Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 181, 12 August 1909, Page 3

Farm and Garden

THE QUEEN" BEE. A perfect knowledge of vhat is going on in the interior of thv h;vc is indispensible to the bee Unrper In all kinds of hives consisting of boxes or straw skeps, although there may be windows at the sides or ends, it is impossible to see between the combs. The outside appearances have to be judged in order to ascertain what is the probable state of the inside. External signs are often deceptive With the bar-frame hive, however, the case is different. Every comb can be examined separately,and the apiarist is able to see at once what the hive requires. He can see the quality of brood existing in the hive, what stock of honey it possesses, and whether the queen is healthy and sound. If he wishes to increase the number of his colonies he can make an artificial swarm, but one plain rule should be borne in mind in performing this operation. "Nevercripple the strength of the colony when the queen is to remain." As soon as this is done her laying will diminish. If she is taken from the hive with the swarm take also the largest portion of the bees with her to the new spot. If she is left in the old hive leave plenty of stores and young bees with hatching brood, and she will be stimulated to increase her laying to replace the eggs taken away. It is wonderful how many bees, eggs, and brood can be taken away from one queen in a single season if she is always kept well provisioned in a powerful stock. Queens lay in proportion to the strength of the colony as well as to the extent of their own fertility. If they lay many eggs in weak colonies they will not be hatched for want of nurses. A queen taken from a weak colony and introduced to a strong one will at once increase her size and commence to lay freely. Examine a weak hive poor in stores in spring and you will find but little brood; while a strong one in the same circumstances in the same apiary will have sheets of brood. Exchange the two queens and one will increase and the other decrease in her laying. This fact borne in mind will enable the apiarist to understand why one strong colony will raise more brood than several weak ones, and one powerful colony is more profitable than many weak ones. There is under no circumstances either pleasure or profit in small stocks. Other things to be avoided in making artificial swarms will occur from time to time, such as the inadvisability of leaving quoenless colonics strong enough to build new combs, as al the combs built until they have a queen will invariably be drone comb.

A CABINET FRUIT EVAPORATOR. There are two distinct principles on which fruit evaporators are constructed: The direct, using hot air as the means of drying the fruit, and the indirect, producing an air current from heated steam pipes, writes Prof. L. C. Corbctt, of the United States depart mcnt of agriculture. In both instances the primary source is the same, but in one the air is heated by being passed over a radiating surface, like a hot stove; in the other the current of air is passed over heated steam pipes. There are also three important types of construction: namely, the shaft or flue, the cabinet and the hop kiln. For want of a better name I have used the term cabinet evaporator to describe a style used by many small growers. This evaporator is constructed of a series of loose drawers, the screens upon which the fruit is spread. The mechanism is very simple. consisting of a stove or hot-air furnace placed in the basement, with the top of the furnace three or more feet below the lowest screen; the pipe from the furnace is arranged in a sort of spiral, being carried around the •tpace below the drying area as many times as the distance between the lowest screen and the top will permit, so as to throw off and utilise as nearly as possible all the heat coming from the fuel used. The drying portion proper generally consists of two compartment «.

NITRO-BACTERINE. Mr W. T. Stead, editor of the Reveiw of Reviews, has been making some sensational ropy out of the alleged miraculous effects of nitro-bacterine, and is thereby directing attention to the discovery which promised so much for the agriculturist. (t is, therefore, instructive to consider the last statement on this subject by Dr VoeIcker, chemist to the Royal Agricultural Societfy of England. Dr Voetckcr states that the nitro-bacterine was thoroughly well tried at Woburn last year, both in the inoculation of lucerne seed and white clover seed, and "in no single instance was there any gain by inocculation of the seed in the case of lucerne, but that with white clover there was in each instance a small increase," Again, in the annual report of the field experiments at the Harper-Adams College, England, it is stated that the results obtained from both the open ground and box trials indicate that on a barren soil the use of cultures may be attended with some degree of but that on uordinary soils even if it i> not i n a high state of cultivatoin, there is little benefit to be derived from the use of such preparations." These conclusions will, wc are sure, be far more convincing to the farmer than the arguments of the Review of Reviews.

THE DANGER IN DRENCHING. Owing to the great danger of drenching cattle, and knowing positively of so many valuable animals being killed by being drenched, I condemn the practice of drenching cattle, says Mr Roberts, State Veterinarian of Wisconsin. An animal might be drenched without being disturbed, and the attendant might feel sure that the drench passed into the stomach of the animal without any difficulty, and at the same time the animaf may die instantly, or even months later, from the effects of the drench, if any portion of it passes down the windpipe, as it so often does. Perhaps the best way of demonstrating the danger of drenching cattle is to advise the reader to throw back

his head as far as possible and attempt to swallow. Thi she will find to be a difficult ta?k, and he will find it much more difficult and amost impossible to swallow with his mouth open, It is for this reason that drrenching cattle is a dangerous practice. If a cow's head be raised aa high as possible, and her mouth kept open by the drenching bottle or horn, a portion of the liquid is very apt to pass down the windpipe into the lungs, sometimes causing instant death by smothering, at other times causing death to follow in a few days rfom conjestoin or inaflmmatoin of the lungs. The proper method in administering medicine to cattle is in powdered form, dry on the tongue, or in the feed; or in liquid form by the use of the hypodermic syringe, injecting the prepared fluid underneath the skin. In the place of salts and oil, a laxative and tonice should be given dry on the tongue.

Gooseberries, raspberries and currants that are at ail infested with scale or red spider should be sprayed some time during August. These insects are small, but if in large numbers they injuriously affect the supply of fruits. Where the red spider is very bad one spraying is not enough; give two, one early in the month, the second about the third week. Apples may be sprayed, though it is early; quite the end of August is early enough. Where apples are infested with woolly aphis a start should be made to clean them. Cut away all the rough canker-like excrescences as they collect and burn them, and should there be quantity of loose bark on the trunk or branches take a short piece of hoop-iron and scrape each branch before spraying. Less solution will be needed when the wood has been freed of this useless, scaleinfested bark. Any trees that need manure should have it at once; if there is no decayed farmyard manure available a liberal supply of bone manure should be given, especiall to cherries anb all kinds of stone fruits. Should it be impossible to manure all the trees select those that have given the heaviest crops, because these will need it most Scions for grafting should be taken off and the cut ends be plunged in the soil iu a very cool place. This is to hold in check the action or movement of sap until the stocks are on the move, as the stocks should be rather more active than the scions when the grafting is performed. There are two kinds of cows kept in most herds, those that eat more than they make aod those that make more than they eat.

If you are dairying with poor cow-i, commence to reform that wasteful practice right away. Get a pure bred sire.

The of good dairying is the farm. Have a suitable one in every respect. The cows should be kept as quiet as possible, so that they will watch for your coming without fear.