408 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUIINAL. 



nostrils, and the breath of his mouth ; 

 and when tliej' liave beaten him to 

 death, his battered entails are crushed 

 within the hide that remains entire. 

 When dead, they leave him pent up, 

 and lay upon his sides fragments of 

 boughs, tiiyme, and fresli cassia. This 

 is done wlieu lirst the zepliyis stir the 

 waves, before the meadows blush 

 with new colors, before the chatter- 

 ing swallow suspends her nest upon 

 the rafters. Meanwhile the juices, 

 warmed in tlie tender veins, ferment ; 

 and animals, wonderful to behold, 

 first short of their feet, and in a little 

 while buzzing with wings, swarm to- 

 gether, and more and more take to 

 the tliin air, till ttiey burst away like 

 a shower poured down from summer 

 clouds ; or like an arrow from the 

 whizzing string, when the swift 

 Parthians first begin the fight. . . 

 Bees through all the belly hum amid 

 the decomposed bowels of the cattle; 

 pour forth with the fermenting juices 

 from the burst sides, and in immense 

 clouds roll along ; then swarm to- 

 gether on the top of a tree, and hang 

 down in a cluster from the bending 

 boughs." 



I trust that these isolated and 

 peculiar views on a subject of such 

 practical interest to you may not be 

 uninteresting. 



Prof. D. A. Owen, of Franklin Col- 

 lege, was elected an honorary mem- 

 ber. Mr. Owen then made a brief 

 and interesting address on the benefit 

 of the association to the bee-keepers. 

 The following otRcers were then 

 elected by acclamation : President, 

 C. H. Hall, of Franklin ; Vice-Presi- 

 dent, J. T. Ragsdale, of Trafalgar; 

 Secretary, L. K. Jackson, of Urmey- 

 ville ; and Treasurer, Mrs. Phebe J. 

 Felly, of Franklin. 



The President asked what damage 

 if any the roach does in the liive. 

 Messrs. A. T. Kelly, John Beard, and 

 the Secretary thouglit that it does no 

 damage, but it gets into the hive to 

 hide, and probably for a warm place 

 to lay its eggs above the cushion. 



The cause of the great mortality of 

 bees during the past winter was then 

 discussed. Mr. A. T. Kelly no).iced 

 bees dying around the hive early in 

 the fall, and found a line of dead bees 

 to a lot of boneset. and found dead 

 bees on and around it. He thinks 

 that the cause of death. The Secre- 

 tary noticed bees working on boneset, 

 and he looked for dead bees around 

 it, but found none. lie thinks the 

 cause is from juices gatliered from 

 decaying fruit during the droutli iu 

 the fall, and tlie long confinement of 

 winter. 



From 2.5.5 colonies, last fall, only 78 

 colonies are left, and many of them 

 are very weak. It was thought that 

 90 per cent, of all the bees in the 

 county are dead. 



Some one asked whether tlie honey 

 the bees died on would be fit for table 

 use. Mr. Bishop and A. T. Kelly 

 thought that the sealed honey was 

 good; Mr. J. Beard advised keeping 

 It to feed the bees and build up colo- 

 nies strong as early as possible, and 

 increase the bees so as to fill up the 

 old hives as fast as possible. Mr. A. 



T. Kelly would fumigate the combs 

 and put them in the house until ready 

 to be used. 



The convention adjourned to meet 

 iu the same place on the first Satur- 

 day in October, 1885. 



Li. R. Jackson, Sec. 



C. H. Hall, Pres. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



The Season, Hibernation, etc. 



ALLKN PKINGLE. 



The honey season is just opening 

 here in this latitude. True, we have 

 had a honey-yield, more or less, for 

 the past four or five weeks from the 

 maple, the willow, the dandelion, etc.; 

 but we scarcely call it a honey-flow 

 till the clovers open out. To-day the 

 Alsike and white clovers are intro- 

 ducing their rich and fragrant bloom 

 to our admiring gMze, and in a day or 

 two our little industrious wards will 

 doubtless be revelling in tlieir invit- 

 ing sweets. I regard the Alsike 

 clover lis our staple honey-plant here, 

 and I sow it liberally. It also makes 

 good hay— better than the red clover. 

 It has a finer fibre, hardly ever 

 lodges, and is better relished by stock 

 than any or the other clovers with 

 which I am acquainted. It also gen- 

 erously produces seed when the red 

 produces none ; in this section the red 

 has produced very little seed for the 

 past few years, while mv Alsike has 

 yielded abundantly. The seed is 

 taken from the first crop. When cut 

 for hay before the seed ripens, it will 

 bloom a second time, but the after- 

 bloom does not always yield honey. 



As about 75 per cent, of tlie bees in 

 this district died during the winter 

 and spring, tliere is unfortunately 

 only a small force comparatively to 

 take hold of the splendid yield which 

 the season promises. Some lost all, 

 while others saved but a fraction. My 

 own, I am glad to say, were more 

 fortunate, as I only lost a few colonies 

 out of :i() wintered outside and (iU in 

 the cellar. 



I see that Mr. Clarke is still labor- 

 ing over the "hibernation theory;" 

 and, to use a provincialism, " going 

 it for all he is worth" to "prove 

 points and establish things."" Well, 

 as I have said befcire, I do think there 

 is some truth in the notion, and I 

 would not discourage laudable inves- 

 tigation by throwing one drop of cold 

 water on "hiliernalion." When our 

 good friend Prof. Cook coolly and 

 laconically wrote "bees do not hiber- 

 nate," be made a terrible mistake — 

 for himself. He might have known 

 that he would get just what he lias 

 got. But, unlike professors generally, 

 he is a proverbially good-natured soul, 

 and hence owns up and takes it easy. 

 Mr. Clarke will either prove " hiber- 

 nation " or do something else with it 

 before he stops. 



But I allude to this subject in order 

 to correct Mr. Clarke on one little 

 point in his last article on page 361. 

 He makes "objection to cellars and 

 bee-houses" because they " keep the 

 bees closely confined in darkness, pre- 

 venting the old bees from going out- 



side of the hive to die." I submit, 

 respectfully, that this is an error. 

 Neither the cellar nor the darkness 

 prevents the old bees from going out 

 of the hive to die. Everv winter my 

 cellar bee-house, which is perfectly 

 dark, is literally strewn— the sawdust 

 floor— with old defunct bees that come 

 out of the house, fly or jump from the 

 alighting board to the ground, and 

 die decently and quietly as becomes 

 them. These do not die of disease, 

 for such can. to the experienced eye, 

 be readily distinguished of old age. 



One word in regard to Mr. Joshua 

 Buirs article on page 363 : As an an- 

 swer to mine on page 266, it is. I 

 should think, a rather curious pro- 

 duction. This must be patent to all 

 critical readers. And because the 

 discussion is "drifting to personali- 

 ties," our indulgent e<iitor asks us to 

 " let it stop here." Well, it was un- 

 necessary to do even tliat, for I have 

 no time to waste in that direction. 



Selby, Out., June 15, 1885. 



For tne American Bee Journal. 



The Wintering Problem. 



L. C. JOHNSON. 



Again and again and yet again will 

 this question come up until we shall 

 winter our bees as successfully as 

 farmers winter their calves. Slowly 

 we learn. Prior to the past winter, 

 Mr. James lledtlon with all his great 

 experience and keen observation (and 

 they are great), saw in pollen the only 

 danger; but after losing $1,.5U0 worth 

 of bees, he now sees another great 

 danger in long continued cold, and he 

 says that he now feels sure that his 

 knowledge insures him against any 

 farther loss iu wintering. He also 

 says : " I am sure that 1 see clear 

 enough to not only wander out of the 

 darkness, but lead out my compan- 

 ions." I would suggest that Mr. II. 

 wait until he has tried his new theories, 

 and has been successful at least one 

 winter. For the past three winters I 

 have been successful in wintering my 

 bees, having lost but one colony, and 

 that the mice destroyed winter before 

 last. 



On page 859, Mr. Ileddon asks, 

 " Have the successful ones known 

 ichy they were successful V" Now my 

 experience is too small to say that I 

 k-nou\ but I think that the following 

 were the reasons why I succeeded in 

 wintering well all of my 26 colonies 

 out-of-doors last winter : 



1. They were so thoroughly packed 

 as to keep them warm. They were 

 wintered in one-story Simplicity hives 

 placed side by side with 8 inches of 

 sawdust or 1(3 inches of chaff and two 

 walls between the bees and the 

 weather. 



2. They had 30 pounds of honey or 

 sugar syrup in eaeli hive. 



3. They had the full summer en- 

 trance open below, save in extrem6 

 cold weather (10^ to 30" below zero), 

 when a shovelful of snow was thrown 

 over it. Above the bees was chaff or 

 dry sawdust, so they had pure air and 

 could fly whenever the weather would 

 permit. 



