mi 



gLEaNI^US in liEE OuLTUJtJv 



Kov. 



side thp tong-uo or maxili.e, of such insects, remind- 

 ing us somewhat of whiskers. In thesr^ pyralids 

 thej- project forward instead of curling i.p. 



As already stated, these insects feed only upon 

 the bee-bread, or pollen, and will prol ably do little 

 harm. They will become more and more common, 

 and will attract most attention alter bard winters, 

 when utmsed combs lie thick about the apiary. 



Agricultural College, Mich A. J. Cook. 



MR. COAATAN. 



FOUL BROOD, AND HOW SUCCESSFULLY CURKD. 



T HAVE frequently read with interest and profit 

 ^f the communications of Mr. Cowan. That you 

 ^i can not speak more highly of him than he de- 

 serves, I am well assured, and I should like to 

 meet and have a chat with both yourself and 

 him, as I feel that you are both in some way friends 

 of mine, though I have never had the happi- 

 ness of meeting either of you. I have to acknowl- 

 edge a debt of gratitude to the A B C of Bee 

 Culture, though I was first led to keep bees and 

 take an interest in them by getting hold of "The 

 Manual of Bee-Keeping," by the late .Tohn Hunter. 

 I have experienced all the vicissitudes which an in- 

 experienced hand naturally will go through, from 

 spring dwindling to foul brood. The last I remem- 

 ber, I treated with a strong hand. Having five or 

 six colonies infected, I shook the bees from the 

 combs into empty hives, burned all the comb, brood, 

 honey, boiled the frames, and washed the hives with 

 a strong solution of salicylic acid, a little of which I 

 fed to the bees with the syrup, and never had any 

 trace of the disease afterward. It was introduced 

 by my buying an old-fashioned straw hive which 

 was infected, and from which T transferred the bees 

 (not the comb) to a frame hive. 



I should now like to ask a question: Is February 

 here too early to commence feeding bees? I used 

 to begin in England (my father lived at the time in 

 Norwich, Norfolk, close to which place he has his 

 parish) about the end of February, and feed gently 

 till the honey began to come in. I am aware, that 

 feeding is, so to say, a science, and I fear to stimu- 

 late the bees too early. In Texas I used your Sim- 

 plicity hives, which I found admii-ably adapted to 

 that climate. Here I should prefer the rhaff hive, 

 as my bees will have to winter outside. I always 

 used a feeder made from some large-mouthed bot- 

 tle (that French plums come in), piercing about 

 twelve holes in the zinc lid. Then I had a square 

 block of wood with a circular hole in it, covered 

 with zinc on one side, the zinc in the wood having a 

 long slit in it. This I placed over a hole in the cloth 

 covering the frames, filled the bottle with syrup, 

 put on the lid, reversed it, and set it in the hole in 

 the wooden block. By simply turning the bottle 

 round I could feed one or twelve holes, as I liked. 



Montrose, N. Y., Oct. 32, 1887. .1. S. Cumming. 



In regard to feeding the bees in February, 

 friend C, I am not satisfied in my own 

 mind whether it will pay or not ; that is, 

 when we have a February so mild that w^e 

 can start the bees to rearing brood by feed- 

 ing. My last experiments in that line were 

 rather to the effect that it is risky and 

 doubtful to feed in February, or March 

 either. As our seasons run, I should say 

 that here in the States we had better wait 

 until April. Perhaps it would be well to 

 liavethis question in the Question-Box. 



^EP0i^JF^ ENcea^^Gip. 



.JUST BOOMING. 



Y bees are booming. I extracted over 200 

 lbs. yesterday. I got 21 gallons from six 

 colonies. I have a good many sections on. 

 full of honey, and most of them capped 

 over. T am reducing all my Simplicity 

 hives by contracting the brood-chamber to seven 

 frames. I tried five this season, and I find they 

 work in sections, when other hives, just as strong 

 in bees, that have 10 frames, will not. I put a 

 swarm in one T-frame hive about June Ist, and 

 have taken off 48 Mb. boxes, and it has 24 1-lb. 

 boxes on now, full of honey, and nearly all capped 

 over. A second swarm from the same hive the 

 above came from has made 48 lbs. I lost all mj' 

 bees last spring while I was sick, but 19. I have 28 

 now in good condition, and I have sold six swarms. 



J. W. Martin. 

 Greenwood Depot, Va., Oct. 13, 1887. 



THE BEST HONEY YEAR IN FIVE, FOR TEXAS. 



From 12 hives in spring I now have 25 hives in 

 good fix for winter. During the season I extracted 

 17.50 lbs. of good honey. This is the first honey year 

 in five for this part of Texas. J. N. Hunter. 



Leonard, Texas, Oct. 31, 1887. 



IN GOOD CONDITION FOR WINTER. 



My bees have done very poorly this year. How- 

 ever, they gathered fall honey and reared bees, so 

 that they are in fine condition for wintering. Last 

 winter I lost 9 out of 23. I have 27 now to winter. 

 I get 12 cts. per lb. for extracted honey, and can 

 sell all I can get. M. Mapes. 



Monroe, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1887. 



269.') LBS. OF HONEY. 



My I'eport for 1887 is as follows: Spring count, 8I{ 

 colonies; extracted honey, 2325 lbs.; comb honey, 

 370 lbs. They increased to 103 colonies, and I doubl- 

 ed them down to 75, and fed them about 500 lbs. of 

 old honey to get them in shape for winter. The 

 season has been very poor here, as it has been too 

 wet for the bees to gather much honey. 



Parksville, N. Y., Oct. 28, 1887. A. W. Smith. 



A POOR SEASON, BUT THE BEES PAID EXPENSES. 



This season has been a poor one. I did not get 

 more than one-fourth of a crop. I started with 38, 

 spring count, and increased to (10 by natural swarm- 

 ing. I have taken 800 lbs. of comb honey and about 

 100 lbs. of extracted. The comb honey was all in 

 one-pound sections, and two-thirds of it goldenrod. 

 We had a good honey-flow here from the 1st to the 

 10th of September, and that is what saved us from 

 buying sugar to winter our bees. My bees have 

 paid expenses this season; and taking the demand 

 and the price of honey at present into considera- 

 tion, with the prospect good for fair prices next 

 season, I am not discouraged the least bit. 



Linkville, Ind., Oct. 19, 1887. John Kunz. 



AS INCREASE OF 33 PER CENT, AND ABOUT 45 

 LBS. OF SURPLUS TO THE COLONY. 



Although the season has been very dry with us in 

 Canada (just dry enough to show the great superi- 

 ority of Italians over the blacks), bees have done 

 fairly, 39 of them giving me about 33 per cent of in- 

 crease, and from 45 to 50 lbs. of surplus extracted 

 honey to the stock, spring count. At date all are in 



