THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



27 



Local Convention Directory. 



Time and vlace of Meeting. 

 1885. 



Jan. 14-16.— Nebraska State, at Tecumseh. Neb. 

 M. J J. Trester, Sec. 



Jan. 14,— Central IlUnols, at BloonilnRton, Ills. 



W. B. Lawrence, Sec. 



Jan. 14. 15.— N. B. Ohio & N. W. Pa., at Erie. Pa. 

 C. H. Coon, Sec, New Lyme, O. 



Jan. 15.— Mahoning Valley, at Newton Falls, O. 



B. W. Turner, Sec. 



Jan. 17.— Marshall Co., Iowa, at Marshalltuwn, la. 

 J. W. Sanders, Sec, LeGrand, Iowa. 



Jan. -Ju, :il.— N. W. Illinois, at Freeport, Ilia. 



Jonathan Stewart, Sec. 



Jan. ■Jl—i2:i.— Northeastern, at Syracuse, N. Y. 



<ieo. W. House, Sec 



Jan. 122, 123.— Indiana State, at Indianapolis. Ind. 

 Frank L. Dougherty, Sec 



Jan. 27.— Cortland Union, at Cortland, N. T. 



M. G. Darby. Sec. , Homer, N. Y. 



Feb. 4.— N. E. Michigan, at Vassar, Mich. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec, Koeersviiie, Mich. 



Feb. 24-26.— International, at New Orleans, La. 



May 28.— N. Mich. Picnic, near McBride, Mich. 



F. A. Palmer, Sec, McBride, Mich. 



June li>.— Willamette Valley, at La Fayette, Oreg. 

 E. J, Hadley, Sec 



PF~ In order to have this table complete, Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetintia.— Ed. 





W A. B. Cheney, Sparta Centre, ? 

 Mich., on Jan. 6, 1885, writes : 



During tlie season of 1884, 1 obtained 

 14,500 pounds of extracted and 3,.500 pounds 

 of comb honey. The extracted was put 

 up in 5 pound pails, and candied solid. 1 

 have about 8,000 pounds of it left. 



^" Henry Alley ,Wenham,(i Mass., 

 on Jan. 3, 188-5, writes : 



Bees have been flying for three days past. 

 The winter will be six weeks shorter to them 

 than to those in cellars and bee-houses. All 

 ai'e wintering well. 



l^- A. P. Fletcher, East Franklin, 

 Quebec, on Dec. 30, 1884, writes : 



The weather here is iiuite changeable. 

 Last week the tem])erature ranged from 20° 

 to :10° below zero, and now it is raining-, the 

 snow is nearly all g-one, and the mud is get^ 

 ting cK-ep. Yesterday the liees came out in 

 force and spotted the snow, besides speck- 

 ing it pretty well over with dead bees. I 

 winter my bees in Root and Manum chaff 

 hives. 



^- M. A. Gill, Viola, 9 Wis., on 

 Jan. 4, 188.5, writes : 



Tlu' season has been an average one 

 here. The spring opened up fail-, and bees 

 \verein good condition, but bad weather 

 prevented a very abundant yield of honey 

 from the sugar-maple. It blooms usually 

 from May 1 to May 11, and if the weather 

 is favorable, the bees get a " boom ' from 

 it wliicli lasts tliem llirougli the season. I 

 think that if we could liave the saiue 

 working force and hut nights, bees could 

 gatlier as fast from hard maple as from 

 basswood. Not having the maple yield, 

 the bees were compelled to wait and build 

 up on clover. The yield from this source 

 was only tnoderate, but sufticieut to secure 

 some surjdus, and to build the bees up 

 strong by basswood bloom. Basswood did 

 not blossom, however, tliis season, until 



July 30, and it remained in blossom 11 

 days, ;^ of which were very poor, 4 aver- 

 age, and 4 extra days, with hot nisihts and 

 an atmosphere diarged heavily with elec- 

 tricity. I liad previously prepared and 

 moved 3.5 colonies of liybrids and Italians, 

 and they gatliered 2,3.50 pounds of honey 

 in that length of time. I moved tliem on 

 spring wagons from tlie prairie to the tim- 

 ber, a distance of six miles, with perfect 

 safety. I luul one apiary of 70 colonies of 

 blacks, and in the midst of basswood tbey 

 did very well (for blacks). I secured 8,000 

 pounds of the choicest honey, and in- 

 creased my apiary 1'.^ per cent. A neigh- 

 bor bee-keeper witli a small apiary of 30 

 colonies of liybrids, secured a surplus of 

 130 pounds per colony. My best colony 

 produced 335 pounds of honey. This is no 

 big yield, but is enongli to induce me to go 

 on. I am living in a scope of country 

 which has a field of basswood .30 by .50 

 miles, and it will always exist ; tor nuich 

 of tlie land is so rougli that a tree could 

 not be gotten if once it were cut down. 

 The country is well adapted to cows, 

 sheep and bees, as the valley produces 

 grass and coru to perfection, and w'liite 

 clover is becoming plentiful. My only 

 hobby in bee-culture is " hybrids." I will 

 admit that it is not the mostpleasant place 

 to ride, at times, but by using plenty of 

 forbearance and perseverance with some 

 smoke and a little fire, I have managed to 

 keep from being " putoff" or side-tracked. 

 Wy ex|ierience has been tliat bees bred 

 from a pure mother, and close up to the 

 imported stock, and crossed with the 

 lirown-German drones, are tlie best bees 

 extant with whicli to get your bread and 

 butter and honey. 



^" H. Clark, Palmyra,? Iowa, on 

 Jan. 1, 188.5, writes : 



I have been keeping bees in Warren coun- 

 ty, Iowa, for 17 years, and so far as honey 

 is concerned, the season of 1884 was the 

 most peculiar one that I have ever seen. 

 The most of my colonies were good in the 

 spring, and the weather was generally tine, 

 yet there was very little honey for the bees 

 to gather. In June, I took .500 pounds of 

 honey from SO colonies; but I ought not to 

 have talcen that, for they stored no more 

 surplus during the rest of the season, as 

 liassw(M,d was a failure. During Scptcmiier 



thi' \M-athrr was warm, and th<- I s went by 



the thousands to the cane mills only to be 

 drnwiicd or iTiislH'd, 1 should ha\-e fed my 

 bei-s and kc|.t tlu-ni at home. By the latter 

 part ot nc-tnl.i'i- many of my neighbors' col- 

 onies starvrd. and 1 hiUT lost 10 up to date. 

 The hotti-st day here dui-ing 1884 was .luly 

 2.S, when tlic temperature was 08° abo\-"e 

 zero, and the coldest day was Jan. o, -when 

 the temperature was :iO° below zero. 



1^" I. J. Glass, Sharpsburg,© Ills., 

 on Dec. 15, 1884, writes : 



My "keeping bees" is the result of an 

 incident. A little more than one year ago 

 a swarm of bees clustered on an alder- 

 bush near my garden. I made a box and 

 put them into it, wben they readily ac- 

 cepted their new home and went to work. 

 I had not been the possessor of them long 

 before the idea entered my mind to pur- 

 chase a few colonies and learn the art of 

 handling them. By the following fall I 

 had obtained, from different parties, 13 

 colonies, 3 ot which were weak, so I put 

 them together and placed the 13, on Nov. 

 1, 1883, in a very damp, muddy cellar, con- 

 trary to the teachings of many bee-men. 

 I set them out in the spring after a con- 

 finement of 163 days, without loss, and, 

 seemingly, in good condition. Previous 

 to the possession of my first colony of 

 bees, my knowledge of the busy workers 

 was Hinited to the fact that tlipy possessed 

 stings, and in some mysti-rions way gath- 

 ered honey from the flowers ; so I pro- 

 cured a book on bee-keeping, and from it 

 I have learned to handle my bees quite 



successfully. Six of my colonies were in 

 box-hives, and I transferred them without 

 any trouble. During the last summer I 

 increased them to 33colonies, and 1 placed 

 them in the cellar on Nov. 17, in good con- 

 dition, and they have remained fpiiet ever 

 since. This has been a very poor season 

 for bees in this part of Illinois, and I only 

 obtained about 75 pounds of surplus comb 

 honey ; yet I did not work my bees for 

 honey, as my desire was to increase them 

 as much as possible. I have rea<l a great 

 deal about " pollen," " hibernation," "bee- 

 diarrhea," "in-door" and "out-door" 

 wintering, and can any one blame me for 

 being perplexed ? In preparing my bees 

 for winter, I do away with a great many 

 "extras," and will report the result next 

 spring. 



t^ I. J. Johnson, Utica, Ontario, 

 on Dec. 24, 1884, writes : 



I send you a specimen of a plant which 

 grows along the roadsides and its color is 

 blue. Is it a good honey-plant ? What is its 

 name ? 



[It is Viper's-bugloss or blue-plant 

 (Echium vulgare), belonging to the borage 

 family, and like most of these plants, it is 

 a good honey-producer ; still it has little 

 to recommend it, others being better for 

 cultivation, and a great many others more 

 attractive in appearance. In some places 

 in Virginia it is accounted a troublesome 

 weed.— T. J. Burrill.] 



O" D. M. Ketcham, Arcadia,*o N. 

 Y., on Jan. 2, 1884, writes : 



I have used buckwheat chaff for pack- 

 ing my hives the past three winters, and I 

 find that it is the best material I have ever 

 used, and so far those colonies with chaff 

 only on the tops of the hives, have win- 

 tered the best. It has been a poor season 

 for flowers to secrete honey, and I cannot 

 report more than one-third of a crop. On 

 Dec. .30 and 31 the bees had a good flight, 

 and cleaned out the hives. 



iS° Miss JVellie E. Wright, New 

 Salem, Ot N. Y., on Jan. 5, 1885, writes: 



M.\- father, who has been a bee-keeper for 

 15 years, and who was an experienced apiar- 

 ist, died on .\pril 31. 1884. Mv father carried 

 79 colonies into the cellar in the fall of 1883; 

 :i of them died during the winter, but all the 

 rest came out in the spring strong and in 

 good i-undition. Father extracted the honey 



fr 40 eolonies hist tall, anil mother and 'l 



exti-aeted 1 Hi poiiniis of very nier t)eeswax; 

 it was so nice that we received 37 cents per 

 pound for it. As mother and 1 are now left 

 alone, we have sold the liees. but it looks 

 lonely now in the empty bee-yard. 



1^° John Key, East Saginaw,© 

 Mich., on Dec. 30, 1884, writes : 



My bees have been flying for the last 

 three dajs-in fact it is a January tliaw in 

 December. The bees have been busy 

 cleaning bouse and carrying out dead 

 bees, and in every way preparing them- 

 selves tor another cold Spell. This has 

 been a good winter for bees, so far, and I 

 think they wju winter well the rest of the 

 winter, for they have good honey to live 

 on. I notice something on the entrances 

 of my hives. I have some with the bot- 

 tom-board projecting about 4 inches, and 

 on the rest of the hives the bottom-board 

 is cut off even with the hive, and these are 

 the best, as there is no chance for the 

 snow and ice to form as there is on the 

 bottom-board which projects. In these I 

 used to lose some bees every winter until 

 1 found out that my bees were smothered. 

 The entrances used to be stopped up with 

 dead bees from the inside, and the snow 



