Mar. 15, 1912 



Summer home of S!. Geo. Steven.s, surrounded by the birds, the tlowers, and the bees. 



and dryest winter in iO years. Bees gather- 

 ed pollen .Jan. 8. March 15, Ijees very strong. 



1909. — .Jan. ol, no rain since Dec. 20. Only 

 one freeze and three frosts this winter. 



Feb. 14, norther struck at 12 M. Tempera- 

 ture, 5G; 32 at" p.m.: 15, 20 at 7 a.m.; 20, 

 bees suffered a great loss in young brood. 



1911. — Jan. 1, bees gathering pollen to- 

 day. Temperature 65 at 10 a.m.; 2, cloudy 

 north wind; 30 at 10 a.m.; temperature 24 at 

 4 p.m.; 3, 12 at 7 a.m.: June 13, temperature 

 110 at 2 P.M. on my porch. 



1912. — Jan. 11, temjDcrature 60; bees flying 

 nicely; 12, north wind blew last night, about 

 8 P.M.; temperature, 18 at 11 a.m.; 13, tem- 

 perature 10 at 8 a.m. Ice one and one-half 

 inches thick on canal at Lane City. 



The boys are having a fine time on the 

 ice. Two boys from Ohio think it is fine, 

 but both broke the ice and went into water 

 about two feet deep. 



Lane City, Tex., Jan. 14. 



LIVING CLOSE TO NATURE 



BY S. GEO. STEVENS 



Our first swarm of bees came to us in 

 .luly, 1910; and, not knowing much of bees, 

 I divided them and made two colonies. In 

 the fall I took 5u lbs. of surplus comb honey 

 from them, and wintereci them in good 

 shape on their summer stands. 



This summer we made ten colonies of 

 them with some little help from other bees 

 I bought in August, and this fall I got about 

 100 lbs. of honey, and all the hives were in 

 good shape for winter — no feeding. With 

 what I bought we have 32 colonies in all, 

 and will winter them on summer stands. 



We have about our cottage a sort of com- 

 bination of insect and bird life, in both of 

 which we are very much interested. We 

 feel that our first colony of bees was largely 

 the cause of our interest in the birds. 



Duluth, Minn. 



[Our correspondent is a great friend of the 

 birds, and he has tamed them until many 

 of them will fly from the trees to eat from 

 his hand. He has done a vast amount of 

 good in writing articles for the press, con- 

 demning in no uncertain terms the boys 

 and men from the cities who take a fiendish 

 delight in killing "these creatures who 

 come to live with us, and who make life just 

 that much more worth living." — Ed.] 



THE RIPENING OF NECTAR 



Does the Body of the Honey Vary According to the 

 Humidity of the Season ? 



BY T. P. ROBINSON 



Arthur C. Miller, page 23, Jan. 1, tells 

 how bees ripen nectar. lam not particular- 

 ly familiar with the bee's way of depositing 

 her load in the cell; neither do I know that 

 bees ever take up this nectar again except 

 to deposit it in a more convenient place, 

 liut I doubt very much whether they make 

 a practice of taking it up for the special 

 purpose of curing it; and my doubts are 

 based on the fact that the body of my hon- 

 ey varies just as does the humidity of the 

 season. This variation in body is further 

 due to the strength of the colony. 



I have known many times when the evapo- 

 rating or drying out of the water was almost 

 entirely omitted, and the honey soured in the 



