Part 11
A small hand-mirror held at the opening of the hive, and a light held in the other hand so that it will shine into the hive, will enable you to see what is going on inside. If the bees appear restless, it is a sure sign that they need more air. Opening the cellar windows after dark on a moderate night will usually supply all the ventilation that is necessary, until the middle or end of March, when it is best to let the bees have a cleansing flight if they still appear restless. It is not very much trouble, when only a few hives are kept, to carry them out on a warm day and place them where they stood last fall. It should be done early in the morning and as carefully as possible, so as not to disturb the inmates, who will gradually arouse as the sun gains strength, and take flight. This will relieve the intestines of the waste matter which has caused their restlessness. After the sun has gone down in the evening, carry the hives back into the cellar, and the bees will be quiet until spring is sufficiently advanced to warrant putting them out for the season, which is usually when soft maples and willows commence to furnish pollen.
As soon as the days are warm in spring we go through the hives and give them a general clean-up. If a hive appears to be short of honey, a comb from a hive that is well supplied is removed and given to it, and as some bees are sure to have died during the winter, some colonies will be stronger than others, so things must be evened up. When a hive has more than five frames filled with brood, one or two are taken out and placed in hives having less than five frames filled with brood. A great advantage of the modern frame-hive is this being able to take out and put in brood, and later add supers and empty sections as the original ones are filled with honey.
A bee’s life is apparently a most accurately prearranged existence, filled with allotted duties, which are intuitively understood and unerringly performed. There is only one queen allowed in each colony, and she lays all the eggs, the workers being imperfectly-developed females. Drones are the masculine members of the population, lazy fellows, whom the workers have to feed, hence the reason for their being expelled from the hive whenever food is scarce.
The queen is truly a royal personage, who only leaves the hive to take what is called the nuptial flight, when she meets some drone in midair, and returns to become the sole mother of the hive. She is always guarded by a small retinue of attendants, who feed and care for her as she wanders from cell to cell, depositing an egg in each with untiring zeal. The egg develops into a tiny grub-like worm, which is fed for seven days by young workers; then the cell is capped over by another set of workers, the grub being left undisturbed for eleven or twelve days, by which time it has developed into a full-fledged bee, which gnaws its way out of the cell, and at once takes up the duties of life. For six or seven days its time is devoted to feeding the newly-hatched eggs, then, for about the same length of time, building combs and cleaning the hives, after which it is evidently considered strong enough to leave the hive and commence the arduous task of gathering honey. The queen is exempt from all work.
Within a week or two after a virgin queen has taken her nuptial flight, the hive should be opened and the frames removed, one by one, and examined until the queen is found. She can be distinguished from the others by the length of her body and the way the other bees cluster around her. Pick her up very gently by the back, being careful not to squeeze her abdomen, and with a pair of sharp scissors clip both wings on one side of her body. This insures a short flight at swarming-time. When she again issues from the hive, usually the excited condition of the bees will indicate when this is going to take place, and as the queen cannot fly with her cut wings, you will have little trouble, for she will be found on the ground near the hive, with a group of bees around her, and the full swarm not far away. Approach very quietly, and place a small wire trap over the queen. The traps are sold by all the bee-supply firms, and cost twenty-five cents. Place the trap in the opening of the hive you desire the swarm to occupy, cautiously approach the full swarm, and with a soft broom sweep the bees into the hive if the position they occupy makes it possible; if not, use a box or pan, and carry them to the hive and empty them in front. They will soon commence to occupy the new home. The slide of the queen trap can be opened, and the bees inside will settle down to business.
After the first swarm, early in the season, it is advisable to take every possible means to prevent after-swarms. Want of room is the main cause for old bees leaving a hive, so a great deal may be accomplished by careful manipulation of the frames. The lower part of the hive is devoted to brood-rearing; the other part is composed of the frames which hold the section-boxes. Section-boxes are the small square cases in which comb-honey is marketed.
Among the modern inventions in apiculture is the comb foundation, or starter, as it is sometimes called. In the old days bees had to supply all the wax to build the combs. Now it is bought with the cells ready started, and the bees have only to draw them out and finish off the work, which of course saves the little workers much time, and enables them to store more honey. What is termed medium foundation is used in the brood-frames, and thin or extra thin in the section-boxes. Bees will sometimes ignore extra space when added above the frames where they have been working, so it is advisable to raise the top super, and insert another one below it. This supplying empty sections materially mitigates swarming, but does not always prevent it. It is the after-swarms that it is so important to check, as they are of little use, seldom being able to gather sufficient stores to keep them through the winter. In September all hives should be examined, and if any have less than twenty-five pounds of honey, artificial feeding must be resorted to. Make a syrup of equal quantities of sugar and water; heat slowly, stirring all the time, being very careful not to let it scorch, for burnt syrup means destruction to the bees. Allow it to cool, and then fill what is known as a Miller feeder, which costs thirty-five cents, and fits into any of the movable-frame hives.
STORING FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
At least one-half of the profit to be derived from living in the country materialises in winter when fruit and vegetables can be struck from the family living expenses, so the keeping and storing of the garden and orchard products are of great importance to the housewife who wants to make the home furnish current expenses. To keep well, things must be gathered at the moment between full development and complete ripeness, for, if development is not complete, fruit and vegetables shrink and wither; if completely ripe, they decay rapidly.
The house cellar, attic, or a root-cellar or pit in the garden are all available on a country place, and all suitable for different things. The cellar is best for storing fruits and vegetables. Long ago we had racks made of two-by-two scantling--some six feet long, others three feet, and both two feet wide--to put under barrels and boxes to lift them from the ground and allow a free current of air to circulate underneath them as a protection against damp and mildew. To economise space, we had boxes, ten feet long and ten inches deep, fixed in tiers of three, with one foot of space between. The frames which supported them were also made of two-by-two scantling, and reached from the rafters of the ceiling to the ground.
The keeping of early fruits, like currants, strawberries, and raspberries, depends principally upon the cook’s skill, for they have to be canned and made into preserves and jellies. Get into the habit of doing such work in small quantities--from a quart to six quarts, or even a pint, as the day’s gathering may provide. The habit of waiting for the height of the season, when a big gathering is possible, is frequently the cause of home-canned goods spoiling, because some of the fruit is almost sure to be overripe, and that means that fermentation or mould will set in, in a short time, and ruin the entire boiling.
After wiping and labelling the jars, they must be kept in a cool, dark place. We have a big cupboard at the back of the outside section of the cellar, where all such goods are kept. Begin with asparagus, which is best packed into jars filled with salt and water, and cooked in a steam boiler for an hour and a half. Peas are shelled, and about two quarts of the hulls and a sprig of mint are boiled in four quarts of water for thirty minutes, then strained, the water brought to the boiling-point, salted to taste, and the peas boiled slowly in it for thirty minutes. Fill the jars to overflowing, and screw down the tops at once. Beans must be strung and sliced and boiled in salted water, as for table, or packed in two-inch layers, with a sprinkling of salt between, in a stone crock. Put a plate or a stone on top of the beans to keep them under the brine, and cover closely. When wanted for use, soak in fresh cold water overnight and cook in the usual way.
Gathering and packing is of the greatest importance in keeping fruit. The most favourable time is when the fruit has attained its full growth and colour, which is several days before it is quite ripe. All fruit should be handled with the greatest care; the slightest bruise or scratch starts a condition which will develop rot. A high extension ladder, a high step-ladder, and an agile boy are the requisites for picking. When possible, choose a bright, cool day, have the boxes and barrels ready, and press all help into service. Before allowing anyone to pick apples, teach him how. Take the apple lightly, turn it slowly, and press upward, so that the stem is severed from the branch, not from fruit.
Whoever does the climbing should discard shoes, for they are apt to injure the bark of the tree, which always causes later troubles. A shallow bag, slung across the body sling-fashion, is the best receptacle for the picker to use, because it leaves both hands free. The work is greatly facilitated if two people can pick, two pack, and a fifth take the fruit from the pickers to the packers. Have two bag-slings for each person picking, so that the collector can take the full one and hand up an empty one, which saves emptying the fruit into a basket.
The packers and the barrels, or boxes, should stand side by side, with a box of convenient height and size turned upside down to act as a table on which to place the sling-bags when full. The best apples are packed in small boxes, with paper between the layers. The second quality are put into barrels. Put a layer of hay in the bottom of the barrel, fill it with the fruit, and end with a layer of hay. The small ones may be used for cider and for feeding stock.
Onions are ready to harvest when the tops fall down and dry. Choose a dry day to dig them up. Leave the bulbs lying on the ground for several days, then carry into a shed, where they can be spread out for two or three days more, while the work of cutting off the roots and tops is being completed. We have a room over the woodshed which we use for onions, as they are apt to sprout in a cellar that is moist enough to keep other root-crops in good condition. We had tiers of shelves, made of slats, put up all round the walls, on which the onions are spread out, and, as a precaution against frost, they are covered with bags or dry autumn leaves as severe weather approaches. Bore holes about nine inches apart in the sides of the barrels; fill with the onions, leaving the head of the barrel off, and stand in any unused room.
Potatoes should be dug as soon as the tops die down. Choose a dry, bright day and cart at once into a dark place to dry. Don’t leave them in the light on the field, but spread out for a few days, then pack them in the cellar in barrels which have a few holes bored in them, or in bins which have a bottom made of slats.
Carrots, turnips and beets should be packed in boxes or on tiers of box shelves. In either case, they should be well covered with sand or soil to prevent the roots shrivelling. Put a few boards in a sunny place, and stand the squash and pumpkins on them. They should stay there about a week or ten days, and be covered at night with bags or an old blanket, after which put them in some dry, cool place.
Cauliflowers are pulled up with as much soil as may be attached to the roots, and hung head down from ceiling of the cellar; Brussels sprouts, the same. Cabbage is pulled up in the same way and packed in rows of two or three abreast on the cellar floor. These are for use in very bad weather. The main quantity is stacked in a pit in the garden and covered with earth, straw and brush.
Celery is partly protected by being earthed up for bleaching, so it can be left in the garden until the first of October, or even the fifteenth if mild, but it must be brought in before heavy frost. About nine inches of soil is spread on the floor all along one side of the cellar. The celery is dug and brought in with what earth adheres to the roots, and then set in the soil just as if the plants were expected to grow, only they are put very close together and about three abreast. When the row is completed, boards are set upon end, the full length of the row, and another set of heads is packed in the same way, each additional row being divided by boards. This is done to prevent the celery heating, and rot setting in, as would be the case if the entire mass was allowed to touch. After the setting-up is all done, earth is scattered heavily between the heads.
There is usually a large quantity of green tomatoes still on the vines in the fall, and the full-sized ones can be packed in shallow boxes, with paper between the layers, and kept in a cool, dark place. Later in the season bring out a few at a time to ripen in the window of a warm room.
Grapes must be carefully cut, the bunches examined and any faulty grapes removed with a pair of scissors. Put slats across a box about two inches from the top, tying the bunches of grapes to the slats and letting them hang down into the box, leaving a space between the bunches. Fill the box up with finely-cut tissue-paper and keep on the shelf in the cellar.
The cellar for storing fruit must be well ventilated and free from damp, though a cement cellar is apt to be too dry, which causes the fruit to shrivel. In such a case, stand a tub or a couple of pails of water in the cellar, and do not fail to change it once or twice a month. A dry cellar with an earthen floor is usually about right, though, if rapid thaws occur during the early spring, such a floor is likely to become very damp; as a remedy, put one or two wide, shallow boxes, filled with unslaked lime, into the cellar, which will absorb the moisture.
FORCING RHUBARB AND ASPARAGUS
We had little more than settled on the farm when I read an article in some farm paper about forcing rhubarb in a dark cellar. There was a lot of rhubarb in the garden, and a lot of room in the cellar. Several roots were dug up and packed in one corner of the section we kept for vegetables, but as the article had not mentioned that any heat was necessary, and that it was necessary to expel all light, the venture was not a success, for there was a window in the wall near the chosen corner, which allowed the light to shine right on the roots, and the temperature was much too cold. There were dozens of spindly little stalks, with large green leaves at their ends, but nothing worthy the name of pie-plant.
However, before the following winter I had secured technical knowledge and vicarious experience, to start on. The window was boarded up, and two lanterns were kept burning near the roots. We had rhubarb charlotte and rhubarb pies, and stewed rhubarb for breakfast, just as often as we liked, from December until March, and what is more to the purpose, we sold eighty-two dollars’ worth.
After we built the mushroom-cellar, a section was partitioned off for rhubarb and asparagus, and both became profitable adjuncts to our winter income. One great advantage about both of these crops for home use is that there is no necessity to use manure or any great amount of moisture, and for that reason there is no objectionable odour to sift through into the living-rooms.
Naturally, when large quantities are to be raised for market, it is better to have a special room for work, but even that does not necessitate any serious outlay. A neighbour built a house twenty-eight feet long on the dugout plan, on a side-hill at the back of his house; just boarded up the front and ends with rough slabs, which cost him two dollars and fifty cents. Three rolls of tar-paper, at one dollar and ten cents each, were used to exclude light and draft. Stove-pipe cost another two dollars. He had an old stove, but even if he had had to buy one, it would only have meant another eight or ten dollars, and the first crop brought him in one hundred and thirty dollars.
There is often some old building around a farm which can be utilised for this work, but if there is no hillside or building available, it is better to excavate to a depth of three feet, making the house about nine feet wide and as long as you like. This will allow a two-foot path through the middle, and a little more than three feet on each side, in which to store the roots. Side-walls need be only a foot above the ground, but it is best to have a peaked roof, the centre of which is three and a half feet above ground, so that there will be plenty of headroom in the centre of the house.
Place a door at one end, with an extension shed and storm door beyond it, unless the house can be built adjoining some shed or outbuilding into which the door may open. Cover the ends and roof with tar-paper, and bank the sides up with earth. Then in the centre of the house make a pit, about two feet below the floor and large enough for a stove to stand in, and run the pipe from a double elbow to each end of the house.
The reason for making the pit for the stove to stand in is to get the pipe as near the ground as possible. It is possible to do without the stove if the floor of the house is covered with manure and a goodly supply is packed around the sides of the house, but as that would be more expensive and much more laborious, I advise you to adopt the stove plan, especially as it involves none of the harrowing niceties usually attached to running hothouse heating apparatus, there being no water-pipes to freeze or injury to crops if the fire happens to run down or even go out altogether. My neighbour, who built the house on the side hill, tells me that he had no coal-stove at first, and used the kerosene cooking-stove from his summer kitchen.
Having decided where and what quantity is to be raised next winter, the preliminary work must be begun at once. If you have a lot of old roots in the garden, dig up the greater number just as soon as it is possible to put a spade in the ground, and cut the roots into good-sized chunks, being careful to leave from two to four eyes (embryo buds, which are unmistakable) in each clump.
If you have a strip of ground on which corn or potatoes were grown last year, scatter barn-yard manure over it. If it is heavy loam, plough deeply, but if light sandy soil, the furrows need not be more than six inches deep, and in addition to the barn-yard fertiliser it will be well to use a heavy dressing of wood ashes. We spread the barn-yard manure about three inches deep all over the surface of the ground before ploughing, then broadcast ashes, harrowing up and down, leave for about two weeks, and then harrow from side to side.
When in good condition, the ground must be marked off into rows about four feet apart. Run the plough twice in the same furrow, and the trench will be deep enough to admit of a little more manure being scattered, then covered lightly with soil before the plants are put in. Set them three feet apart. Cultivate well through the summer to keep clean and promote growth.
Cut out any flower-stalks which may appear, for one flower-stalk takes more strength from the root than twenty fruit-stalks, so they should never be allowed to mature, even in the ordinary garden-beds.
The clumps left undisturbed for the summer supply should have a good dressing of manure worked into the ground around them now and again after the gathering season is over, so that they will be in good condition to go into the cellar in December.
When old clumps have been divided and set out in April, they will be large and strong enough to use for forcing the following December, but if young nursery plants have to be bought, it is better to defer forcing until the second winter.
About November 15th we dig up the roots and leave them to be frozen; then about December 1st, or even a little earlier if the nights have been frosty, one-half the roots are piled up in a shed, and the other half packed on the earth floor of the forcing-house. A little earth is scattered between them, and then they are sprinkled with water in which nitrate of soda has been dissolved, one ounce of the latter to one gallon of water.
The stove is started, a wash-boiler of water put on, and then the work simply consists of shaking down the stove, putting on half a scuttle of coal and filling up the boiler night and morning.
In from three to four weeks the first gathering is made. Stalks should be from twelve to fourteen inches high, and four usually go to a bunch. The roots will yield good crops for from three to four weeks, but gathering should cease when the crop shows any sign of declining.
When you decide that the roots shall stop bearing, let the fire go out. Three or four days later the roots can be removed and piled in a shed, and those that have been held dormant brought in and spread on the cellar floor. Proceed as with the first lot, and at the end of the season simply let out the fire again and wait until the weather will permit outside planting. Then divide the roots into two or three pieces, according to size, and plant in rows as before. They will be ready for forcing again the second winter, so that, once started, the supply is always on the increase.
Asparagus can also be forced in the same manner as rhubarb, the only difference being that asparagus roots don’t divide well, so seed has to be sown each year to keep up a stock for forcing. Plants cannot be used until the third season, and they are not supposed to be worth replanting for forcing.
Asparagus can also be forced by placing hotbed frames and sashes over the plants, and banking up all around the frames with stable manure, to generate heat. This method only slightly hastens the crop. There is nothing quite as satisfactory or profitable as the dark house or cellar, because growing roots from seed is comparatively little trouble, and the supply once started, it is an easy matter to keep up a succession of three-year-old roots. Time can be saved the first year by buying one- or two-year-old plants from a nursery, planting them in the garden, and the following year use for forcing.
RAISING PIGS