1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



creasing the supply of forage within 

 reach of the bees. 



One of the most useful purposes 

 which sweet clover serves is to 

 smother out noxious weeds. So per- 

 sistent is the' plant where sowed in 

 waste places, that there are few 

 weeds which can compete with it. 

 Whore bad weeds are present in old 

 lots, along roadsides, etc., the easiest 

 way to eradicate them is by sowing 

 sweet clover freely. Within a few 

 years the sweet clover will generally 

 crowd them out. In spite of this 

 fact, sweet clover is itself one of the 

 easiest plants to destroy. Since it 

 only lives two years and must come 

 again from the seed after that time, 

 all that is necessary to clear the ground 

 of sweet clover is to cut it low when 

 in blossom and before the seeds are 

 formed. 



Where there is difficulty in estab- 

 lishing alfalfa, sweet clover is often 

 grown in advance to establish the ni- 

 trogen gathering bacteria, which are 

 peculiar to the leguminous plants. 

 Following sweet clover, there is us- 

 ually little difficulty in getting the 

 alfalfa to grow, if the seed bed is 

 carefully prepared. However, many 

 farmers who have been growing 

 both plants, are of the opinion that 

 sweet clover is the more profitable of 

 the two, and that it can be handled 

 successfully with less difficulty. 



There is no pasture crop which will 

 support as many cattle or other live- 

 stock as will sweet clover during the 

 second season of its growth This 

 year a small experimental plot of 

 little more than an acre yielded two 

 big loads of hay. The plants were 

 permitted to get a good start after 

 the hay was cut, before pasturing, 

 then two cows and a horse were 

 turned in for the rest of the season. 

 In addition to furnishing abundant 

 pasture for three, more than twenty 

 bags of seed were secured. Allowing 

 $15 a ton for the hay, $1 a month 

 per head for pasture, and $3 a .bag for 

 the seed, all very conservative fig- 

 ures, the crop returned about $96 per 

 acre. While this small plot was ex- 

 perimental in the nature of things, 



there are numerous farmers who 

 have received more than $100 an acre 

 for seed alone. 



The next article will give details 

 of seeding, cutting for hay and har- 

 vesting the seed crop. 



Inversion 



Interchange of letters on Inversion in trans- 

 ferring, between T. I". Diemer, of Missouri, 

 and the Editor. 



Liberty, Mo., Sept. 9. 1917. 

 Friend Dadant : I am experiment- 

 ing a little on transferring bees from 

 box-hives to 8-frame hives and I 

 want your guess as to what they will 

 do. I bought 38 colonies in box-hives 

 14x14x16 inches high. White clover 

 flow was over, but the boxes were 

 full of honey and brood. On top are 

 some holes, which I covered with 

 wire screen to give them air, as my 

 plan was to use these box-hives for 

 hive-stands for the 8-frame hives by 

 turning them upside down, which 

 puts the honey at the bottom and the 

 brood at the top. I bored a 1-inch 

 hole In the middle of the bottom- 

 board of the 8-frame hive, and after 

 turning the box-hive to'p down I 

 placed the 8-frame hive on top; 

 placed therein one frame of brood 

 and seven drawn combs and full 

 sheets and closed all cracks. The 

 bees will be compelled to use the reg- 

 ular entrance to the 8-frame hive. 

 These bees are 16 miles from home, 

 in the Missouri River bottom. The 

 best fall flow we have ever had is 

 on now and I believe they will carry 

 or move the honey to get it above the 

 brood. This is my guess. What's 

 yours? 



Yours very truly, 



J. F. DIEMER. 

 Sept. 17, 1917. 

 Friend Diemer: I would make a 

 guess similar to yours on those hives 

 and affirm that they would carry the 

 honey up to the movable frame hive. 

 But the experience of the old country 

 beekeepers is rather against such a 

 conclusion. In a province of France 

 which they call "Gatinais" they tip 

 their skeps over in the same way, 

 placing another skep on top of the 



SWEET CLOVER FED 



inverted skep, "mouth to mouth," as 

 you might say. The result is that 

 they fill the lower skep full of honey. 

 Probably the result with you will de- 

 pend some upon how much flow 

 there is. If you have a very good 

 flow, they may fill both. Of course, 

 if you use full sheets in the upper 

 hive it may be filled first. 



Since you have told me all this and 

 have asked for my guess, I wish you 

 would write me when the season is 

 over and let me know just what they 

 did. We hope you are having some 

 flow now. We have a flow from 

 heartsease and Spanish needles just 

 now, and the honey they store is just 

 like liquid gold. 



Your old friend, 



C. P. DADANT. 



Liberty, Mo., Nov. 4, 1917. 



Friend Dadant: Twenty of those 

 colonies transferred themselves from 

 the box-hives to the movable-frame 

 hives, but left the box-hives nearly 

 full of honey. The first cold spell 

 we had here, (16 degrees above) 

 drove them all up into the frame 

 hives, so it was easy to remove the 

 box-hive, all clear of bees. Eighteen 

 colonies not only stayed in the box- 

 hives, but removed nearly all the 

 honey from the frame hives down to 

 the box-hive. I suppose the queen 

 stayed below, because there was 

 plenty of room to lay. 

 Yours truly, 



J. F. DIEMER. 

 Nov. 8, 1917. 



Friend Diemer: Your letter to 

 hand. This shows that the old-time 

 beekeepers of the Gatinais were right 

 in expecting the lower hive to re- 

 main full of honey. This operation 

 was called "culbutage," or inversion 

 Some forty years ago the pages ot 

 LApiculteur were full of this meth- 

 od. But they had to acknowledge 

 that it left very weak colonies in the 

 upper story. The men who practiced 

 it usually bought a fresh lot of bees 

 every spring to replace those they 

 lost by that method. We hope you 

 will winter yours well. 



Of course, at the time when this 

 method was followed they had only 

 straw skeps. If the colonies did not 

 have enough left in the upper hive 

 for winter there was no practical way 

 of supplying them. With movable 

 frame hives the case is different. But 

 your experiment may prove of some 

 use to many of our readers. 

 Best wishes, 



C. P. DADANT. 



(Mr. Diemer now writes that he is 

 going to try to transfer those bees to 

 movable frame hives by turning 

 them, bottom up, in January, under 

 a hive partly full of combs of honey. 

 We will report on this later. — Ed.) 



Death of W. M. Whitney.^We re- 

 gret to inform our readers of the 

 death of Mr. W. M. Whitney, which 

 occurred in Chicago two weeks ago. 

 Mr. Whitney was a very familiar fig- 

 ure at the annual meetings of the 

 Chicago Northwestern Association. A 

 retired lawyer, in 1892 he began to 

 keep bees and has since been ex- 

 ceedingly interested in them. 



