AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



313 



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Best Season He Ever Knew. 



It has been the best season for honey 

 here I ever knew. From June 12th ujp 

 to the present time there have been but 

 a very few poor honey-days. Bees are 

 doing good business in the sections at 

 this date. The honey is of a very fine 

 quality. There are several acres of 

 buckwheat near ray bees, but they 

 hardly notice it this year. We have had 

 no dry weather here this season, and 

 prospects for a fall crop of honey are 

 good. I have bees 40 miles west (at 

 Lunenburg, Vt.) that did very well 

 there, but nothing since basswood — too 

 dry there. W. H. Yates. 



Bartlett, N. H.. Aug. 27. 



A Reasonably Good Season. 



The season here has been reasonably 

 good for honey-gathering— with me, at 

 least. I had 38 colonies of bees in fine 

 condition at the commencement of 

 swarming, increased to SO colonies, and 

 have up to date packed in crates 2,700 

 pounds of comb honey, and there is more 

 on the hives to take off. 



Wm. L. Backensto. 



Ft. Logan, Colo., Aug. 27. 



Northeastern Iowa— Big Chaff Box. 



White clover was an entire failure 

 here this season. Basswood yielded an 

 extra qualit}' of nectar, but not as abun- 

 dantly as in some other seasons. I be- 

 lieve the linden is the only sure source 

 of honey in the Northern States. In 

 fact, I have never known it to fail in 15 

 years in any State I have been. No 

 other plant or tree yields, or, as A. I. 

 Root says, "begins to yield the quantity " 

 that basswood does. Were I a honey 

 prophet, I would never predict a failure 

 of basswood secretion. My bees are 



gathering a little honey slowly from 

 buckwheat at present. 



Last fall I packed 11 colonies of bees 

 in one, long box, packing with chaff and 

 forest leaves. It is one of the nicest 

 ways to winter bees yet discovered, were 

 it not for the fact that the bees are very 

 much inclined to want to all enter one 

 or two of the end entrances in the 

 spring, leaving the middle colonies 

 weak. Who knows a way to mark the 

 entrance so that the bees will find their 

 own doorway ? I had one entrance 

 painted white and the next one black 

 but this seemed to make no material dif 

 ference. I should think this would be 

 an objection to bee-houses. 



W. P. Faylok. 



Updegraff, Iowa, Aug. 28. 



Small Crop This Year. 



The honey crop this year is small — 

 500 pounds of white honey from 25 col- 

 onies, spring count. Last year I got 

 1,600 pounds from 10 colonies — two- 

 thirds of it being white honey. 



B. H. Newland. 



Melrose, Wis., Aug. 27. 



Bees Did Fairly Well. 



Allow me to report that bees did fairly 

 well in this part of the country this 

 year. The surplus came mostly from 

 Alsike clover and basswood, the latter 

 yielding more than the average. I am 

 just a beginner in the bee-business, but 

 I consider that my bees did extraordi- 

 narily well— two colonies storing 180 

 pounds of comb honey in sections, and 

 increasing to 7 good, strong colonies. 

 Jas. E. Holt. 



Newton Robinson, Ont., Aug. 23. 



Big Flow from Buckwheat, Etc. 



My report for the season is as follows : 

 I had my bees in good condition when 

 the fruit-bloom came, but the weather 

 was so cold and wet that they didn't 

 make enough to live on, and I had to 

 feed some of my best colonies. We lost 

 the locust bloom, which is one of our 

 main honey-trees. The white clover 

 was "no good," but the bees worked 

 well on the Alsike, but we haven't much 

 of that here yet. I got no surplus from 

 clover, but when the basswood came 

 they made it count. Some colonies 

 stored 4-0 pounds in 8 days. After that 

 was done, the early buckwheat came in, 

 and they have been piling in the honey. 



