THE AMERICAl^ BEE JOURNAL, 



43 



Local Convention Directory. 



Time and place of Meeting. 



1885. 



Jan. 20, 2I.-N. W. Illinois, nt Freeport, Ills. 



Jonathan Stewart, Sec. 



Jan. 21— 23.— NortheaBtern, at Syracuse, N. Y. 



Geo. W. House, Sec. 



Jan. 22, 23.— Indiana State, at Indianapolis. Ind. 

 Frank L. Douglierty, Sec. 



Jan. 24.-Lake Sliore.N. Y., at Fredonio, N. Y. 



John Benedict, Sec. 



Jan. 27.— Province of Quebec, at Montreal, Can. 

 S. B. La Montague, Sec, Montreal, Can. 



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



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



Feb. 4.— N. B. MIchiBan, at Vassar, Mich. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec, Rogersville, Mich. 



Feb. 1 i.-Seneca Co., N. Y., at Ovid, N. Y. 



Ira Wilson, Sec, Ovid, N. Y. 



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



May4.— Llnwood. Wis., at Kock Kim Centre, Wis. 

 B. Thomson, Sec, Waverly, Wis. 



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



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



June 19.— Willamette Valley, at La Fayette, Oreg. 

 E. J, Hadley,Sec. 



|y In order to have this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetinffs.— ED. 





1^ J. W. Johnson, Lock Spring,~o 

 Mo., on Jan. 11, 1885, writes as fol- 

 lows :j__ _ 



|» Iliave 50 colonies of bees in good coDdi- 

 tiou. They had a flight on Jan. 8, being 

 tlie first tliat tliey liave had for 30 or 40 

 days. The past season was a poor one 

 here, 43 pounds of comb lioney being tlie 

 most that I obtained from any one colony; 

 from some colonies 1 got none. I hope 

 that the next season may be better tor 

 bee-lseepers than tlie past was. 



1^ A. W. Osburn, of Cuba, on Jan. 

 8, 1885, writes thus concerning a sam- 

 ple of Cuban houey : 



I send you by this mail a sample of 

 Canipanilla or bell-flower honey, which 

 please sample and tell us how yon like it. 

 The honey is just as it was extracted 

 from the combs, and is not evaporated nor 

 selected. 



[The honey is very clear and white, but 

 it lacks " body," and though it Is sweet, it 

 does not quite suit our palate as to taste ; 

 we much prefer honey from white or 

 sweet clover.— Ed.] 



tallied 2 from a neighbor who was going 

 to sulphur them, and now 1 have 27, and 

 have taken 4U0 jiounds of honey, mostly 

 extracted. It is all sold, and has netted 

 me 13 cents per pound. My bees did well 

 through May and June, but in July tliey 

 did nothing, as it rained about every day. 

 Basswood blossomed cm July 20, but the 

 bees gathered honey from it only 3 or 4 

 days. There was a great iirofusion of 

 daiidelion and fruit blossoms here in May 

 and June. The honey-bees scarcely no- 

 ticed the fruit bloom, but O, goodness, 

 liow they everlastingly brought in the 

 honey from dandelion ! One colony in a 

 box-hive gathered about 40 pounds in less 

 than ten days, from that source alone. 

 Besides transferring my own bees, 1 have 

 transferred 23 colonies for other parties, 

 making 31 in all, with good success. My 

 bees are all in a good cellar, and as it is 

 considerably ventilated, 1 use artificial 

 heat by means of a stove, endeavoring to 

 keep the temperature at about 42° above 

 zero. 1 find that if it falls much below 

 that, the bees are more uneasy than if it 

 rises some above. 1 believe if it could be 

 kept at 48°, with plenty of pure air, it 

 would be about right. The 3 colonies ob- 

 tained from the neighbor are fed entirely 

 on granulated sugar syrup, and are with- 

 out pollen ; one of them was made by 

 uniting 3 colonies, and is a monstrous one. 

 The other is only a nucleus, but not a 

 dozen bees have died from either since 

 putiing them into the cellar two months 

 ago. I would say to all who intend to 

 keep bees, to buy a good bee-book, take a 

 good bee-paper, study them thoroughly, 

 get a colony or two of bees, and go ahead. 



m" J.Raymond Ball (9— 27), Knowl- 

 ton,p Quebec, on Dec. 31, 1884, re- 

 ports as follows : 



The past season here was a very poor 

 one for honey and bees, there having been 

 only about one-third of a crop, as near as 

 I can find out. One man here with 115 

 colonies took considerable less honey 

 than he did during the season previous 

 with only .53 colonies. Bee-keeping in 

 this Province is getting to be quite an in- 

 dustry ; numbers have g<ine into the busi- 

 ness since the introduction of the mov- 

 able-frame hive, three or tour years ago, 

 and they are meeting with fair success. I 

 commenced the season with 9 colonies, all 

 in box -hives, transferred them into the 

 Jones' hives, and increased them to 24 col- 

 onies. 1 sold I colony, bought 3, and ob- 



ciently settled by bee-keepers for Oregon 

 apiculture to compete with that of Cali- 

 fornia. It is only the wild flowers of the 

 hills and river bottoms with which our 

 bees have to content themselves. 



1^ E. S. Hollingshead, Culloden, 

 Ont., on Jan. 13, 1885, writes thus : 



Last May I purchased one colony of 

 black bees, and 1 have increased them to 

 7 colonies by employing swarming by 

 division. 1 Italianized 5 out of the 7. In 

 two instances the queens were virgin 

 queens two days old. I picked the old 

 queens from the frames and placed the 

 young virgin queens on them, at perfect 

 liberty, and in both instances the bees 

 accepted them, and in a few days both 

 were laying. The queens were both 

 Italians, and mated with Italian drones. 

 My bees are now in chaff-hives on the 

 summer stands. I have made many 

 blunders during the season, and have 

 taken no surplus honey, but the pleasure 

 that 1 have had in the management of my 

 bees, has more than compensated me for 

 my trouble. 



1^ Gust Murhard, Portland,^) 

 Oreg., on Dec. 20, 1884, reports as fol- 

 lows : 



The past season has been indeed a very 

 poor honey season in Oregon and Wash- 

 ington Territory, whilst the honey yield 

 of California has been a very abundant 

 one. Oregon and Washington Territory 

 had too much rain, even for web-foot 

 countries, whilst dry California again had 

 had sufficient rain the past season. Ore- 

 gon and Washington Territory are but 

 poor honey countries anyway, for want of 

 sufficient bee-pasturage. VVe have no 

 forests of basswood nor fields of Alsike 

 clover yet, nor many other flowers in 

 abundance, which advanced Eastern agri- 

 culture and horticulture afford to bees in 

 the Eastern .States ; and our limited white 

 clover pastures are often frozen out of the 

 ground, when severe sudden frosts catch 

 the ground uncovered with snow. It will 

 t)e two years before another yield of 

 honey can be expected from white clover, 

 whose bloom has no seed until the second 

 season, and as long as there is no seed in 

 a bloom, neither is there any honey. Our 

 large sage districts in eastern Oregon and 

 Washington Territory are not yet suff- 



ix Wm. Morse, Rockford,5 Ills., 

 on Jan. 2, 188-5, gives his report aa 

 follows : 



1 unpacked mv 27 colonies of bees on 

 Aiiril 10,1884; 24 of them were in good 

 condition, and 3 were queenless, one of 

 which was robbed the next day. On June 

 1,1 gave one of the 3 remaining, a laying 

 queen, and it produced 69 pounds of hon. y 

 in one-pound boxes. I gave the other 

 colony a drone-laying queen, and ii ave 

 me neither honey nor increase of I ees. 

 My 35 colonies I increased to 49 by 

 natural swarming, and i matie 3 colonies 

 by doubling nuclei, so that 1 now have .52- 

 good colonies. I obtained 3,046 pounds of 

 comb honey in one and two-pound sec- 

 tions, and 204 pounds of extracted honey, 

 being an average of 90 pounds per colony, 

 spring count. I .sold the honey at home 

 for 10, 123^, and 15 cents per pound, an 

 average of 13% cents per pound. On Oct. 

 1.5, 1 packed 27 colonies in chaff on the 

 summer stands, each having 34 to 40 

 pounds of stores, and on Nov. .5, I put 25 

 colonies into the cellar, each having 34 to- 

 37 pounds of stores. 



^^ N. L. Minor, a deaf-mute bee- 

 keeper of Clarksville,© Mo., on Jan. 

 12, 1885, gives his report as follows : 



Last season I took about 100 pounds of 

 honey from 9 colonies. My colonies were 

 weak, or perhaps I would liave secured 

 a larger crop. 1 do not think that a cellar 

 is a good place for wintering bees, as the 

 ventilation is seldom perfect ; I prefer to- 

 winter my bees on the summer stands. 



1^ L. J. Diehl, Butler,d Ind., on 

 Jan. 8, 1885, writes : 



My 200 colonies of pure, bright Italians 

 were very active to-day. They are strong 

 in bees, and are in the best condition. 1 

 have them on the summer stands. I ex- 

 pect wonders from them next season. 



^^ Henry Alley, Wenham,d Mass., 

 on Jan. 13, 1885, writes : 



The weather continues warm. We ex- 

 pected a cold wave this morning, as prom- 

 ised by "Old Prob," but it did not come. 

 It rained hard yesterday, and the ther- 

 mometer indicates 58° above zero. If bees 

 cannot come through all right, they ought 

 to die, for the weather is more like that of 

 the South than the North. 



i®° Thos. Thurlow, Lancaster,cx 

 Pa., on Jan. 12, 1885, asks the follow- 

 ing : 



The main thing with bees here, is to 

 have them strong enough in the spring to 

 gather surplus from locust bloom, which 

 is better than the linden here. From what 

 I have read in the Bee Journal, pea- 

 flour candv will start brood rearing early. 

 1 would like it in the spring. Do you 

 know where I can get pea-flour ? 



[Take peas and grind them into flour, 

 will be about the only way to get it.— Ed.] 



^° J. M. France, Montrose, 6 I'a., 

 on Jan. 13, 1885, writes thus : 



My crop of honey has been very satis- 

 factory the pa.st season. 1 have ia5C'ilq- 

 niesof bees all wintering in fine condi- 

 tion. The winter has been very favorable 

 so far, not more than two weeks at a time 

 that the bees did not have a good chance 

 to fly. 



