250 A Modern Bee-Farm 



While borage, melilot clover, and other plants may not be 

 suitable for cattle, my own experience goes far to shoW that 

 chickens can be brought up at little expense where they have 

 admission to a large area of such plants, which throw suitable 

 seed. Borage especially is very valuable, giving a constant 

 supply for several months. Old birds must not have the run 

 of the plants or they will pick off -the bloom and cause waste 

 by treading down the plants before they get a good growth. 



Sunflowers cannot be considered suitable for bees, judging 

 by half-an-acre grown as a test near one hundred colonies, 

 when with fine weather the flowers were almost entirely neg- ^ 

 lected. Nothing else of importance was in reach of the bees 

 at the time. The same area of melilot clover, in the same 

 place, the following year, simply roared with bees. 



The best show card I have been able to find for the retailer 

 is an Observatory Hive, placed in the shop window. A single 

 comb with bees and queen has proved to be a very great 

 attraction, introducing new customers in quite an unlooked-for 

 manner. 



We know how distressing it is to see the usual observatory 

 hives at bee exhibitions, with the insufficient ventilation and' 

 numbers of dead bees, resulting from overcrowding, but we 

 want our bees to remain confined quite three weeks in good 

 order, as it would be out of the question changing them eyery 

 few days. I have had them in good condition for more than 

 four weeks ; and three weeks' confinement in the window with 

 daily exposure with few stains to be seen. 



The single-comb observatory is made as illustrated at 

 Fig. 64, with a 3-inch space below the comb and three i-inch 

 holes both sides; covered on the inside with perforated zinc for 



