The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1877-05-31
FARM AND FIREsIDE.

GENERAL HINTS ABOUT HIVES
"Granger Kate" write to the Southern
Farmer: No one should attempt to keep
bees in any but a movable frame hive.
The time to make bee keeping profitable
in the old log and box gums is gone.
They afford too many hiding places for the
moth and its progeny of worms, and
make it too difficult, indeed next to
an im~possibility, to extricate them. A
good, plain, movable frame hive, well
painted, will last a lifetime. A great
many different kinds of hives are in use
at the present time, and almost every n
thinks that be or she has got the best.
Idonot claim that the one l use is the best,
but 1 do think it is as good as any, and
far better than many, some of which the
agents are putting" as" moth-proof,"
when in reality there is no such a thing
as a moth-proof hive, and he who sells
one is either an ignoramus or a knowing
swindler. Common sense will teach any
one that where a bee can enter a moth
can enter. The secret of success in keep
ing out moths is to keep your colonies
full and strong, in close well made hive,
and they will attend to that part of the
business themselves. The bee keeper is
rich in proportion to the strength of his
colonies, and not the numb of his hives.
If one wishes bees to do we'll, by all
means keep the hive full and strong.
BARBERRY HEDGEs.-I wish, says a
correspondent, to call the attention of
the farmers of the Northwest to the sub
ject of trying the barberry as a fencing
material. Having experimental with it
in a smaller way for the last fifteen years,
lam satisfied It'll the very thing we need
to inclose the big prairies, it being per
fectly hardy, and being a shrub, and not
a tree, consequently does not require to
be continually cut back to keepit within
bounds, as is the case with the Usage or.
ange and the honey locust. By an an
nual pruning of the side branches tc
produce a more stocky growth, in foul
or five years from the seed if properly
cultivated, it will make a fence hat viii
stop any kind of stock that ought to bt
permitted to run at large. Its habit O
continually sending up new sproutsfrom
the collar of the plant in a few year
produces an almost impenetrable mass O
branches and foliage that would hardl,
admit of the passage of a squirrel.
"Do BEES MAKE HONEY PIT. B
Miner says in Prairie Farmer; This ques
ton comes up once in three or four year
from some " Professor" generally, VIII,
imagines that he has made a great dis
covery, not by practical %bee-cultuIe ant
experience, but out of false teaching
perhaps in some chronological history
But there is nothing like facts to upse
erroneous theories; and I challenge an
man to prove that honey bees "make
honey in any sense, manner or degre,
If we feed bees sugar strip, and the
store it in their cells, tits nothing but th
same strip that we fed to them. If the
gather honey from flowers, each kin
comes into the hives as found, and wit
no change of favor whatever. Whit
clover, bass wood, buckwheat, ETC., eac
has its own peculiar honey; and the be,
are mere gatherers of it. I have a hui
bred times examined the combs of m
bees when l fed them; and in no ca.
could 1 detect any difference in the fee
after being stored up, from what it WI
when l mixed it.
THE Observation-Disclosures SON
folks everything is luck. 1t is luck th;
binders the dough from rising, and n
the falling of the temperature below tt
%fermenting point. It is luck that max
the bread burn, and not the hot fire. r
( plenished just as the bread was well-nig
/. done. 1t is luck that makes all tt
] s%weetening Of the fruit pies run out
the oven bottom, and not the neglect
e jigger down the edge of the crust, pro
: erly wetted. 1t is luck that kills Il
e young turkeys about as fast as they a
: : Matched, and not the coarse, uncook
Indian grits fed to them, instead of 10
g pered milk, or meal mush cooked to p,
= lection. 1t is luck that coaxesthe chic
IS ems to the garden for food, instead of
the coop or barnyard luck and 1T
i cat" that breaks the dishes, spills
milk, burns the steak, "bitters" t
cream and em-bitters the life of all W
come in contact with the luckless persc
&c who lay everything to luck.