10 pounds 

 water to 20 pounds granulated sugar, 

 bringing it to a boil and then adding 5 

 pounds cheap honey, makes the cheapest 

 feed for Winter stores. Fifty cents' worth 

 of this feed will make light colonies safe 

 for Winter; and as the destitute ones are 

 generally those that produced our surplus 

 honey, humanity as well as interest 

 demands that we should not let our pets 

 perish for want of this small expense. 



I must caution apiarists not to wait 

 until too late to do the necessary work of 

 preparing bees forWinter, for now is the 

 time to prepare colonies for effective work 

 next year. We have no faith in getting 

 paying results from bees that come out 

 just alive in the Spring. 



We see more clearly each year that the 

 colonies that pay are those that come 

 out in the Spring strong in bees, and with 

 sufficient stores to need but little tinker- 

 ing. With that end in view, I shall unite 

 all weak colonies and make them strong 

 in bees and heavy in stores, and now 

 is the time to do it with the least work 

 and secure the best results. — B. Taylor, 

 in Farm Stock and Home. 



Large Crop of Honey. 



W. J. Pickard left for New York a few 

 days ago, where he will dispose of the 

 two carloads of honey which he shipped 

 to that place last week. The shipment 

 consisted of 60,000 pounds of extracted 

 basswood honey, and is the largest ever 

 made from this city. Of this great 

 amount of honey, 31,000 pounds is the 

 product of Mrs. Pickard's apiary near 

 this city. Formerly Mr. Pickard sold 

 his honey at Cincinnati, but the last two 

 or three shipments he has disposed of 

 in New York, which is a better market. 

 Mr. Pickard says Wisconsin ranks sec- 

 ond among the States, in the production 

 of honey. New York being first. — Rich- 

 land (Wis.) Observei\ 



