February, igio. 



American l^ee Journal 



the colony none too strong, they are very in- 

 clined to fill the brood-nest. 



How would it do in September, with our 

 light honey-flow, when the bees are building 

 up strong and rather inclined to swarm, to 

 put on an upper story of full frames; put 

 the queen in the story with a queen-excluder 

 below this, and above the brood-nest, and in 

 the brood-ncst put a ripe queen-cell? Would 

 the queen be accepted and in due course be- 

 gin laying? If this would work, and I could 

 have the two queens laying for a couple of 

 weeks, and then kill the old queen just before 

 the honey-flow stopped, I think I could keep 

 a large force of the old bees over for the 

 main flow, and the young queen would be 

 more likely to lay during the dearth of honey, 

 particularly if I left considerable honey in the 

 hive. Rhodesia. 



Answer. — You have just the problem I 

 have to deal with every year — getting colo- 

 nies strong enough for the first flow — only 

 you have a very different climate, Vou arc 

 about as far south of the equator as Cuba is 

 north. Thus you have a hot climate com- 

 pared with mine, and with the seasons re- 

 versed ; so I do not feel very competent to 

 advise, but I can tell what I think. 



If I begin feeding early I may do more 

 harm than good, setting the bees to flying in 

 weather too cool. I suspect you don't have 

 that trouble. If I understand the matter cor- 

 rectly, your weather is favorable enough, only 

 the lack of forage results in no breeding. 

 The thing to do then is to come as nearly as 

 you can to giving the bees an artificial pas- 

 turage by feeding. Two parts of water to 

 one of honey ought to be an ideal food, al- 

 though S parts water to 3 of sugar may 

 answer. Feeding every other day may do, 

 but feeding every day is better. Enpugh 

 should be given so it will about all be worked 

 up into brood. Try a pint or more daily, 

 and increase until you find a very little is 

 left unused in the combs. If too little is 

 given, the bees will not feel they can afford 

 to breed freely; if too much, the queen may 

 be crowded ; but better too much than too 

 little. Of course, if you find too much is 

 stored in the combs, you must decrease. 



Now as to when to begin. As the honey- 

 flow you have begins about New Year, and 

 as it is about 37 days from the time the egg 

 is laid until the worker reared from it be- 

 comes a fielder, it will be seen that if a lot 

 of eggs are laid Nov. 25 they will give field- 

 ers for New Year. But if the laying begins 

 only Nov. 25, then the field-force will only 

 begin Jan. 1, and will be a feeble affair. 

 Moreover, you say the queens do not begin 

 laying until after you have been feeding about 

 10 days. So the feeding should begin some 

 time before Nov. 25; just how long before, 

 it may not be easy to say. Taking this into 

 consideration, and remembering that it is 

 easier to keup queens iayintj than to start 

 them again after they have stopped, the wise 

 course will probably be to begin feeding very 

 shortly after the first flow ceases, and before 

 the queens stop laying. 



I'm afraid your plan of putting the queen 

 over an excluder and a queen-cell below would 

 not work to your satisfaction. It might in- 

 duce swarming upon the emergence of the 

 young queen. Moreover, you would probably 

 have no greater force from the two queens 

 than with one, for one tjueen would probably 

 lay all the eggs the force of bees could take 

 care of. The Demaree plan' — the reverse of 

 your plan — will work better, and is very sat- 

 isfactory wliere extracted honey is in view. 

 Put all but one frame of brood in the second 

 story over an excluder, leaving the queen in 

 the lower story with one frame of brood and 

 empty combs or foundation, and destroy the 

 cells in the upper story, if any, in 10 days. 



Report for Season of igog. 



I started in the spring with 25 colonies, 

 and out of the 25 only 14 produced any 

 surplus. I took from these 14, 384 pounds 

 of dark honey, an average of 20 pounds to 

 the hive, while in 1908 the average was 53 

 pounds per colony. X have now 29 colonies, 

 c!l packed in forest leaves, and in splendid 

 condition for wintering. 



About the middle of August I removed 



all the supers, and what they gathered from 

 then until frost they stored in the brood- 

 chamber for winter supplies. Wlien I weighed 

 them, just before packing for winter, nearly 

 all ranged in weight between 60 and 75 

 pounds per hive, so I estimate they have from 

 30 to 45 pounds each to winter on. 



Gosport, Ind., Jan. 14. Walter Goss. 



Bees Covered with Deep Snow. 



I have 21 colonies, all in good condition 

 for the winter. I winter them on the sum- 

 mer stands packed with straw. They are 

 now covered with deep snow. We had heavy 

 snowstorms for fully 3 weeks. 



W. A. Daiilke. 



Ebenezer, N. Y., Dec. 29. 



Bee-Industry in Mississippi. 



The bee-industry is in a very primitive 

 condition right in this locality. I have been 

 South only four years, but believe it a good 

 location, as I am only one mile from the 

 great ti-ti swamp, which never fails to bloom 

 early in spring. My bees did not store much 

 surplus, but went into winter with an abund- 

 ance of stores, and I hope for a good honey- 

 year for 1910. I bought 5 new swarms of 

 black bees and requeened with Italian stock. 

 I now have 7 strong colonies. 



Pecan, Miss., Dec. 30. J. D. Gould. 



Painted or Unpainted Hives. 



In order to set you right on the subject 

 of "Painted or Unpainted Hives," kindly per- 

 mit me to remark what every one knows, 

 that bees invariably coat the inner surface 

 of their hives with an air-and- water-excluding 

 substance. Get clearly in mind that the bees 

 render the surface of their hives on the in- 

 side tight, so as to prevent the passage of 

 air or water, either into the hive or out of it, 

 and nothing is left but to paint the hive in 

 order to lengthen its days of usefulness. 

 There may be a question as to the proper 

 color to paint the hive, but there is no ques- 

 tion that the hive should be painted. 



J. J. FOUTS. 



Gonzales, Tex., Jan. 19. 



Season of igog the Poorest. 



My experience runs back about 35 years, 

 and I owe what success I have attained, very 

 largely, to the information I have received 

 from bee-papers, and I feel even now that 

 I cannot very well get along without them. 



The year of 1903 was a splendid season 

 here, but 1909 was one of the poorest sea- 

 sons 1 have ever known; no surplus and only 

 very late in the season did the bees get 

 enough to winter on. 



My bees are housed in a closed bee-shed 

 packed in straw. I wintered them the same 

 way last winter without the loss of a single 

 colony. G. T. Willis. 



Hoopeston, 111. 



Not a Very Good Season. 



I began the season of 1909 with 4 colo- 

 nies of bees in the spring, and increased to 

 10 during the spring and summer. Some of 

 the new swarms I found, some were given to 

 me. I took about 200 pounds of comb honey 

 from 5 or 6 colonies, the others barely stor- 

 ing enough to winter on. It was not a very 

 good season. 



In September I was appointed to this place. 

 I chartered a car through, and having to 

 put the team in the car with household goods, 

 I decided to sell the bees, thus avoiding the 

 danger of their getting out and stinging 

 the horses. They brought $3.50 per colony. 

 I have no bees now but will stock up again 

 next spring with a few colonics, as I have 

 some eititpty 10-frame Langstroth hives, so I 

 can look out for stray swarms. 



(Rev.) J W. Stine. 



Sperry, Iowa, Dec. 31. 



Poor Season in igog. 



The past season was a very poor one for 

 bee-keepers in this section. No clover to 

 speak of. Wc do not have a great deal of 

 bass wood here, but what we have was full 

 of bloom. However, even the basswood bloom 

 did not seem to furnish much nectar. Never- 

 theless, I secured a few sections of very fine 

 basswood iioney. Tliu main part of our lioney 

 was from honcy-dcw, and very inferior at 

 that. My bees went into winter quarters 

 with plenty of the 'p«t-named stores, but as 



the winter is severe and continuous, I am 

 somewhat dubious as to the result. My bees 

 have not had a flight for 7 weeks now, and 

 no prospect for a flight soon. 



The colonies all seem healthy up to date, 

 and we are all hoping for the best. 



Clover went into the winter in the best 

 possible condition, and unless something un- 

 foreseen happens we will have plenty of 

 clover-bloom the coming summer. Clover 

 furnishes our main honey-flow here, although 

 there are several other sources auxiliary, such 

 as basswood, goldenrod, Spanish-net- die and a 

 few others. 



Cromwell, Ind., Jan. 13. E. H. Upson. 



Extracted Honey. 



"The Two Cans of Honey" in the Novem- 

 ber and December (1909) numbers, is a 

 "corker" and hit the nail right on the head. 

 For extracted honey I always have 2 full- 

 size supers, and 3 for the most of them, 

 although it is seldom necessary, as 100 pounds 

 is generally the limit. But some exceptions 

 happen, and I do like to see them 4 high, 

 but the exception was the other way this 

 year, although I have great hopes for 1910. 

 But let it come. I am ready for it. 



I do not see anything in the American Bee 

 Journal that could be spared. It is about as 

 good as it is possible to make it; at least, for 

 a dollar a year, and as long as I can get the 

 dollar, I intend to have the Journal. 



O. K. Rice. 



Gray's River, Wash., Dec. 27. 



Dry and Poor Season. 



The season of 1909 was very dry and poor 

 for bees. I started with 4 colonies last spring, 

 got 78 pounds of extracted honey, 43 sections, 

 and increased to 7 colonies. I have bought 

 2 colonies, making 9 to begin with next spring. 

 I hope next season will be much better, as I 

 notice the honey-bearing plants are getting in 

 a good start right now. We have had plenty 

 of rains in November and December, and now. 

 The last winter was very dry for the honey- 

 plants to get a start. 



Last spring I tried to transfer a colony from 

 a box-hive to a frame hive, and I did it all 

 right, at least I thought I did. When I got 

 through I left the entrance full width, and 

 honey smeared all about the hive, and there 

 came the robbers, and took what little there 

 was. Next day I looked in the hive and 

 found that the bees had gone for good to the 

 woods. So I see a person must be careful, 

 and clean off all the spilled honey, and spill 

 as little as possible, and not do the transfer- 

 ing too early in the spring — better to wait till 

 the bees begin to store, then there will be 

 no danger of robbing. 



I reared a few Italian queens in the spring, 

 and will try to rear more next spring, if my 

 bees get through the winter all right. There 

 are no modern bee-keepers in this settlement; 

 some farmers have a few box-hives of bees, and 

 some of them visited me. When I showed the 

 queen in my frame-hive they wondered and 

 said, "That is the first one I ever saw. Oh. 

 is that the queen?" 



I like the American Bee Journal fine. It 

 contains so much good reading for the bee- 

 keeper. I am inviting the Texas bee-keepers 

 to write more for these columns. 



Bellville, Tex., Jan. 12. Jos. Jezek. 



Keeping Bees in Washington. 



I am located on a fruit-ranch in the beauti- 

 ful Columbia Valley, near the mouth of the 

 Okanogan River. We came here a little more 

 than a year ago, from the Sunny South, and 

 just as soon as we were settled in our new 

 home, I began to look around for some bees, 

 for I felt lost without them. There were none 

 to be had in this part of the valley, but finally 

 I learned the name of a bee-keeper at W_e- 

 natchee, and in a very short time I was in 

 possession of one of his best colonies. They 

 built up very rapidly despite the cool, back- 

 ward spring, and the hive was soon boiling 

 over with bees. As they were very dark hy- 

 brids, I decided to Italianize and divide them 

 at the same time. So ordered a couple of 

 queens, hut they were probably chilled in the 

 mails, for they both died soon after introduc- 

 tion, but not before one of them had laid the 

 combs nearly full of eggs. In a few days 

 there were ^ very tine (jueen-eells sealed: in 

 fact, they looked so fine I could not bring my- 

 self to throw one of them away, so I just 

 divided the strongest colony again and saved 

 all three cells. 



Happily each one hatched, and in due course 

 of time were laying nicely. But as each colony 



