SHEDS FOR APIARIES.

A Low Permanent Structure to Protect the Hives in Winter.

BY MILTON F. SMITH.

I have been interested in the keeping of bees for the past forty years, and have tried all manner of ways of keeping colonies over the winter in the most successful way, for our winters are sometimes very severe. At last I found a way that is quite successful. It is shown by the engraving. The shed is substantially built, and is stationary. It is long enough to pack comfortably about 25 or 30 hives. It is built high enough to hold two tiers of hives, but this has not proved successful; for during warm days of winter, when the bees are flying, they too often become confused, and do not find the proper hive, and are lost.

In packing them for the cold weather of winter I use any thing that is dry and warm, usually coarse sawdust, and planings-that is, fine shavings that I get from a cigar-box factory next door. I put this all around both sides, top and back, even packing down the front, for I have movable doors for the front of the shed. I have also arranged that on warm days (that often come in the middle of winter) I can easily remove the lower board of the front and allow the bees free

dom. In this way I have kept my bees over very severe winters without the loss of a single colony. Last fall I had a number of very weak colonies. I fed them sugar syrup early in the fall, and packed them for winter in due season This spring every one came out good and strong.

When I have more colonies than the shed will hold I put them in a movable shed that I have made for this purpose. It is so arranged that I can put it away in the summer, out of the way of other things. Each side, roof, etc., is made to pack away flat-a sort of take-down arrangement. It is put together in a moment by means of hooks. The main shed is so arranged that the back part can be taken off in the summer, and this gives the bees perfect freedom and air; but I usually move the hives out a few feet in front of the shed, as shown in the cut, to give me more freedom for handling them.

Bees may be packed for winter in different ways; but it has been my experience that it is more important to have the hives kept dry than warm. One winter I had a lot of corn fodder, and put enough around to keep out all wind and cold; but the snow and rain fell upon this pile of fodder and made it damp and wet, and the result was any thing but encouraging. This is the fault with a cellar. Most cellars are warm enough, but they are too damp. Red Lion, Pa.

For some time I have owned a couple of colonies of bees, but have done very little with them. We have no ground space for them, and, besides, we live in a double house with a neighboring house within 20 feet of us. Though such conditions are unfavorable for bee-keeping the thought of putting the bees on the roof of a woodshed occurred to me; and, though the idea was laughed at, I built some framework and placed upon it my two hives with two additional.

Though the bees were just over the door, as shown in the picture, the only time they give us any trouble was after I had robbed them. Then they would be "numerous" for a short time.

I reached the hive by way of an apple-tree close by, or through the window above, in which the screen shown was hung on a hinge.

From this roof I took about 300 pounds of honey from four hives (quite good returns from a roof 7 feet square, ordinarily considered useless for producing any thing.)

Adrian, Michigan.

[Bee-keeping, unlike poultry-keeping and a garden, is adaptable to almost any circumstances. There are many small apiaries in our larger towns and cities located on roofs of the buildings or in the small back yards. In almost all cases of this kind fair returns are secured. The experience as above given is no exception.-F.]

PAPER BOTTLES FOR EXTRACTED HONEY.

Can Paper Milk-bottles be Used for Holding and Shipping Honey?

BY J. E. CRANE.

For years I have been looking for a practical package, costing not over a cent, that would held a pound of honey. I have recently found such a package, but it holds more than a pound, and can be had for half a cent. I refer to the paper bottles used now for milk. It seems to me that these will answer as well as tin, and they can be sealed more quickly and safely than almost any glass container that I am acquainted with. Think of a box containing two dozen packages for honey in a re-shipping-case, for 25 cents! I believe that these packages would answer where tin is now used. They are used very extensive

ly in the milk business, and, of course, are given away with the milk. I believe they could be used for honey just as well.

The bottles are made of strong spruce paper, glued and paraffined. They would be especially useful in retailing honey from house to house, or for holding candied honey, as it could be run into these bottles before it is hard. The cover could be left so as to be easily removed, so that the honey might be tested if desired. The illustration shows several forms of these packages.

While these bottles might not be very valuable for shipping honey, I feel sure that they could be improved so as to be practical. Possibly they would have to be made thicker for honey than for milk. The ends should be put together with glue, and only the inside paraffined, while the outside should be covered with a nicely printed label. In the end the cost might amount to a cent each; but even this would be much cheaper than tin.

Middlebury, Vt.

[We believe this paper milk-package is a good thing. There is no reason why it should not be used very largely by those who do a retail business in extracted honey. It is by far the cheapest self-sealing package on the market; and, what is more, it can be obtained almost anywhere. Apply to your milk-dealer.-ED.]

CLOVER-HONEY PROSPECTS OF NORTHERN OHIO FOR 1909.

BY J. E. HAND.

White clover is practically a surface feeder except the original plant, which dies after it blossoms the second year. The runners do not have tap-roots, and are, therefore, unable to survive a very severe drouth. On the other hand, red clover, after it once gets firmly rooted, is seldom killed except by heaving out of the ground by

the action of frost, which is chiefly confined to low ground and heavy clay soil. However, new seedings of all the clovers are frequently killed by a severe drouth early in the season before the roots have become thoroughly established. While the drouth was very severe in this section, and continued well into November, it did not begin in earnest until August.

I have just been over our nine-acre field of new alsike and red-clover seeding for the second time since these articles began to appear. We have a fine stand of clover, with the exception of a few of the highest places. That white clover is severely injured in pastures and high places is very evident. However, in meadows, along roadsides, and in out-of-the way places, where the plants were protected by overlapping foliage, there is enough white clover in sight in my location, with the splendid outlook for alsike and red clover, to give us an average crop in 1909, especially if we get a lift from basswood, as we generally do.

The prediction that there will be no clover honey east of the Mississippi has no foundation for its support, and reminds one of some weather prophets who foretell the weather a year in advance. There were local showers here and there, all over the country, and it is quite possible that many bee-keepers may by moving their apiaries a short distance secure a good crop of honey. Birmingham, Ohio.

[Many who have written us seem to feel that white clover, even though it has no tap-root, will stand more drouth than those clovers that have a tap-root and a bunch of rootlets in one spot. The white clovers branch and rebranch, and at every intersection have a bunch of roots. The fact that one plant may have so many sets of roots in different spots is regarded as a protection that the other clovers with only one root or set of roots do not have. For instance, The A. I. Root Co.'s plant is strong because it has so many branches and rootlets. These latter, you know, feed the old plant with constant new life.-ED.]

WIRE-CLOTH SEPARATORS. Another Bee-keeper Who Believes that this Form of Separator has too Many Advantages to be Neglected.

BY H. H. ROOT.

Mr. W. C. Sorter, of Wickliffe, O., has been experimenting for several years with wire-cloth separators. He has found that they are quite expensive, but, at the same time, he believes that they have a great many advantages. Fig. 1 shows different forms of separators that Mr. Sorter has tried in the effort to produce a separator that would hold its shape and yet not cost too much. He believes that, if the manufacturers of wire cloth could be induced to incorporate a stiff wire on both sides of a strip just wide enough to make separators, the problem might be solved. He thought that possibly something in the nature of a heavy wire combined with a selvage edge might be obtained at no great expense.

The principal advantage of the wire-cloth separator, as Mr. Sorter looks at it, is that the sections may be filled more rapidly, and that each section is filled fuller than those between any other kind of separators, so that it contains an ounce or two more honey than the same size of section used with the average separator. It has been found that the bees bring the cappings of the comb closer to a wire-cloth separator than to either the solid or slatted form. To prove this Mr. Sorter showed us several sections filled between combination wooden-slat and wire-cloth separators. Fig. 2 shows two of these sections, also the particular style of separator just beneath that was used. It will be noted that these are 4X5 sections, and, of course, in the supers they stand on the ends rather than on the sides, as

shown in the engraving. The combs were bulged slightly in the middle, which part was covered only by the wire cloth. That part of the comb nearest the tops and bottoms of the sections was not built out nearly as close to the edge of the section. The same results were secured in all supers where wire-cloth separators were used; that is, the sections were filled fuller, so that they weighed an ounce or two more. The combs were not bulged enough to go beyond the edge of the section, but were built out a little fuller than those in sections divided by the regular slatted separators or fences. With separators made wholly of the wire cloth, the whole comb is uniformly thicker.

Some objection has been made heretofore because the bees attached combs to the wire cloth;

but Mr. Sorter says that, although once in a while he has noticed combs attached to the wooden slats, he has never seen them attached to the wire cloth, and he thinks that any trouble from this source would be very slight.

Of course, the wire-cloth principle as applied to separators is not new. It was made the subject of a patent by N. N. Betsinger, in the early 80's, and in later years has been used with much satisfaction by S. D. House, of Camillus, N. Y. Mr. House reports that sections are better, plumper, and more evenly filled behind wire-cloth separators than behind any others exactly corresponding with Mr. Sorter's experience.

The reason that they are not more generally used is the expense.

In this connection it may be well to call attention to an ingenious scheme which Mr. Sorter has for advertising. On the under side of the covers of his shipping-cases he pastes a large white paper on which is printed the words " New Whiteclover Honey," in large black letters. When the grocer removes the covers from the shippingcases he turns them over and has a very neat display card, so to speak, in order to attract the attention of his customers.

It is interesting to note, also, in Fig. 3, the different color of the honey shown back of the glass. The two darker sections were filled with goldenrod honey, and were left on the hives longer than necessary until the cappings became quite yellow. The photograph exaggerates this difference in color somewhat, but nevertheless the two shades are far from being alike. There is as much difference between travel-stained and white comb honey as there is between shop-worn and fresh goods of any kind. The strain of bees, the source of the honey, the type of separator used, and the length of time that the honey is on the hives, are all factors that control the color of the cappings.

CATALPAS IN OKLAHOMA.

BY N. FRED GARDINER.

The photos which accompany this article aptly illustrate some of the possibilities of our new State. There is scarcely a line of business activity to which Oklahoma has not some unusual attraction to offer. When trees like the ones in the picture can be grown in such a short time, it is evident the land-owners can do much to postpone the impending lumber famine if they can be aroused to the occasion. It also indicates that soil that will produce such growth will grow nectar-producing plants, so that bee-keeping can not be altogether a failure.

The trees shown are catalpa, and are four years old from seed. The individual tree is over 15 feet high, and more than 4 inches in diameter a foot above ground. This is about an average specimen of the 75 trees surrounding my grounds. The first season's growth was about a foot. They were then set where they now stand, and many