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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



she has a heart as young as the youngest. 

 We did enjoy visiting with her. She is a 

 great reader, and well educated, having 

 attended Oberlin College and taught school 

 in her earlier days. The Lymans are earn- 

 est members of the Congregational church, 

 though we felt at once like claiming them 

 all as Methodists— so similar are the larger 

 denominations becoming these days. We're 

 glad of it. All hail, the glorious day, when 

 all the imaginary denominational lines 

 shall have been obliterated, and we shall, 

 as true brothers and sisters, be working in 

 the interest of a common humanity, as well 

 as for a common eternal existence. No 

 bigotry in that, as we can see. 



To return to the object of our visit: Of 

 course our object was to see Mr. Lyman's 

 bees, and to study the methods he uses. He 

 has 70 colonies of something like the 

 leather-colored bees. He prefers the 3- 

 banded Italians. His apiary is nicely and 

 conveniently located just to the east of the 

 house— perhaps three rods away. On this 

 same side of the house is a porch which Mr. 

 Lyman has enclosed with wire-screen, to 

 be used as an extracting room, and for 

 other apiarian work. Just at the edge of 

 the apiary, and to the right of the wire- 

 screened porch, he has a large canvas 

 stretched up, which forms a cool, shady 

 place, and under which a part of the work 

 is performed. 



He is this year using a bee-escape honey- 

 board, which will be illustrated and de- 

 scribed in next week's Bee Journal. He 

 thinks that with it swarming can be almost 

 entirely prevented, and a larger crop of 

 honey secured — that is, when there is nec- 

 tar in the flowers for the bees to gather. 

 His management as to swarming is much 

 the same as has been described in the Bee 

 Journal by Mr. Demaree and Mr. Dug- 

 dale, excepting that he uses the bee-escape 

 honey-board. This is not exactly a new 

 invention, but more an application of 

 known principles in another form. 



The season had been very dry, so that 

 the sources of white honey were entirely 

 cut off, and only honey-dew was gathered. 

 His crop of comb honey so far was only 

 about 30 pounds, for as soon as he saw that 

 honey-dew was being gathered, he re- 

 moved the sections that bad been placed on 

 the hives. 



Mr. Lyman uses the 8-frame dovetailed 

 brood-chamber with the Hoffman self-spac- 



ing frames, and the Heddon surplus case — 

 single-tier wide-frames. His swarms are 

 hived on one-inch starters of comb founda- 

 tion. 



Last year Mr. L. received an award at 

 the World's Fair on extracted honey. 



Mrs. Lyman said that "Walter" got his 

 start in bees about 12 years ago, by a stray 

 swarm locating on one of their trees on 

 Sunday. A relative happening to be there, 

 who knew about hiving bees, helped to hive 

 the swarm, and after that the enthusiastic 

 owner studied them, purchased books and 

 papers on the subject, and when he took off 

 his first crop of 75 pounds of honey, it was 

 thought a big thing ! From that one swarm 

 has grown the present well-equipped apiary 

 of 70 colonies, which in years before this 

 has produced thousands of pounds of honey 

 in a single season. 



We returned home in the evening, feeling 

 that we had spent a pleasant, and, to us, a 

 very profitable afternoon. 



Next week Bro. liyman will tell you 

 about his bee-escape honey-board and its 

 use. 



Keeping- Surplus Queens. — Bro. 



Alley, in the June Apicullurist, gives his 

 method of keeping surplus queens, in thjs 

 one short paragraph : 



One way to keep surplus queens — either 

 virgin or laying queens— is to place them 

 in nursery-cages, about 35 queens to a 

 frame, and insert the frame in a queenless 

 hive. Here the queens remain quiet and 

 contented for 



Honey- IJeAv from Texas.— Dr. 



Wm. R. Howard has sent us this letter ac- 

 companying a sample of honey-dew, which 

 he describes : 



Fort Worth, Tex., July 28, 1894. 



Editor Bee Journal:— I send you by 

 this mail a sample of honey-dew, gathered 

 by the bees and stored as honey. This was 

 gathered from June 30th to July 5th, 1894. 

 It is the first time in nearly 20 years that 

 there has been such a yield from this 

 source. This is gathered from walnut, 

 pecan, live-oak, and a few other trees; the 

 most extensive excretion or exudation 

 being from the walnut and pecan, to which 

 it owes its color and flavor. 



About the time (June 15th) the horsemint 

 had begun to yield honey, cold rainy 

 weather set in, and continued for about 

 two weeks. After this, the hot wave, with 

 its simoons, visited us. The wet weather 

 had so stimulated the growth (it being the 

 time of second growth of these trees), the 

 leaves were extravasated with the succu- 



