Prospects All Right for Honey 



I have about 20 colonies of bees. Tfie pros- 

 pects are all right for a good honey-flow here 

 from white clover, which is iust beginning to 



American Hee Joornal j 



new swarms, as there is but little demand 

 for bees here; people like the honey well 

 enough, but they dread bee-stings. 



I have 23 colonies of Italian and hybrid 

 bees now out of 25. fall count, in chaff and 

 dead-air space hives. I got $50 worth of 

 comb and extracted honey from colonies, 

 spring count, last season. I sold the best 

 section honey at i3/i and 14 cents per pound, 

 also had enough for family use on the table 

 2 or ) times a day all the time. I sold my 

 extracted at 75 cents per 2-quart Mason 

 fruit-jar. Wm. H. Martin. 



Highland. Mich.. April 2^. 



June, 1910. 



bloom. 

 Liberty. Mo.. May 21 



JAS. I. ESTE. 



Hard Spring On Bees 



1 have 31 colonies of bees left. But this 

 has been a hard spring on them. I have been 

 feedingthem so as to keep them strong. I 

 notice this morning that they have com- 

 menced to gather pollen again. 



Monticello. Mo.. May 6. Jas. W. Antrim. 



Bees Wintered Well 



My bees are still alive. We are having 

 some of everything but good weather. Bees 

 came out this spring very well, in view of 

 the honey-dew they had for winter stores. I 

 wintered 26 colonies out of 27. outdoors. 



.]. C. Cunningham. 



Streator. 111.. May 16. 



Bees Hustling Now 



My bees are doing nicely. We have had 

 rather peculiar weather until lately, and 

 now the bees are making up for lost time, as 

 the fruit-trees are in full bloom and seem to 

 be yielding some nectar and lots of pollen. 



Sheffield. Ont.. May 16. Pom Cooley. 



Warm and Then Cold 



We had warm weather in March, and it 

 was cold in April and May. The early fruit- 

 bloom is ruined. I divided my heaviest col- 

 ony April rst. and bought a queen for one 

 part. The result is 2 good colonies that will 

 be ready for the honey-flow. 



Waseca. Minn.. May id. Edwin Kwei.i,. 



Feeding Bees in May 



Bees are in a deplorable condition. I have 

 to feed to keep them from starving. Every- 

 thing was killed by the frost but the clover, 

 which is just beginning to open. I plucked 

 the first heads yesterday, so there is hope 

 for relief from feeding soon. I have about 

 75 colonies left from from 90 put into winter 

 Quarters last fall. A. WicHERTs. 



Matteson. III.. May 24. 



Warm Weather Needed. 



The prospect for a good honey crop is very 

 favoraole. While the spring has been cold 

 and wet it his been favorable to the growth 

 of white clover, as it seems to branch out 

 and grow better with a cool spring. The 

 fruit-bloom was frozen and killed, as was 

 also the black locust bloom. Bees will be 

 in a starving condition unless the weather 

 clears up soon, as there is no bloom to gatlier 

 from at the present time. Should the 

 weather turn warm there will be plenty of 

 bloom soon. 



My bees wintered better than ever here, 

 as I lost only a few colonies, and none were 

 as much weakened as you would expect 

 after as hard a winter as we had. 



W. H. Svvearingin. 



Epworth, Ky., May 9. 



Side-Line Bee-Keeping — Home Market 



I still think as much of " l-'orty Years 

 Among the Bees" as ever. I often have oc- 

 casion to refer to it. and find it full of use- 

 ful information on bee-keeping. I have kept 

 bees a-i a side-line of minor importance ever 

 since the year 1867. with varying success. I 

 use mostly the lo-frame Simplicity hive. wired 

 frames. When I get more than 20 or 30 colo- 

 nies on han<l. I simply smother the rest with 

 brimstone in the fall, extract the honey and 

 keci) the empty hives over, away from mice, 

 and use them the following season to hive 



Not Good Spring for Bees 



My bees came through in pretty good 

 shape; I had 3 Queenless this spring. These 

 were all I lost out of 68 packed in chaff on 

 the summer stands. Last year 1 wintered 38 

 colonies and extracted 4000 pounds of honev. 

 besides an increase of 3u swarms. This 

 spring has not been very good for bees. We 

 have had cold, windy weather most of the 

 time when it is not raining, but 1 had quite a 

 few good, fat combs of honey, and by putting 

 one on flat right over the brood-nest. 1 have 

 built up some of the weaker colonies in 

 good shape. R. Rutherford. 



Strange. Ont.. May 10. 



Bees Facing Starvation 



After havinga splendid start during March 

 and early April, the bees in this vicinity 

 now face starvation, unless fed heavily. We 

 have had very heavy frost which has killed 

 all fruit-bloom. The only source left is 

 dandelion, and we have practically none of 

 that here. One queen was occupying s 

 frames 3 weeks ago; she is laying only in 2 

 now. The clover came through the winter 

 in splendid condition, and the young clover 

 made a fine start, but although we have had 

 a fine spring since the frost of March, we 

 have not had any rain yet. and the young 

 clover is dying; the old is making no growth, 

 but burning up on the south side of the hills. 

 But we are hoping for the best. 



N. P. Anderson. 



Eden Prairie. Minn.. May 8. 



Worthless Bee-Census — Foul Brood 



If all the rest of the census enumerators 

 did as the one has done here, we won't know 

 any more about the beekeeping industry 

 than if there had been no census taken at 

 all. Our enumerator personally knows me. 

 He asked the usual questions until it came 

 to my occupation. I gave it as "Apiarist." 

 He did not ask how many colonies I have, 

 nor anything about the crop of honey or 

 beeswax. When I asked him if he wanted 

 that, he said no; that he would not make 

 out a ranch list. 



Foul brood has about cleaned up our bees 

 in this county. There are only 23 colonies 

 left in this (8) precinct, of which I am the 

 bee-inspector. 



It has been cold and windy, and the bees 

 have been doing poorly. G. H. Eversoi.e. 



Flora Vista. New Mex., May 21. 



An Unfavorable Spring for Bees 



In the spring of igo8 I came out with 50 col- 

 onies. It was cold and hard on bees in this 

 northeastern part of Wisconsin, but as soon 

 as the weather warmed up the bees built up 

 quickly, and my crop was 4000 pounds of 

 honey, and the bees had plenty for winter 

 stores. But loog was poor. I had that spring 

 65 colonies that built up nicely for the har- 

 vest, but when we thought of getting a crop 

 of honey, and the bees had started nicely to 

 work, it was cutoff by drouth, and left us 

 with a very small honey crop of 1200 pounds 

 for 1900. and the bees had to be fed in the 

 fall for winter. 



But this spring I have 80 colonies. It is so 

 early that we were from 2 to 3 weeks ahead 

 of other springs. March was so fine that my 

 bees were all out of the cellar on the sum- 

 mer stands on March 21st, and on the 2';th 

 bringing in the first pollen. This is earlier 

 than I have seen them do in the i.^i years that 

 I have kept bees. The outlook was good, 

 but. oh! April and the first half of May gave 

 them a knock-down, with cold, frost, storm 

 and snow blizzards; the strong colonies held 

 their own. but the weak ones dwindled 

 down to nothing. Now we have fruit-bloom, 

 and we hone to build them up yet to have 

 them ready for a honey crop. Bee-keepers 

 are always hopeful. C. H. Voigiit. 



Tisch Mills. Wis.. May 21. 



From 1 Colony to 30 in One Season 



May 2u. iguu. a friend of mine. Harry Fort, 

 of Washington Co.. N. Y.. got a strong colonv 

 of Italian bees from me; he wanted more, 

 but 1 said. "No. let us see how many we can 

 get from one colony." To my astonishment. 

 we were able to increase that one to 30 

 strong colonies, the bees building all their 

 own comb and roaring nearly all their own 

 queens. We did it by dividing We found 

 it necessary to do some feeding near the 

 close of the season, as the season was a poor 

 one. 



In order to give a description of the method 

 followed in making the increase it will be 

 necessary to tell what kind of frames and 

 hives 1 use. The brood-frame I use is iii-S 

 inches deep, and iiH inches long. It is 

 nearly square, and known as the Gallup 

 frame. 1 consider it the best frame for all 

 purposes ever used. I have used the Lang- 

 stroth and several other kinds, but do not 

 like them. Bees winter better on the Gallup 

 frames, being deeper. The honey-extractors 

 cost less for this kind of frames, and the 

 combs of honey hang in them the same as 

 they do in the hive, making it easier to ex- 

 tract without much breakage of combs; 

 while with the Langstroth framesvery many 

 break out when extracting heavy combs of 

 honey, as they have to stand on end; at 

 least, this has been my experience. Bees 

 build up faster in the spring in Gallup 

 frames, the hives being more compact. 



Next is the size of the hive. I use 2 sizes, 

 both of them of my getting up. one an 8- 

 frame hive, which 1 use when running for 

 increase and to winter bees in. The other 

 16 frames, being nearly 25 inches long, out- 

 side measure, is used for the production of 

 either comb or extracted honey only. This 

 I call my non-swarming hive, and I never 

 had a colony swarm when the hive was 

 tiered up 3 hives high, and only one swarm 

 when it was tiered 2 high, in 30 years that I 

 know of. I make all of my hives with a half- 

 inch above the frames and a half-inch be- 

 low the frames. The bees winter much 

 better this way. At the top the bees can 

 readily pass to all the combs because they 

 have plenty of room, and the heat is nearly 

 all up there. 1 also use a cover with a i- 

 inch hole bored in the center to let the mois- 

 ture out of the hive in winter. This is all 

 the upward ventilation a strong colony 

 needs. The hole is covered with wire- 

 cloth. In the picture [See upper picture on 

 the front page.— Editor.] you will see the 

 little stones lying over these holes to keep 

 the rain out of the hives. These ideas are 

 original with me. This does away with 

 chaff cushions and cloths of every kind ; the 

 bees can be wintered much better without 

 them, as I have tried them and know. 



I never use much comb foundation, only 

 starters in the brood-frames and sections. 

 A long time ago I discovered a substantial 

 way of putting starters in the brood-frames 

 without the use of wooden strips. The 

 starter I use and recommend is only M inch 

 wide. I like natural combs; they never sag. 

 or at least 1 never saw it. These bees that 1 

 am about to tell you of built all their own 

 combs except the starters. 



The queen of the colony Mr. Fort got of 

 me was one of the best layers that 1 ever 

 saw. On May 20 I went to his place and ex- 

 amined the colony, and found 7 full combs 

 of brood, and one comb full of honey. 



Now this is the way 1 began the increase; 

 I took the best two combs of brood nearest 

 to the hatching and the comb of honey, with 

 plenty of bees on all 3 combs, the queen in- 

 cluded, to an empty hive quite a little dis- 

 tance away. 1 shook the bees from 2 more 

 combs from the old hive into the new. know- 

 ing that many of the bees in the hive just 

 made would return to the old hive. I now 

 placed 5 new frames with starters in the 

 hive where the queen was taken from. 

 Note one thing right here, the queen-cells 

 were reared where all the field-workers 

 were. There were none with the queen. 

 One week from this time 1 made 2 more 

 small colonies from the queenless part, giv- 

 ing each part 2 nice queen-cells. Of course, 

 the old hive with the one comb of brood was 

 fully as strong as any. because most of the 

 field-workers were there. Mr. Fort painted 

 his hives, some of them green, some white, 

 some red. Every young queen mated all 

 right this time, and 4 colonies were soon 

 strong ones. June 2d. the hive where the 

 old queen was. was packed full again. I then 

 divided 9 in the same way as 1 did before, 

 and one week later 2 more were made. July 

 24 the hive containing the old queen was full 

 again, and I divided it that day. also with 

 quite a number of the old hives, and one 

 week from that time a whole lot were made. 



Now we had gotten to a point where we 



