18GG.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
15 
this biu there ever lies a most vigilaut dipper, 
always read)' to smother any vagrant gases with 
the fine peat. No extraordinary quantity of 
fluid is carried thither; the tide of broken glass 
and crockery is turned in another direction also 
— in spite of Biddy's ejaculations that she had 
alwaj's thrown it there 'in the best of fomilies.' 
The wood and sifted coal-ashes, are deposited 
in the vault as fast as made, taking care 
that they have ample time to cool. ' That's all 
wrong, say you — ashes and manure ? Chemical 
heresy, so far as agricultural economy- is con- 
cerned!' Wait a bit — you forgot the peat. Make 
a bed of peat, for the ashes and manure, cover- 
ing with the same, and their disposition to 
quarrel will only redound to j-our benefit, as it 
but wears upon the bed-clothes. I felt sensitive 
on the same point once, but have grown cal- 
lous. I olTset defective science with the green 
peas I get in May from the use of the mixture. 
And the cleaning of the building every spring 
or fall, is a tidy job— a $55 job— (11 barrels 
worth $5 each, as I reckon it, makes $55). In 
place of the annual ton of guano, I have a mass 
of manure with an earthy and ashy odor — 
' nothing to offend the most refined tastes ' — as 
the small bills say; I usually do this work myself" 
Our correspondent entertains too strict notions 
of - chemical orthodoxy, and is too much in- 
clined to make himself out a heretic. Chemical 
teachings are against mingling alkaline sub- 
stances, like ashes or lime with manures contain- 
ing ammonia. Fresh manure does not contain 
much, if any, and the ashes produce a most excel- 
lent decomposing cfirect,especially as modified and 
regulated by the peat. Were it not for abundant 
peat and moisture, however, ammonia would be 
constantly, thoiin^h gradually, escaping. The 
subject of "Earth Closets" is being mooted in 
England with good effect, and it ought to be 
known that the use of dry loamy or clayey soil, 
instead of peat, will answer an excellent pur- 
pose, perhaps as good as peat or swamp muck. 
Look ahead— What will the New Year 
Bring? 
As farmers, throughout the country, wc arc 
very prosperous. All products of the farm 
bring high prices and meet with very read}' 
sale. Will this state of things continue ? No- 
body can tell ; a few financial blunders on the 
part of the Government, perhaps a single one 
might change the whole aspect of the nation 
from one of business prosperity to one of panic 
and distress. As tillers of the soil we should 
be ready for any emergency, providing in ad- 
vance for what we are most to need in the sow- 
ing and growing season, whether it be labor, or 
manure, or both. Over a large section, the 
productiveness of the land, and hence the pros- 
perity of the farmers for the season, depends- al- 
most wholly on labor. The farmers arc pros- 
perous in proportion to the amount of laud 
they can plow, and plant, and cultivate, if they 
only have favorable seasons and herds, to har- 
vest and consume their crops. With them, look- 
ing aJicad is securing labor and implements be- 
forehand, taking good care of their stock of all 
kinds, or looking out for more, and too often it 
is only this. There are other years after 18G6 
to be looked out for, and every means which 
intelligent culture, of both mind and soil, can 
bring to bear, to increase the crops upon the 
cultivated surface should be emploj'ed — for 
thus the cost of their production is greatly 
cheapened, and corresponding profits realized. 
It is to make one acre equal to two or three 
that we husband manure, saving all the leach- 
iugs, and all liquids; that we plow deep, and 
subsoil, and drain, and get out the stones. And 
to make tlio corn, the hay, and roots, and stalks 
go farther, we house our cattle, and other stock, 
and keep them warm with clap-boards or shin- 
gles instead of extra fodder. Thus many a ten 
acres, with good buildings and good planning, 
and management, is equal to forty, or even 
a liundred acres in actual profit. - 
Look ahead, then. Let us jilan for what is 
as certain as the world, namely Seed-time and 
Harvest, for securing good labor of all kinds, 
the best implements, that the labor maj'be most 
advantageously expended, plenty of manure, as 
" muck is money, " and for a full stock of cattle, 
great and small. Let us get ahead with all 
work that can be done in winter, before spring 
comes with its multifarious toils, looking out for 
seeds, for all kinds of repairing, and putting tools 
ia order for work, for whatever will expedite 
work, or make it tell better, or result in more 
of good. Thus shall we prepare for the un- 
known future, and be ready to profit by the 
favors, or meet the reverses of fortune, which 
we can not control, but may provide against. 
Bidwell Brothers' Experience in Bee- 
keeping the Past Season. 
■ 
Our aim in the past season was to get our bees 
into frame liives, and Italianized, and to secure 
the largest possible amount of surplus honey. 
Admntages of Frame Bices. — In frame hives 
with straight combs the bees are completely 
under our control. If one stock is in need of a 
cpieen, bees, bee-bread, or honey, it can be sup- 
plied from one having an excess, and the condi- 
tion of both be improved; a large gain can be 
made in this way. In swarming, a comb from 
the old hive containing honey and brood can be 
given to the new swarn, keeping them from 
flying away and giving them a good start. We 
are confident that at least one-fourth of all nat- 
ural swarms in this State, usually the largest 
and best, fly off and are lost. Drone combs 
ma)' be removed and worker comb given in- 
stead, thereby increasing the yield one-fourth. 
To avoid the raising of black drones, early 
last spring, we removed the frames, containing 
drone comb from 35 stocks, and 20 which were 
not used in raising Italian queens, yielded near- 
ly one-third more than an equal number with 
drones. Indeed, all stocks that contain a large 
proportion of drones, yield comparatively very 
little, or often nothing. At the commencement 
of the season we had S04 stocks — 97 of which 
were in the Langstroth frame hive ; 66 were in 
square " Quinby" hives. Early in the season 
we made one new swarm out of two old ones, 
as follows ; After driving out the queen with a 
majority of the bees, we placed them in a frame 
hive on the stand of the old one, and removed 
the parent stock to the stand of another stock 
which was removed to a new place. After 20 
days, if the stock last removed had become pop- 
ulous and the season was fair, if it was in- a 
frame hive, we swarmed it, leaving the new one 
on the stand, placing the old one in place of the 
one previously swarmed, removing that away. 
If in a board or straw hive we drove out all the 
bees for a new stock, and where the combs in 
the old board or straw hives were straight work- 
er combs, we cut them a trifle larger than the 
frames and crowded them in and gave them to 
the new swarm. The balance of the old combs 
containing honey, we strained by breaking them 
up and placing them in a willow basket which 
wo set over a barrel and left until all the honey 
ran out. The usual method of rendering honey 
by heat ought to be discarded. The scraps of 
wax wo placed in a gunny sack and immersed 
them in a kettle of water under which we kept 
a fire until we thought the wax was all out, 
when we let tlie fire go down ; and when the 
wax upon top had cooled, we removed it in a 
solid cake. As soon as tlie new swarms were 
full and populous, we placed on our honey box- 
es, which are tight open bottom boxes, six inclx- 
cs high and wide, and eight inches long, hold- 
ing when full about 10 lbs. Four of these just 
cover our hives, each of which we place over 
four one-inch holes two inches apart, on thohon- 
ey boai'd. If the queen has plenty of room for 
laying, wc remove the honey board and place 
the boxes on the frames. To enable us to ascer- 
tain when the boxes are full, we bore an inch 
hole in one side of each, over which, inside the 
box, we place a small bit of glass, secured with 
tacks. When a box is filled with hone}', we in- 
vert it and place over it a pane of glass cut to 
fit, and have a box that will ship to any part 
of the country, and thus secure the largest 
price in places where honey is scarcest. When 
the box is emptied, the purchaser has a box of 
some practical value for other purposes. 
The advantages to the bees are: they can bet- 
ter secure their combs, are not disturbed as in 
glass boxes by the heat of the day or coolness 
of the night, will go up into them earlier in the 
season and remain later. We are satisfied our 
bees will make much more honey in them than 
in boxes the sides of which are glass. After 
our boxes were nearly filled, in the case of pop- 
ulous stocks, we raised up the honey boards 
with the boxes, under which and over the hive 
we placed large boxes without top or bottom 
containing empty frames. In these the largest 
possible amoimt of honey can be stored, which 
will be of the best quality and may be sold in 
bulk or by the single frame. Having become 
confident that drones were the great cause of a 
portion of our stocks refusing to work in boxes, 
wc resolved to remove all the drone combs 
from our hives and wishing to remove all our 
black queens, being satisfied one Italian stock 
was worth two black ones, we removed all 
the combs out of every hive, transferring them 
into clean hives, and also taking away all 
crooked combs. We thus reduced the number 
of our stocks from 401 to 256, giving each an 
Italian queen and killing all black queens. 
Bees have generally done poorly in our State 
this season on account of wet weather. Our 
statement for this year is as follows: At the 
beginning of the season we bad 
97 swarms black bees in frame Iiives IS $12 $1,164 
66 " ■' " "board " IS) $8 628 
41 " " '• "straw " (a) $8 _328 
204 $2,020 
One 5-ear's intei-est at 10 per cent on value bees 202 
•' " " *' " *' " "hives and apparatus 120 
$2,342 
At the close of the season the account stands : 
7,021 lbs. honey sold in frames ® 2.5c $1,755 25 
3,117 " " " " boxes, composed of dark 
and unsealed honey ® 23c 761 91 
2,9S01bs. on hand in boxes (S 30c 894 00 
810 " strained honey, 2d quality ffi22c 178 00 
1,419 " " " 1st " 26c 3 54 75 
15^47 lbs. $3,899 II 
252 lbs. wax fS 35c 88 20 
256 swarms Italian bees worth 5,1 20 00 
$9,107 31 
Deducting above amount 2,342 00 
Leaves proht StJ,865 31 
[The above article by our very practical cor- 
respondents, Bidwell Brothers, of Minnesota, 
answers many questions which have been re- 
cently propounded to us, in regard to the value 
of the Italians, of frame hives, etc.— Eds.] 
