284 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Gathering Pollen. — B. Jenkinson, 

 BrHiidon.o Wis., on April 27, 1885, 

 writes tlius : 



I removed my bees from tlie cellar on 

 April 20, ImviiiK lieen confined for five 

 months without a Might. Tliey came out 

 iu excelleBt oonilitiuii. I have kept bees 

 for 7 years, and I never had them look so 

 healthy, and never so populous. I win- 

 tered 48 colonies, and 1 did not lose one ; 

 other parties that wintered their bees out- 

 doors lost heavily. One party using Mrs. 

 Cotton's hive lost 25 out of 38, and a num- 

 ber of others liave liad the same mis- 

 fortune. My bees liave commenced to 

 work on the willow and poplar, and are 

 gathering pollen quite fast. 



Wide Frames and Sections.— Dr. C. 



C. Miller, (200—?), Marengo, 5 Ills., 

 on April 23, 1885, writes as follows : 



I cannot say how many bees I will have 

 lelt, but 1 think that it will be one-fiftli 

 less than last fall. 1 am ashamed to a<l- 

 mit that some starved. In reply to Mr. B. 

 F. Little, page SO, I would say : The 2- 

 inch sections were in wide frames, the 

 others in Heddon supers. He will find 

 the matter more fullv detailed on page 213 

 of the Bee Journal for 1884. 1 f wide 

 frames are used, tliey should be as wide as 

 the sections. 



The Past Season in England.- Alfred 



Riisbridge. Chichester, England, on 

 April 16, 188-5, writes thus : 



Last season proved exceedingly favor- 

 able for bees in this part of the world, and 

 my apiary of less than 40 colonies yielded 

 me a profit of about S.500 on the sale of 

 honey only. 



Report, etc., from Gilbert W. Dun- 

 bar, Embdeu Centre,+o Maine : 



The season of 1884 was a very poor one 

 in ihispartof Maine; but my bees were 

 strong in the spring, and we had quite a 

 got id flow of honey from raspberry during 

 the latter part of June and the forepart of 

 July. The result of the season's work 

 was that I doubled my number of colonies 

 and sold an average of SO worth of honey 

 per colony, spring count. I have read 

 Willi interest the articles on hibernation, 

 by \V. F. Clarke, and 1 want to say thatl 

 have found 40 or .50 colonies of bees in 

 trees during the past ten years, and I 

 never have found but one old colony. My 

 experience has been tliat a colony of bees 

 in a tree, unless they find an extra good 

 one, stands a very small chance of coming 

 out alive in the spring ; in fact, they hiber- 

 nate forever. 



Never Lost a t'olony in Wintering. — 



R. M. Osboni, Kane, p Ills., on April 

 8, 1885, writes as follows : 



The past was a winter that will be long 

 remembered. In this vicinity wheat is 

 badly frozen, peach trees killed, and the 

 rabbits and mice have done a great deal 

 of damage to young fruit trees, hedges 

 and vines, and the bees, where they were 

 not fproperly cared for, have suffered ; the 

 loss is very great in this county. I win- 

 tered niv .54 colonies on the sunnner 

 stands, all in double-walled- hives with 

 rags i)acked over them and in the space 

 around the brood-chamber. My liives ail 

 fmnt ^ipiith, and the entrances were closed 

 to o,' 2 inches. I was careful to keep all 

 the snow and sleet away from the en- 

 trances. I have not lost one colony of 

 bees up to the present date. Every col- 

 ony is busily working on the maple 

 bloom, and all are strong and in splendid 

 condition. The ages of my queens are as 

 follows: Five of them are 4 years old: 

 20, 3 years ; 22, 2 years ; aud 7, 1 year, and 



they are doing good service. I have kept 

 bees for 8 years, and strange as it may 

 seem to some, 1 have never lost a colony 

 in wintering, and 1 have never had a case 

 of bee-diarrhea or foul brood. Hive No. 

 15 is my own make, and is double-walled, 

 the sides and back of the brood-chamber 

 are glass, and 1 only packed rags on top 

 of the frames ; at the back of the hive is 

 a sluitter which 1 could open at any time 

 and see the bees through the glass. The 

 colony, in this hive, wintered splendidly. 

 My brood-frames are all 11 3-lx8J-4 inches, 

 inside measure, and I use only 9 frames at 

 all seasons of the year. Drones are flying 

 to-day, but tlie weather is cool for this 

 time of year. Zero weather commenced 

 on Dec. 17, 1884, and ended on Feb. 32, 

 1885 ; in all we had 33 days when the mer- 

 cury was below zero. The white and 

 sweet clovers are very promising for a 

 good crop. The ideas advanced by Mr. C. 

 Theilmann, on page 133, exactly coincide 

 with my experience. I have iound the 

 substance of his article to be correct- 

 correct so far as I have been able to un- 

 derstand Nature. Nature's works are 

 something that man never can compete 

 witl), although man can accomplish, by 

 the help of Nature, many seemingly 

 wonderful things. 



Alnni in Winter Stores.— J. M. 



Doudua,(42— 42), Alexandria,-K3Minn., 

 on April 20, 1885, writes thus : 



My bees came out in good condition 

 without any loss. The cellar was too cold 

 for the papers, but not for the bees. The 

 temperature was from 34' to 38= above 

 zero the most of the time, but it was as 

 low as 23'. Some combs are a little 

 moldy, with very little signs of diarrhea. 

 A few colonies were put into the cellar in 

 October, and they did not have a flight for 

 173 days ; the others were confined only 

 1.57 days. There was brood in a few of 

 the hives. Those that were confined the 

 longest, had very little natural stores ; 

 they were fed on sugar syrup with one 

 ounce of alum to every 10 pounds of sugar. 



Bees in Fair Condition. — F. A. Gib- 

 son, Racine, ex Wis., on April 18, 1885, 

 says : 



1 have my bees on the summer stands 

 again, and I have 135 left out of 137. They 

 have come through the winter in fair con- 

 dition, having been confined without a 

 flight from last Thanksgiving day until 

 April 1. About half of my colonies fill 9 

 spaces in Langstvoth hives. I have learned 

 something about bees diu'ingthe past hard 

 winter, and I now think that my winter 

 losses are over. 



Good Snccess in IWintering.— L. G. 



Reed, (2(3—25), Kent,6 O., on April 

 2!), 1885, says : 



At this writing my bees are all right. I 

 lost only one colony, and that died with 

 the diarrhea in March. Several colonies 

 sulfered considerably with the same com- 

 plaint, but with close attention I have got 

 them over the worst, and they are build- 

 ing up fast. I prepared them for winter 

 in a variety of ways, with a variety of 

 stores, and in a variety of hives, all seem- 

 ing to do about alike — in fact, 1 consider 

 my success extraordinary. 



Report, from J. C. Bale, Hamilton, 

 Ont., on April 21:5, 1885: 



I have been examining my bees to-day, 

 and I found 18 out of 19 colonies dead, 3 

 having died siiu^e the terrible cold snap 

 came to an end. A few of them starved, 

 but the most of them died with the diar- 

 rhea, tliougli packed as they were last 

 winter on the summer stands. 



So Far a Splendid Season.— Rev. R. 



C. Bedford, Montgomery, o, Ala., on 

 April 24, 1885, writes thus : 



So far this is proving to be a .splendid 

 season for bees. Iliad B colonies in the 

 fall, and I left them right where they had 

 been all summer, with no change except a 

 piece of thicker covering in place of the 

 oil-cloth ; they wintered nicely. The 

 spring is very late, with us, but the 

 weather has been most delightful since it 

 fairly opened, and 1 never saw blossoms 

 so abundant. My first swarm issued on 

 April 10 ; 1 have since had 3 others. Mine 

 are almost the only bees in movable- 

 frame hives in all this section of country, 

 and I am doing what I can to introduce 

 them among oee-keepers. I shall sell 

 nearly all of my increase this year for 

 that purpose. Every one seems delighted 

 with the change. I expect, at no distant 

 day. to see this one of the greatest honey- 

 producing sections in the world. My 

 white clover is doing nicely. 1 had two 

 splendid crops of buckwlieat last year, 

 and I have sowed 2 bushels this year ; it 

 is now looking well. 



Nearly a Total loss.— Ed. S. Harvey, 

 Gavett,-o O., on April 30,1885, writes: 



From 90 to' 95 per cent, of the bees that 

 were wintered on the suniiuer stands, in 

 this county, have died. I have lost 98 col- 

 onies, and have 38 left, but nevertheless 1 

 am not discouraged. 



Losses are Heavy.— -J. B. Mason, 

 (40—80), Mechanic Falls, P Maine, on 

 April 29, 1885, writes : 



In this locality the losses are very 

 heavy, bees that were wintered on the 

 summer stands in single-walled hives 

 having suffered badly ; those in chaff- 

 packed hives have wintered nuich better. 

 Those wintered in cellars have generally 

 come ont in very good condition. The 

 most of my bees were wintered in a cellar 

 where it was necessary to have a fire to 

 keep the temperature above freezing. A 

 pump was in the cellar and a tank of 

 water ; it was necessary to pass by the 

 bees several times a day with a light to 

 pump water, and this disturbed the bees, 

 but tliey came out in the best condition. 

 I removed them from tlie cellar on April 

 30, and they brought in pollen on the same 

 day^ The first natural pollen was brought 

 in on April 18. 



Resnlts of the Winter.— E. Picljup, 



Limerick,;^ Ills., on April 24, 1885, 

 writes as follows : 



My diary shows the number of days 

 when the mercury was down to and be- 

 low zero, this winter and 1, 3, 3 and 4 win- 

 ters past, to be respectively about 46, 39, 

 34, 5 and 34. Colonies unpacked on the 

 summer stands and otf of tlie ground, are 

 nearly extinct ; those that were on the 

 ground are better. Some bee-keepers 

 liave lost all that were off of the ground, 

 but saved all on the ground. Some of the 

 oldest and best bee-keepers here have lost 

 all. Bees had gooil flights last fall. There 

 was not much cold weather until about 

 the middle of December, and sudden 

 changes, about the holidays, made the 

 bees uneasy ; then set in a long-continued 

 and severely cold spell which did the mis- 

 chief." My colonies with not the best of 

 honey (a large cider-mill near by), and 

 plenty of pollen, stand thus : Thirty on 

 the summer stands, with wind-break, 2 

 left ; 10 packed on three sides, 8 left ; 16 

 packed all around, no opening in the bot- 

 tom of the hive, 10 left ; aud 33 well 

 packed all around and on the top with 

 from 3 to 4 inches of sawdust, and a 2- 

 inch hole in each bottom-board, covered 

 with wire, and straw in under the hives, 30 



