AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



5T 



a few colonies on April 20th, and found 

 considerable brood (some had drone-brood) 

 in all stages, and some were hatched out. 

 My experience does not coincide with B. 

 Taylor's, on page 500. where he says he 

 thinks they are not going to winter well on 

 account of being all old bees. 



The season of 1893, in our section, was 

 the poorest, I think, I ever witnessed, the 

 drouth drying everything up so that there 

 was no honey to speak of in this neighbor- 

 hood. After June 30th there was but little 

 of the golden-rod that budded out to blos- 

 som, and it was the same with the wild 

 aster. 



About July 10, 1893, I hived a swarm that 

 filled its hive and 55 one-pound sections 

 with honey, about two-thirds of it being 

 red honey. Last year we had no buck- 

 wheat bloom tc speak of, so you may im- 

 agine they quit brood-rearing very early in 

 the season. I think that accounts for their 

 starting in breeding in the bee-house. My 

 bees averaged a great deal heavier with 

 bees when I took them out than when put 

 in for winter. 



On May 2nd here bees were rolling in the 

 pollen and storing some honey. When 

 putting on some supers a few days ago, I 

 was looking in some of the hives and found 

 plenty of queen-cells under headway, and a 

 good many with eggs in them. I think 

 they will be swarming by the 10th or 15th, 

 if they have no drawback. Apple and rasp- 

 berry bloom will be right along; cherry 

 and plum are now here, so that I think we 

 are far in advance of last year. 



Andrew M. Thompson. 



Canaseraga, N. Y., May 2. 



Honey-Boards, Supers, Etc. 



As there has been so much in print about 

 honey-boards and supers, I am sometimes 

 at a loss to know which one of them de- 

 serves the most attention. For me, a 

 honey-board should be as thin as possible, 

 and should be so perforated as to fit the 

 openings in the sections. These honey- 

 boards may be tacked on the super, and the 

 sections placed directly upon them ; or, if 

 the super has the patent slats, they should 

 not be thicker than V of an inch— yes, 1-16 

 of an inch would do, if they would not 

 warp too much, and they will not if proper 

 care is taken of them. But why not get the 

 slats made of zinc or tin ? then thej will 

 not warp nor rot, and will last a lif< ime. 

 And how much cheaper they would, e in 

 the end than honey-boards and/ wide 

 frames, and how little room they ,' .vould 

 take when stored away. I 



"Now," says one, "I have no use for 

 them, as I use a T super." Very well, but 

 your sections are travel-stained and propo- 

 lized, and that is an objection to first-class 

 comb honey. 



One says, "The patent slats above de- 

 scribed are too thin, and will sag in the 

 center." So they would, if you had not 

 already one or two thin wires strung across 

 the center of the super. I use three wires, 

 about the size of broom-wire, one on each 



end, and one in the center of the super. 

 Place the super on a table or bench, and 

 put the slats in, then put the sections and 

 separators in, using from two to three or 

 more separators for a wedge-board, accord- 

 ing to the space to be filled. Push the 

 wedges down, and the job is finished. You 

 see in this way I have a honey-board on 

 each super. This is a very simple and 

 cheap honey-board and super bottom com- 

 bined. 



The object of these thin honey-boards is 

 to bring the sections as close to the brood- 

 frames as possible, for close observation 

 has proved that the closer the sections are 

 to the brood-nest, the quicker the bees will 

 work in them. 



One more thing I would like to call at- 

 tention to, and that is to allow the bees to 

 get on top of the sections, for this hastens 

 comb building in the sections. Somebody 

 once told me that the bees on top of the 

 sections were loafers, but that is not so, for 

 I have found out differently. If one will 

 take notice, he will find these bees gorged 

 with honey, and many times see the little 

 wax scales on the lower side of their abdo- 

 men, as the bees go down the sections. In 

 these supers I produced 300 pounds of as 

 fine honey as I ever saw, and as I think I 

 ever will see, for it was perfect. If I could 

 only get a perfect method of wintering bees 

 in this latitude, then I would be satisfied 

 with bee-keeping. 



My bees, up to March 6th, wintered 75 

 per cent, better than they did the winter 

 before, but not perfectly, for about one 

 peck out of 21 colonies were dead on March 

 6th. The cause of this I do not know. One 

 colony got the diarrhea, but none of the 

 rest showed any signs of it. 



I hope that some of our old veterans will 

 soon give us a method by which bees will 

 winter perfectly, but until then I wiU keep 

 on practicing, and give my experience. 



I am well pleased with the American 

 Bee Journal. It is a school to the begin- 

 ner, and those famous old bee-keepers are 

 its teachers. But around here the bee- 

 keepers think they know all about bee-keep- 

 ing, and don't need any bee-paper, and 

 most of them had no honey last summer. 



Chippewa Falls, Wis. August Bartz. 



Another New Bee-Hive, Etc. 



I have been experimenting for some time 

 to get up a bee-hive to prevent the bees 

 swarming, and to get more honey in the 

 sections. I think that I have the hive com- 

 pleted to prevent the bees swarming, and 

 average more honey per colony than in my 

 old style of hive, which is as good a hive as 

 any except the new hive. 



I do not claim that a colony in my new 

 hive will store more honey than any other 

 strong colony that is in a good hive and 

 does not swarm, but I say on an average 

 I can take more surplus honey from the 

 bees in this hive, because I have the control 

 over the bees to prevent their swarming. 

 I also have the control over the bees, so 

 that they must go in any part of the hive 



