316 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Bees Working on Apple Bloom.— W. 



B. Zinn, Holbiook.-o W. Va., on May 

 8, 188-5, reports as follows : 



We have had a very cold winter here, 

 and a great many bees perished for the 

 want of food and suitable hives to with- 

 stand the severe winter. Bee-culture is 

 in its infancy in tliis State. The latter 

 part of last summer was so dry that the 

 bees did not gather honey enough to win- 

 ter on, and feeding bees sugar is yet a 

 great novelty with some people here. Last 

 Nov. I had 37 colonies whidi I doubled 

 back to 22, and fed them 190 pounds of 

 granulated sugar. I bad 18 colonies in 

 chaff hives, of which I took out all the 

 frames in the upper story and put in five 

 inches of wheat chaff; the other 4 colo- 

 nies were In single-walled hives. From 

 those 4 hives I took out 4 frames and put 

 in 2 thin division-boards on each side of 

 the brood-nest, and put in chaff between 

 them and the sides of the hives, and a 

 chaff pillow on top of them. They all 

 wintered well, and all seemed healthy. 

 One colony starved in the first week in 

 April, but it was my fault. My bees were 

 wintered on the summer stands. They 

 are working finely now on apple bloom. 



Shipping Bees.— James B. Mason, 

 Mechanic Falls, p Me., writes thus in 

 regard to the cost of shipping bees : 



I wish to ask whether the classification 

 of bee-keeping goods, as published in the 

 Bee Journal and discussed at the Bee- 

 Keepers' Congress held at New Orleans 

 last February, applies to freight or ex- 

 press, or both". Bees are sent mostly by 

 express, and the express companies will 

 pot hold themselves responsible for any 

 damage on bees, aiid still persist in mak- 

 ing outrageous charges. I have just re- 

 ceived two lots of bees from Tennessee ; 

 the first lot was 12 five-frame colonies all 

 packed in 3 boxes, each box weigiiing 

 about 7.5 pounds. They were billed at 100 

 pounds each, and the express company's 

 bill was $27.2.5. In a few days another lot 

 came, exactly like the first, from the same 

 partj', and over the same route, as near as 

 lean ascertain, and the bill on this lot 

 ■was 817.50. Now, wiiat should cause this 

 difference in charges ? The first lot of 

 bees cost, froiu Clifton, Tenn., to Port- 

 land, Maine, over.S8 per 100 pounds ; and 

 this without any responsibility on the 

 part of the express company. 



[The classification as published referred 

 only to freight charges. Probably the 

 first charge was a mistake of the billing 

 clerk. An application to the express com- 

 pany for a P.EHATE wonld be wise.— Ei).] 



Report, from M. Bailey, Winterset, 

 9 Iowa, on May 12, 188.5 : 



Bees wintered poorly in this section, 

 from 90 to 95 per cent, being dead. Un- 

 wholesome winter stores, improper care 

 and severe cold caused the trouble. 



the first swarm, when I was called to at- 

 tend to another, and I expect that I will 

 have plenty to do now until the swarniing- 

 fever is over. I did not have my bees 

 packed on the stands, nor in the honey- 

 house, and I have lost less than some that 

 packed theirs. One bee-man told me that 

 he had packed up his bees good, for he 

 had not one colony now out of three. My 

 loss was 2 out of 23 ; now 1 have 33 all in 

 good condition. Some have an idea that 

 we were overstocking our locality, but 1 

 have found ont that those who say so do 

 not have colonies strong enough to prove 

 to them what can be done even in this 

 much-believed overstocked place. I like 

 to keep my colonies strong. 1 do not be- 

 lieve in keeping so many colonies — no 

 more than I can keep strong ; but last year 

 was rather adverse to keeping bees strong. 

 Our present prospect has never been bet- 

 ter in the past three years, and if the 

 caterpillars and worms keep away, we 

 will be able to give a good report next fall. 



Good Prospects in Utah.— Jno. Dunn, 

 Tooele,*o Utah, on May 7, 1885,reports 

 as follows : 



Our loss in wintering was light, as the 

 winter was what we call an open one. I 

 wintered my bees mostly on the summer 

 stands. Four colonies I put into my ex- 

 tracting house, but the mice got at them 

 and done more harm than Jack Frost di<l 

 to those that were outside. As for the 

 spring, I have never seen such for blo.s- 

 soms as the present one, and the bees are 

 "working like.beavers," only they make 

 more noise. On May 5 my first swarm for 

 the season issued, and upon examination 

 I found a good many colonies preparing 

 to swarm. 1 was not quite through with 



Orangre and iMagnolia Honey.— C. F. 



Henniiig, Citra,© Fla., on May 4, 

 1885, says : 



I have a lot of pure orange-bloom honey 

 this year. Bees are working now on the 

 magnolias, several varieties of which are 

 growing here in abundance. 



Extracting Honey.— E. V. Elder, 

 Lake Village,©^ Ark., on May 1, 1885, 

 says : 



So far this year my bees are doing splen- 

 didly. I extracted a little honey on April 

 39, but I had to quit on account of robbing. 

 1 intend to commence extracting in earn- 

 est on May 4. I have 67 colonies, spring 

 count. 1 liad one swarm on April 19. 1 

 think that if Mr. Heddon would extend 

 the arm on each end of his reversible 

 frame clear down to the bottom-bar, it 

 would be better, for then the bees could 

 not put propolis below their ends. I 

 think it would reverse more easily, and 

 the end-bars would always be clean. 



Argument vs. Invective. — W. Z. 



Hutchinson, (68 — 10), Rogersville, d 

 Mich., writes thus : 



I was pleased, Mr. Editor, to see the 

 stand that you have taken in regard to 

 offensive personalities. I may have been 

 among the correspondents whose com- 

 munications were "dumped" in the waste 

 basket ; if they contained offensive per- 

 sonalities, "'tis well" that they were 

 "dumped." Let us use strong arguments 

 and vigorous language, but let us be 

 courteous. 



Four-Fifths of the Bees Dead.— A. 



Reusch, (23— 30), Chariton,? Iowa, on 

 May 7, 1885, writes thus : 



The past winter was a terrible one on 

 bees in all the Northern States, about 75 

 per cent, of all the bees being dead, and a 

 good many that are left are weak and dis- 

 eased. 1 have made quite extensive in- 

 quiries of the bee-men, and received the 

 same answer from all — "dead! dead!" 

 We had in this county (Lucas) about 3,000 

 colonies, and about l,fiOO of them have 

 died. Extreme cold and poor stores 

 gathered from cider and cane mills caused 

 diarrhea among them, and a good many 

 did not have the protection they should 

 have had. The most of the bee-keepers 

 lost all they had, while a few saved nearly 

 all of their bees. I lost 3 out of 33 colo- 

 nies, one with diarrhea, and I am ashamed 

 to admit that 2 of them starved after they 

 had wintered nicely, and after I had 

 carried them out of the cellar, and had 

 the feeders in the hives, and the sugar in 

 the house to feed them with. I carried 

 my bees ont of the cellar on March 3, and 

 they brought in pollen on the last day of 

 March. All but 3 colonies are in good 

 condition, and the 3 are weak, but I can 

 build them up into strong colonies by the 

 time the honey harvest comes on. 



StiH Snowing.— J. M. Doudna, Al- 

 exandria,+o Minn., on May 10, 1885, 

 writes : 



We had 2 inches of snow on May 6. On 

 May 7 the ground froze bard, and we had 

 a Manitoba zephyr with snow again on 

 May 8. I shall lose the most of my bees. 



No- Loss in Wintering.— 2— J. Ray- 

 mond Ball, (27—27), Knowlton, p Que- 

 bec, on May 11, 1885, writes thus : 



I put out my bees on April 22, after hav- 

 ing been confined 173 days, and I found 

 them all alive and generally in good con- 

 dition, with brood in nearly every hive. 

 (Those who would like to know how and 

 where my bees were wintered, I would 

 refer to page 43.) As the weather was 

 warm, I coinmenced with an extra hive, 

 and cleaned them all out in good shape, 

 and by the time 1 got through, the first 

 ones had begun to gather pollen. They 

 worked that night until alter sundown, 

 and the next morning they were at it 

 again before sunrise ; and that day the 

 mercury was at 80' in the shade. It came 

 on cold'after that, and there has not been 

 but 3 or 3 parts of day since, when bees 

 could work. I found that the colonies 

 which were the nearest to the stove and 

 the farthest from the wall had wintered 

 the best. One very large colony that 

 came out as a swarm on June 17, 1884, and 

 gathered 50 pounds of surplus comb honey, 

 was not more than 5 feet from the side of 

 the stove (the thermometer that hung on 

 the end of it would often run up to 65° and 

 70°), wintered perfectly ; and the 3 colo- 

 nies put together last fall and fed up on 

 sugar syrup, also wintered all right. 



Practically No Loss in Wintering.— 



Ira Barber, De Kalb Junction, 5N.Y., 

 on May 13, writes as follows : 



My bees are all on the summer stands, 

 after the tumbling they have taken in 

 removing and wintering. My loss is 4 col- 

 onies out of 200—3 were so badly broken 

 up that they failed to winter, one starved 

 and one was queenless. 1 began to put 

 them out on April 17, but the weather was 

 so cold from that time until May, that the 

 bulk of them were left in the cellar until 

 May 1 to the 9tli. I have not as even a lot 

 of bees as I have had for the last 8 years, 

 but the most of this was caused in locating 

 so many in a strange yard. They came 

 out bright and clean, except about 20 colo- 

 nies that were placed too near the bottom 

 of the cellar, in so low a temperature that 

 their hives were quite badly soiled ; while 

 those 6 inches higher were bright and 

 clean. In a cellar as good as mine has 

 been— 4.5° to 48»— bees should be placed one 

 foot or more above the bottom of the cel- 

 lar, where the cellar is very damp; and I 

 consider a warm, damp cellar (and I will 

 say a very damp one), the only safe place 

 to winter bees in. In such a cellar bees 

 winter safely if they have enough of 

 honey, without regard to the time it was 

 gathered, or how much pollen they may 

 have in it ; as there will be no discharges 

 from the bees, as a rule, unless it is in a 

 dry state. Bees cannot survive in a warm, 

 dry room for 5 or 6 months, yet they will 

 come out in splendid condition after re- 

 maining in a warm, wet room for that 

 length of time. Will some of the great 

 bee-teachers, who never wintered their 

 bees successfully, please tell us why this 

 is so ? The prospect for a good honey 

 season in Northern New Tork is good. 

 Clover has wintered well, and as basswood 

 was a failure last year, we are looking for 



