AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



663 



^F~ Do not write anything for publication 

 on the same sheet of paper with business 

 matters, unless it can be torn apart withou 

 interfering with either part of the letter. 



Managing- a Laying Worker. 



First raise the brood-chamber and put 

 a hive with some brood and honey in it ; 

 put wire-cloth between the two hives. 

 Place a wire cone in the top story so the 

 bees can go out, and not get back, but 

 they will go into the bottom story. 

 When most of the bees are out of the 

 top, you can cover over the wire-cloth, 

 and place a queen in the bottom story, 

 in a little while there will be only a few 

 bees in the top story with the laying 

 worker, which can be destroyed. 



Lucan, Ont. Hekbekt Gibson. 



Very Poor Year for Bees. 



This has been the poorest year we 

 have had— only 4UU pounds of honey 

 from 80 colonies, and no increase. We 

 had just 2 swarms to issue— one went 

 back, and I cut out the queen-cells ; and 

 the other I returned, so we stand just 

 where we were last spring, only the 

 hives are very heavy. 1 never had bees 

 in better condition at this time of the 

 year. I have not put them into the cel- 

 lar yet, but shall do so soon, as it is get- 

 ting cold. J. A. Pearce. 



Grand Rapids, Mich., Nov. 12. 



Hives Facing South in Winter. 



In wintering bees in dovetailed hives, 

 on their summer stands, I find that they 

 winter best with the hives facing the 

 south. The reason is that bees in the 

 winter, as a rule, cluster to the sunny 

 side of the hive, and if there is nothing 

 in the way, they will leave their combs 

 and cluster on the wall of the hive, and 

 while so clustered, if a cold snap comes 

 they perish by freezing. Those that 

 thus perish will fall down and be carried 

 out, and others will take their place to 

 perish in their turn. This process goes 



on all winter, or until the colony suc- 

 cumbs, and if the colony survives the 

 winter it is at the expense of being 

 greatly depleted in numbers. If the 

 hives face the south, not so much sur- 

 face is exposed to the sun, and the end- 

 bars of the frames serve, to some extent, 

 as barriers to prevent the bees from 

 clustering on the walls of the hive, and 

 the liability to perish by freezing is 

 greatly lessened. 



Some years ago we were advised in 

 the bee-books that if we had but one 

 division-board to the colony, that in pre- 

 paring our bees for winter, we should 

 putiton the north side of the cluster; but 

 experience teaches that the board should 

 be put on the south side of the cluster. 

 This experience has been a pretty dear 

 one to me, but we all profit by our mis- 

 takes, and I may yet be the better off by 

 having tried wintering several colonies 

 of my bees with division-boards on the 

 south side of the cluster. 



My honey yield this year was an aver- 

 age of 61 pounds per colony, spring 

 count. This is not a poor crop for an 

 "off year." H. F. Coleman. 



Sneedville, Tenn., Nov. 1. 



Honey vs. Royal Jelly. 



Joseph Shatters, of this place, has 

 been very successful in using honey in 

 the place of royal jelly in queen-cups, 

 a la Doolittle, but made almost an entire 

 failure when he used jelly. He uses 

 quite thick honey so it will not run down 

 in the cups, and but little of it. I tried 

 this method a little late in the season, 

 and got only a few of the cups worked. 

 Probably the bees were not in condition 

 to do better. I. W. Beckwith. 



Ft. Lupton, Colo. 



Report for 1894, Etc. 



In the fall of 1893 I put into winter 

 quarters 55 colonies of bees and 49 

 came through considerably reduced in 

 numbers, caused by late packing. I in- 

 creased to 54, and obtained a little over 

 3000 pounds of honey, mostly extracted. 

 I have met a good many bee-keepers 

 this fall, and they generally report a 

 small crop. We were dried up here for 

 two or three months. 



I have sold about 2,500 pounds of my 

 honey, all in the home market, at 10 

 and 11 cents for extracted, and 10 to 

 15 cents for comb honey. 



T took the 1 st premium for display of 

 comb and extracted honey at our County 

 Fair the last four years. I exhibited 



