November, 1913. 



389 



American Hee Journal 



one good colony in a modern hive, had one 

 prime swarm, cut four bee trees, and made 

 one nucleus. I have now five good strong 

 colonies with plenty of stores for winter. I 

 united one swarm I captured with my uli- 

 cleus. which made it strong. I use 8-frame 

 hives with Hoffman self-spacing frames. 



L. Bernie Smith. 

 Richland Center. Wis.. Sept b. 



In Good Shape for Winter 



Bees are yet storing surplus here, but 

 soon the yield will slacken off gradually. 

 We have been much favored here in aril 

 crops; good honey and yield. Bees, of 

 course, are in fine order, and will go into 

 winter strong in young bees. We know what 

 that means with good care later. 



Milledgeville, III. F. A. Snell. 



Too Little Rain 



Our crop of honey here is very short, only 

 one gallon to the hive, spring count. No rain 

 from April 2 until Sept. 10. 



Bunceton. Mo,. Oct. 4. J. R. Marye. 



Fancy Se< tions of Buckwheat Honey— 

 THE Favorite of the Pennsylvanians. 



Good Showing in Spite of the Drouth 



I had 5 colonies this spring all in good 

 shape. They each brought me one new 

 swarm, then I did not let them swarm any 

 more, but let them make section honey. I 

 just finished taking off the last honey today, 

 15254 pounds. Nearly all is nice comb honey. 

 They have plenty left for winter. They 

 can't gather much more for it is so hot and 

 dry that everything looks like a hay field. 

 We have to depend upon white clover here. 

 and the season doesn't run over four weeks, 

 and I live in the suburbs of the city, so that 

 isn't like out in the country. 



A. A. N'UNNINK. 



Kansas City. Mo.. Aug. 13. 



Transferring — Drone Comb for Supers 



In transferring bees from a plain box-hive 

 into a movable frame hive. I take a saw and 

 cut some strips out lengthwise of the top 

 of the plain hive, and also pry the bot- 

 tom off and place the hive on top of the 

 movable-frame hivewith full sheets of foun- 

 dation wired, which I have prepared for this 

 purpose Then I smoke the bees down un- 

 til they are nearly all down in the frame 

 hive I put a bee-escape between the two 

 hives, so the bees can go down but not re- 

 turn. In one or two days I look through the 

 frame hive to find the queen. If she is down 

 below then I leave the plain hive on for 



about two weeks, when all the sealed brood 

 will be hatched and down in the lower hive. 

 Of course, the bees should be fed until they 

 have the combs at least half built. 



In the winter I leave the colonies on the 

 summer stands, where it gets about 30 de- 

 grees below zero, and by giving them all the 

 opportunity to fly. they winter all right. But 

 when there is snow I always let it get a 

 crust on top before I shovel it away, other- 

 wise the bees would fall in the snow and be 

 lost. By placing three sheets of newspaper 

 on each side, between the hive body and the 

 frame, it keeps the colonies much warmer. 

 I also keepa sac'k with chaff on top of the 

 hive in an empty super. 



Thissummer I orderedsome " dronecomb 

 foundation" for the shallow extracting 

 frames, and I have found them to be easier 

 uncapped even with a colder knife, and 

 more rapidly extracted than the worker 

 comb Fred DuETsCHE Sr. 



Charleston. Utah. Sept. 12. 



Introducing Queens 



The first good rain we had here since the 

 middle of June we had on Sept. 10. We had 

 the warmest summer this year I ever ex- 

 perienced. Every flower, the corn, the 

 grass, everything was killed, but I received 

 a fair crop of honey. Only one colony 

 swarmed out of 22 I have mostly Italian 

 bees, and as some beekeepers claim a good 

 crop. I am glad to heir it. I had some colo- 

 nies filling three 10- frame supers of sections. 

 Some made only two supers. In introduc- 

 ing queens. I make the colony queenless for 

 at least six days before introducing. On 

 the fifth day, after taking out the old queen. 

 I take out all queen cells and wait two days 

 more and hunt up the queen cells again. If 

 they start some again I take them out again, 

 and four days after hang the queen in the 

 cage between the frames, and leave her 

 tfiere for 24 hours, even a little longer. Then 

 I open the candy block and let the bees eat 

 her out, 



1 never had one killed that way; but the 

 other way. as the instruction card reads, 

 half of the queens are killed. Now. for ex- 

 ample; I had a queen ordered a tested one. 

 1 made the colony queenless the same day I 

 ordered the queen. As they didn't have a 

 tested queen on hand, it took 12 days before 

 I received her; but remember I left three 

 queen-cells in the hive, and as soon as I re 

 ceived my tested queen. I took the three 

 queen-cells out and hung the queen-cage in 

 between two frames, and two days after I 

 opened the cage she was most welcome, 



Atchison. Kan. Nick Jentgen. 



(Your method is all right. It has the ob 

 jection. however, that it leaves the colony 

 queenless for several days. At certain sea- 

 sons of the year this would not matter, while 

 in the spring, when breeding is to be rushed 

 as fast as possible, it would retard the prog- 

 ress just that much longer.— Editor.] 



Beekeeping in Pennsylvania 



Picture No. I shows an almost ideal loca- 

 tion for an apiary. Situated in a young plum 

 orchard it is sheltered on the west and 

 north, the two bad sides, by buildings and 

 natural windbreaks. This apiary was be- 

 gun with a single colonyof hybrids, and rap- 

 idly built up to a yard with 80 colonies of 

 pure Italian bees. Wintering is uniformly 

 successful here. 



Pictures No. 2 and No. 3 show how unafraid 

 the women are around an apiary when once 

 they become acquainted with the work. In 

 No. 1 the girl is possibly a little small to 

 negotiate the supers by herself, but she is 

 there to puff the smoke and help get the 

 honey from the hives. J. B. Hollopeter. 



Pentz, Pa. 



Bees in British Columbia 



Attached is a photograph of one of my 

 three rows of bee-hives under fruit trees. 

 As you can see, there are 4 colonies on each 

 stand, which is 40x48 inches, and stands 15 

 inches high. In summer I spread the 4 colo- 

 nies as far apart as stands will allow. I 

 winter in the cellar, and when the bees are 

 taken out in the spring they are set as close 

 together as possible; a case is put over the 

 4 and filled with dry sawdust, which is taken 

 off the last of May. I find this an ideal way 

 to handle them. 



I am only a beginner, butam trying to start 

 right. In two years I increased from one 



colony to ro5. However. I bought others 

 which did not do so well. I am located in 

 the far-famed Okonagan 'Valley of British 

 Columbia, close to Kelowna. " The orchard 

 city of the Okonagan." where was raised 

 and packed the car of Jonathan apples 

 which Mr. Van Deeman. the first judge of 

 apples in the United States, pronounced, at 

 Vancouver, the best car of apples ever ex- 

 hibited. The bee-industry is as vet in its 

 infancy, but like our fruit industry, it is 

 fast coming to the front. 

 Rutland. B. C. D. E. McDonald. 



45,000 Pounds for Mr. Byer 



We have had a bountiful crop in York 

 county, while up in our Levering yard. 100 

 miles north of here, the yield is light. Up 

 there, owing to late frosts and severed routh, 

 the average will be but 45 pounds or there- 

 abouts. That yard has now 385 colonies, 

 and is shown in the two pictures sent to you 

 last week. At the home apiaries, with a 

 little less than 300. counting all that had 

 queens, we will have about 45.000 pounds of 

 honey; 37.000 pounds of that being No. i 

 clover, and the balance buckwheat. If we 

 had had rain for buckwheat, it would have 

 easily been 10.000 pounds more. 



Mount Joy. Ont , Sept. 17. J. L, Byer. 



Pshaw! Who's Afraid, 



Classified Department 



[Advertisements in this department will 

 be inserted at 15 cents per line, with no dis- 

 counts of any kind . Notices here cannot be 

 less than two lines. If wanted in this de- 

 partment, you must say so when ordering. 



BEES AND QUEENS. 



Phelps' Queens are hustlers. 



Bees and Queens from my New Jersey 

 apiary. J, H. M. Cook. 



lAtf 70 Cortland St.. New York City. 



For Sale— Choice Golden Queens that 

 produce Golden bees equal to any. 



Wm. S. Barnett, Harnett's, Virginia. 



Choice Queens from June to Sept. i at 

 $1.00 each; six for Ss.oo. Place orders now. 

 and have them filled in rotation. sAtf 



D. J. Blocher, Pearl City, 111. 



