6 
DR. MILLER'S 
biting. Yet it may be well to add that there are ants and ants. 
Go far enough South and you may find ants that will destroy a 
colony sometimes in short order. Even in the North there’ is a 
kind to be dreaded. You say yours are “large black ants.” Most 
likely that means ants that are a quarter of an inch or so in 
length, which are large in comparison with little red ants. But 
if you have the big wood ants that are three-quarters of an inch 
long, then that s another story. I've had no little trouble with 
them and they are hard to combat. They get between the bottom- 
board and board on which it rests, and honey-comb the bottom- 
board. Sometimes there will be merely a shell left, so that you will 
hardly notice anything wrong, yet a little touch when- hauling 
bees might break through a hole to let the bees out. Carbolic 
acid may do something toward driving them away. You may also 
poison them. Take two pieces of section, or, perhaps, better 
still, two thin boards 4 inches square, or larger, fasten upon each 
end of one of them a cleat one-eighth inch thick, and lay or fasten 
the other on it, thus leaving a space of one-eighth inch between 
the two boards. Mix arsenic in honey and put between the 
boards. The bees cannot get into so small a space, but the ants 
can. Or, put poison in a box covered with wire-cloth that will 
let the ants in but keep the bees out. 
Q How can I rid my apiary of red ants? They build their 
hills near and sometimes directly under the hives and crawl into 
the hives and kill the bees. 
A. Have four feet to the hive, each foot standing in a vessel 
of oil or water. Find the nest of the ants, with crowbar make a 
hole in the nest and pour in carbon disulfide. Have no fire near, 
as the disulfide is explosive. Gasoline will also answer pretty 
well. 
Apiary.— Q. How many colonies of bees can be kept in one 
apiary ? 
A. That depends upon the pasturage within a mile or two. In 
most places not more than 75 or 100. 
Q. My bees have at -least 300 acres of clover and alfalfa 
within two miles. How many colonies can I pasture to be safe? 
A. That’s one of the very hard things to say. You don’t say 
whether red or white clover. If you mean red, it probably 
doesn’t count for much, while white clover counts heavily in 
good years, although some years it blooms a plenty and yet yields 
