Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1859 — Farmer's Department. [ARTICLE]

Farmer's Department.

CONDUCTED BY AN AGRICULTURIST.

HIVING BEES. Have the hives ready before they swarm. If the hives are old, take them apart and replane them, not for the sake of smoothing, but for cleaning, for rough hives are better than smooth ones, or wash them out well with clean warm water. When the beea swarm, it is well to rub the inside of the hive, with the fresh leaves of the apple tree or hickory. This gives the hive a pleasant odor. Make the hives with a partition near the top so as to set in a couple of small boxes, that will hold eight or ten poundsof honey each, with a glass at the end of the box to see when it is filled. When they swarm out, do not meddle with them until they alight. If a board is set up, or a bunch of leaves is tied upon a leaning stake, or if an apple tree or other green tree is near, they will settle on some of them near by the old’ swarrn. Sometimes a little tinkling noise with a light tea-bell will attract them to a particular spot. But on the whole, they do better to let them alone, and await patient :y for them to choose their own place for rendezvous. When they have collected in one cluster, wind a sheet abound the rim of a wire seive and put it over your face, if you have no screen made on purpose. Draw a pair of thick buckskin gloves on the hands, and button up your coat, and you are prepared for any emergency in hiving them. They cannot sting, then, if they wish to, and it docs not irritate them if they appear mild and show no disposition to sting. In either case you vre safe. Spread a sheet on the ground or on a table, in the shade, observe, in the shade, ~ t the hive on it, a little raised'at one s’de; if the bees ::re on a limb or twig, gently ct t or saw it off’, and, with a sudden >< ik, shake them down by the side of the hive that is raised up. Tap lightly, wi h your linger <r a small stick on the top of the hive an 1 they will generally "o in to the h ve with-n ten mini tes,an Ico umence wo kin A’nijh , or early next morning,’ place them on th--bench vli-'r? y< u desire th -in. B-> careail and ascertain whether they are in th-- hive closely so ns not to i.ill out in removing them, in warm weather they h ing loosely, tnd m y fall out bf :i s:i !-i«-n jar. Ii so, down tiie hive and let them g > in. See t ,- al they have shade, in warm weather or the direct rays of th? hot summer's sun will injure them. Ii tiie bee 1 : alight on the l.ody of a tree, they must g>-tii!y bru.-hed off with a ■good clean wing,;..>r a ilii a broom inwd carefully, so as not to crush them. 1 have attended lioney b-’e- more than twenty veais .•’.mi never had u swarm go off, or lost one at hiving. I dare say, n>t on- swarm in five hundred willgooff’ if they are managed gently and discreet'y, and no sin ill business will yield a b tter profit to any farmer in Jasper county, during the summer months, than n ie-v swarms of bees. There can be n >d- übt that there is honey enough produced bv tieb ossoins of our prairies and t imber lu-nds, to keep in active employment, many ore bees than eyn ever be rai.-ed here. In s< im- pat b of thefcountry every family keeps a large stand of bees—from five to fifty swarms and it makes n-> difference in the amount of honey collected by eavh, on account of the increase in the number of swarm-’, oruvine that but a very small pr >p rti >n of rhe honey that is mule in the bloss >ms. is ever collected. So that there is no danger that any neighborhood will ever be overstocked with bees here, on our prairies-. A Free Father Convicted or Harboring ids Slave Son.—A AX ashington correspondent <f the New York Evening Post thus gives the conclusion of a case, the commencement of which was described in the N. Y- Tribune some weeks ago: “In the Criminal Court, yesterday, a free colored man-was tried before a Jury for harboring his own son! A couple of months since the offender was brought before a common Justice on the above charge, and a bail of 4:2,000 was required, and it was given. The colored in an h; 8 a wile, who is aslave, and one by one his childn n have been snatched from him, at the age of t< n years, and sold off’. Tiie father keeps a house, to which his wife comes on Saturday nights, spend • ing her Sundays at home. Her muster lias been very glad to make use of the father’s affection fur his children to gat them fed and housed till they were of a suitable age for selling, but he has always pounced upon each at a certain age, and sold them off. without allowing the parent a dollar for his trouble. In tin present case the boy run back home, and the father did not turn him out of doors! For that offense a Washington Jury has brought him in guilty of harboring a Slavs, and his punishment will lie severe.” learn that a doggery was blown up in Bridgeport,on the western edge of this county, last Tuesday morning abont 2 o’clock, by whom is unknown. A keg of powder was placed under it and the discharge blew the house ami contents into “doll rags.” Another establishment of the same kind wns threatened with a similar fate if it did not “dry up.”— Journal. oO"The cent pieces recently issued from the Britisli Mint, for Canadian circulation, possess a-remarkable peculiarity; being not only tokens of value, but also standards of weight and measure; 100 cents weigh ex« actly 1 H>. and 1 cent measures one inch. Thus in the common transactions of life, the buyer will have a ready check upon the dishonest dealer. Memphis Enquirer expresses the common belief that the Opposition will gain two members of Congress from the Western division of T-nness '< .

, .. ~, (£s"The Jackson (M iss.) Engle says,“Mr. Benson, of Kemper county, arrived in that city the other day. He will be the State’s g udst for the next seven years, in consideration for his services in endeavoring to establish the institution of slavery on free territory (Kansas) with another man’s niggers. O0”Dr. Wilson, dentist, who for the past yeair has occupied the memorable house where the Burdell tragedy was enacted, 31 Bo®d street, New York, lias been arrested for rape on a widow, Mrs. Lyons. (b“The entire police force of Keokuk, Tovfa, has been disbanded—reason assigned is ejconorny. On the subsequent nigh serial ro beries and burglaries were committed. True. —Give-a -man brains and riches, and he is a king; give him brains without riches, anc| he is a slave; give him riches without brains and he is a fool. r jp~ Horse thefts seem to be rather epi! demic in Indiana just now. We notice re-1 wards and items in papers of quite a number in various places. T little daughter of Mr. McTaggart ■f_Logansport, Ind., was burned to death a feti'days ago by her clothes taking fire.