AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 341 



zero, and nearly all fruit was killed. The hives were well tilled with brood, which 

 was chilled, and nearly half of the old bees died. When the weather did turn 

 warm, there was not much for them to get until poplar bloomed. Then when poplar 

 was in full bloom, and the third week of May, we had a week of cold, rainy weather. 



Bees swarmed but little. One of my neighbors got about 100 pounds of honey 

 from six colonies. Most farmers who have bees are getting discouraged, and are 

 letting their bees die for want of care. 



I had a peculiar experience with one colony of my bees this summer. About the 

 last of May my Italian colony (I had just one colony of Italians) swarmed, but lost 

 their queen and returned to the old hive. I had the combs from the old colonies 

 which had died last winter, and took the comb from one old hive, and about half of 

 the bees and a frame of brood from another old hive, and put them in a new hive on 

 the old stand, and moved the old hive away. The old colony had a queen-cell, and 

 soon hatched a queen, which soon went to laying and did well. 



I also divided two other colonies of black bees and put them on the old comb 

 with a frame of brood each. They went to work, and soon each had a good laying 

 queen. I looked in the hive of the Italian colony in a week, and they had several 

 queen-cells sealed over. In a week I looked in again, and they had begun to tear down 

 the queen-cells. There were a few that were not tocn down. I looked in them two 

 or three times for the next month, but did not see any queen. They had filled the 

 hive nearly full of honey. 



In about a month I noticed they had eggs laid in the comb. I had begun to 

 think they had no queen, and intended to give them some more brood to rear a 

 queen, when after two or three weeks I looked over them and found the combs full 

 of drone-brood, and several drones hatched out. I found a black queen, as black as 

 black could be, with her wings entirely eaten off. The drones were very small, and 

 black as could be. Now why the black queen was here is something curious, as I 

 positively know there was no black brood in the hive, as the frame of brood was 

 from as yellow Italian bees as I ever saw. 



The only way I can think that it came here, was that the other colonies that I 

 had found had reared two queens, and had driven one out which entered the Italian 

 hive. What do some of the readers of the Bee Joubnal think ? 



Sweet Clover, Etc. — I wish some of the readers of the Bee Journal would 

 give further-description of sweet clover — when to sow it, what effect cold weather 

 has on it, how much to sow per acre, etc. We need something that will bloom 

 through the very dry weather we have through July and August. Catnip, cucum- 

 bers and squashes furnish the only bee-pasture we have now. It is so dry now that 

 buckwheat will not grow, Otwell, Ind., Aug. 14. 



SBASOP^ OF 1894— OUX-DOOIt BEE-CEI^I^AR. 



BY JOSEPH BEATH. 



My bees wintered fairly well last winter, having put 30 colonies in the cellar 

 the last of November, 1893, and took out 28 alive the middle of April, 1894. But 

 several of them were weak, of which I lost 2, leaving me 26, They gathered more 

 honey from apple bloom than I ever knew them to do before. But the freeze the 

 last of May, and the drouth since, ruined our honey crop. I have just examined 

 the bees, and find a very littlenew honey in the surplus of the strongest colonies. 

 We had a good rain a week ago to-morrow morning — the first real soaking rain this 

 year — in fact about equal to all that we have had before this year. In March, April 

 and May we had only two or three light rains. In June we had three, which made 



