lllE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



171 



Local Convention Directory. 



Time and pi<tce 0/ Meetiiia. 



1KH5. 



Mar ■'<! — Tu'cnrawas Ci)., at New I'hilndelpllin, (). 

 Oeo. K. WlMUmis, Sec, New I'liiladelphia, O. 



Apr. :).-N. Ind. and S. Mich., at Oiishen, Ind. 



K. 1j. I'utt, Sec, Goshen. Ind. 



Apr. .1.— N. B. Kansaa, at Uiiiwatha, Kana. 



1,. C. Chirk. Sec. Granada, Kans. 



Apr. l.-N. K. Kentui-ky, at Walton, Ky. 



G. W. Crue, Sec . CovinKton, Ky. 



Apr. 9, III.— WeBtern. at St. Joseph. Mo. 



0. M. CraodalJ. Sec. Independence, Mo. 



Apr. 1 1.— Wabash ('oiinty. at Wahash, Ind. 



Henry Cripe, feec, N. Manchester, Ind, 



Apr. 2,'i.-Unlotl, at Kar'haro, Iowa. 



M. K. Darby, Sec. Dexter, Iowa. 



Apr. 28.— DeaMoinee County, at Burlinizton. Iowa. 

 Jno. Nau, Sec, Middleton, Iowa. 



May 4.-Linwood, Wl".. at Rock Klin Centre, Wis. 

 B. 'rhoni;<on. Sec, Waverly, Wis. 



May 7.— Progressive, at IJushnell, Ills. 



J. G. Norion, Sec. Macomb, Ills. 



May 19.— N. W. Ills., and S. W. Wis., at Davis. Ills. 

 Jonathan Stewart, Sec, Hock City, III. 



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



F. A. Paliuer, Sec. McBride, Mich. 



June ID.-Willaniette Valley, at La Fayette. OreK. 

 B.J. Had ley. Sec. 



Dec. a— 10.— Michigan State, at Detroit, Mich. 



U. D. CuttinK, Sec. Clinton, Mich. 



tW" In order to have this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetinsrs.- ED. 





Bees Haviiiff Good Flights.— "5— G. 



A. Beech, Quitmjiii,^^ iSIo., on March 

 (), 1SS.5, says : 



It has been very muddy for tlie last 

 week, and the bees have had good 

 Mights during that time. 1-astfallI 

 packed 35 colonies in chafl: on the 

 summer stands, and now 1 tind 32 of 

 iheni in good condition, and 3 dead. 



Not Discouraged.— Henry Lang- 

 kamp, (38—12), Beacli City.d O., on 

 March 7, l.s,s.5, writes : 



This has been a hard winter on 

 bees. I lost 26 colonies out of 30 

 which were packed in Simplicity 

 hives on the summer stands. 1 have 

 H colonies in chaff hives, which are all 

 alive. All of the colonies have the 

 diarriiea, the cause being tlie severe 

 winter and the existence of a cider 

 mill within a half mile of here, last 

 fall. I am not discouraged. 



Italians vs. Brown and Black Bees. 



—Geo. Poindexter, Kenney,© Ills., 

 March -5, 188.5, writes as follows : 



Having kept the black or German 

 bees until tlie last 3 years, I am now 

 prepared to take my stand in favor of 

 the Italians, as I have found them 

 superior in almost every respect to 

 the black or brown Germans, accord- 

 ing to the color of the combs in which 

 tliey are hatched. This makes the 

 difference between the brown bees 

 and the blacks, but no difference in 

 the quantity of honey produced by 

 either, as they are both the same race 

 f>f bees, for by in-and-in breeding so 

 long going oii in tlie forests of Amer- 



ica, tliey could not possilily have kei>t 

 separate. iMy experience with tlie 

 bhicks lias been that if 2 frames of 

 brood bt^ taken from a colony, it never 

 rallies from the loss; if a colony loses 

 its queen, tlie bees superseded tier 

 with tlie moth-miller. The blacks are 

 too charitable. They will give the 

 bee-keeper all the honey they store in 

 the supers, and leave themselves to 

 starve in the brood-nest. They 

 (ill the sections with pollen and 

 drones, and in a poor honey season 

 they call on tlie Italians for a few 

 frames of honey with which to carry 

 them through the winter. Italians 

 bred from colonies that produce the 

 most honey, is my motto. 



Great Mortality of Bees.— 5— R. V. 

 Williams, (1.5—1.5), Goldsmith,© Ind., 

 on March 7, ias5, says : 



There has been a great mortality 

 amongst the bees in this part of the 

 county this winter. More than half 

 of the bees have starved to death, as 

 the last season was a very poor one 

 for honey, and the winter being so 

 very coldi that most of the bees were 

 dead before the bee-keeper had a 

 chance to examine them. 



St.arvation and Diarrhea. — E. B. 



Sonthwick, Sherman,^ Mich., on 

 March 0, 188.5, says : 



I was not a little surprised to see 

 the answers given to query No. 28 in 

 the query department. The querist 

 says, without any qualifications, that 

 his bees " died from starvation," and 

 then by describing the appearance of 

 the inside of the hive, shows that they 

 had the diarrhea. This is one of 

 many hundred cases that occur every 

 winter, which bear the unimpeach- 

 able evidence that starvation some- 

 times produces diarrhea. That it al- 

 ways does, or that diarrhea is always 

 the consequent of starvation, I do not 

 pretend to say, but in the majority of 

 the instances, that is the case. The 

 experiments of M. Chossat, in Paris, 

 in 1843, to establish the symptoms of 

 starvation, proves that diarrhea is the 

 actual consequent, and comes on just 

 before convulsions and death. It 

 looks to me that the querist was per- 

 fectly satisfied that the cause of the 

 diarrhea was starvation, and the 

 query is put just to see how it could 

 be evaded. 



Bees in Good Condition.— Wickliffe 



Fisher, Ilamler,^ O., on March 10 

 1885, writes tlius : 



Bees have not wintered well in this 

 section of the country, but by proper 

 mangement my bees are in good con- 

 dition, considering the extreme cold 

 winter. As I look back over the past 

 11 years of my experience with bees, 

 I can say that they have paid me a 

 good profit, but it took me several 

 years to learn by experience things 

 which I could have learned by read- 

 ing a single copy of the Bee Jouk- 

 NAL. Although I do not wish to be 

 classed as such, nevertheless the say- 

 ing is true that " Experience is a dear 

 school, but fools will learn in no 

 other." 



First Flight In 1« Weeks. -C. W. 



Dayton, (.50—112), IhadfoiiUcJ Iowa, 

 on .March 9, 1SS5, writes : 



To-day the colony and the two- 

 frame nucleus which I have jiacked 

 in leaves on the suniiiier stands are 

 enjoying their first flight for justllj 

 weeks, their last flight having been on 

 Xov. 17, 18,s4. Both are in good con- 

 dition, and the full colony has con- 

 sumed about 1}4 pounds of honey 

 during the time. The mercury varied 

 from 43^ below to 44^ above zero dur- 

 ing the winter. 



Feeding Sour Honey.— O. .1. Post, 

 Chagrin Falls, dO., on March 2, ias^5, 

 writes : 



In the spring of 1884 I had 7 colonies 

 of bees, and increased them to 13, 

 which I packed on the summer stands 

 last fall. There is but little signs of 

 diarrhea. For the past 2 or 3 days it 

 has been warm enough for them to fly, 

 but I kept them in by packing snow 

 around the hives, as I was afraid that 

 they would fall into the snow, and 

 then I would lose the most of them. 

 They had splendid Hights on Dec. 29 

 and 30, 1884. In the spring of 1884 I 

 fed about 5 gallons of old sour honey, 

 and the results were as follows : 



Colony No. 1— cast a swarm on May 21 



" 5- W'.'.'.'.WW".'.'.'. ■• Ts 



'■ " 4— " IS 



" 4— " a seconr. swarm on June 2 



" 5— put on 2H one-lb. sections May 22 



" 6- ■' " -2 



" " 7— caataswarm on *' IS 



" " 7— ■' a second swarm on JuneI2 



One swarm absconded. Nos. -5 and 6 

 filled the sections in apple bloom, and 

 the honey was red and does not candy 

 much. They have some of it for win- 

 ter stores. They also gathered some 

 honey in the fall that looks like water 

 in a swamp— black and dirty— and is 

 thiner than clover honey and of a dif- 

 ferent color. 



Bees in Excellent Condition.— Dr. G. 



L. Tinker, New Philadelphia,oO., on 

 March 6, 1885, says : 



My 40 colonies of Syrio-Albinos 

 had a good flight on Feb. 28, and are 

 all in excellent condition. Almost as 

 many colonies have been lost in this 

 section this winter as in the winter 

 of 1880-81. 



Wintering Bees.— J. II. Andre, 

 Lockwood,? N. Y., writes as follows: 



Although I have seen so much in 

 the Bee .louKNAL about wintering 

 bees, yet I would like to add a few 

 words on the subject. I think that a 

 great many failures in wintering bees 

 is the result of their being moved 

 into winter quarters too early in the 

 season, instead of leaving them on the 

 summer stands until there has been 

 one good, sharp, stinging freeze to 

 put the finishing touches to ripening 

 and purifying the honey. I do not 

 care if the mercury goes down to 20^ 

 below zero, for one such freeze does 

 no harm to the bees. Last season I 

 put 25 colonies into a cellar, after the 

 winter had gotten well started, the 

 drain became stopped up, and water 

 stood in the cellar under the bees all 

 winter. They were taken out on 



