•THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



491 





Excessive Swarming. — Dr. J. C. 



Thom, Streetsville, Ont„ on July 24, 

 1885, says : 



My bees have swarmed excessively. 

 Hoiiey-Ratherina has been only medium 

 so far, and basswood is just out. Tiie 

 weather is liot, and perhaps we will yet 

 obtain some surplus honey here. 



" All's Well that Ends Well."— J. 



"W. Margrave, Hiawatha,c5 Kans., on 

 July 27, 1885, writes : 



1 have had only a tritle of honey so far. 

 I saved only one queen and about a tea- 

 cupful of bees out of my .53 colonies that 

 I put away last fall. 1 obtained 14 one- 

 frame nuclei and one pound of bees, and a 

 tested queen, and I now have 30 colonies 

 in pretty good condition for the August 

 honey-flow (if we get it), and I hope for 

 the best. One gain we can boast of in 

 losing our bees all around us is, we have 

 gotten prelty much clear of black bees, 

 which we were trying to do. 



Basswood Almost a Failure. — I. A. 



Travis, Lyons. o^ Wis., on July27, 1885, 

 says : 



1 have taken a deep interest in the Na- 

 tional Bee-Keepers' Union ever since it 

 tirst started, and I send Sl.2.5, the amount 

 due from me, and what I consider due 

 from every bee-keeper in the United 

 States. Fellow bee-keepers, let us rally 

 at once and make up a large list, bearing 

 in mind that it is only the strongest colo- 

 nies that gather the greatest amount. The 

 honey season is nearly closed, with but a 

 small yield of honey. White clover did 

 not seem to have much nectar in it, and 

 basswood is almost a failure. 



Valne of Sweet Clover for Bees.— 



Reuben Havens, Onarga,ot Ills., on 

 Juiy 21, 1885, says : 



I have just looked over the list of names 

 of the members of the Bee-Keepers' Union 

 —less tlian 100 names ! when there should 

 be 1,000, Come, fellow-bee-keepers, let us 

 " be up and doing ;" say but little, but be 

 ready for action. The white clover harvest 

 is nearly closed, with but a moderate sup- 

 ply of surplus. Bees are in fine condition, 

 and are now working finely on sweet 

 clover, of which I have but one acre. O, 

 for ten acres of it ! It would put S200 

 into my purse. Sweet clover and catnip 

 would pay a big profit for the expense of 

 cultivation. There are large quantities of 

 catnip along the hedges here, and the bees 

 are working freely on it. 



Honey and Wool. — Rev. W. F. 

 Clarke, Guelph, Ont,, writes : 



1 am in entire sympathy with the Bee" 

 Keepers' Union. Tennyson said in his 

 ode in honor of Mrs. Wales : " We are 

 all Dane in our welcome of thee !" So we 

 are all American in our sympathy with 

 the persecuted Wisconsin bee-keeper. It 

 is a most insane suit, and must ultimately 

 end in failure, hut a bold, united front 

 must be presented to the enemy. It is, as 

 all doubtless know, a popular saying in 

 England, that " where there is the best 

 honey, there is the best wool." Is this 

 going to be reversed in the United States ? 

 1 trow not ; not if we know ourselves, and 

 we think we do. The proverb is a true 

 one. 



Very Satisfactory Season.— H. R. 



Boardman, East 'rownsend,5 Ohio, 

 on July 27, 1885, says : 



The honey season, which closed about 

 July 20, has been very satisfactory here. 

 The yield of honey has been very good 

 and of most excellent quality. Bees have 

 swarmed more than usual. Basswood has 

 been the principal source of surplus ; it 

 has been the best 1 ever knew. I have 

 practiced the plan, in part, advocated by 

 Mr. Hutchinson- hiving swarms upon 

 empty frames on the old stand, and it has 

 been quite satisfactory. I have also used 

 natural comb starters in the sections witli 

 good results. 



"Driving Bees," etc.— J. II. Andre, 

 Lockwood,? N. Y., writes: 



I think that in a good season "driven " 

 bees will store enough honey to winter on 

 if "driven" late in July, and if founda- 

 tion is used ; that is, in some localities 

 where buckwheat is sown. I notice that 

 some think my theory in regard to the 

 sheep-and-bees suit is a fallacy, while 

 others corroborate my opinion. What is 

 wanted is old, reliable bee-hunters— not 

 bee-keepers— to show up the fallacious 

 idea of proving that they were Mr. Free- 

 born's bees. How would it look to com- 

 pel a man to pay damage for his tame crow 

 pulling corn one mile away, over a piece 

 of woods (when there might be a dozen 

 nests of wild ones in the woods), because 

 his crow went that way. 1 send a clip- 

 ping taken from the "Rural Home," 

 Kochester, N. Y., and it is a part of an arti- 

 cle that I sent to the Bee Jouknai, a few 

 weeks ago. It seems to me they ought to 

 give credit to the paper in which it ap- 

 peared originally, if not to the writer. 



[It is getting to be a very common thing 

 for agricultural papers to copy articles 

 without giving credit— hardly a day passes 

 without giving some evidence of this. 

 We lately noticed a whole column article 

 written by ns and published last Decem- 

 ber in the Bee Jouknal, copied into an 

 agricultural paper without credit. We 

 are always glad to have articles copied, 

 but due credit should always be given.— 

 Ed.] 



That Foolish and Malicious Lawsnit. 



— AVm. C. Wolcott, Eldorado Mills,o+ 

 Wis., writes : 



I send 3.5 cents as my fee to join the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Union, and $1 for 

 the purpose of defending the interest of 

 bee-keepers against such foolish and 

 malicious lawsuits as the one brought 

 against Mr. Freeborn for his bees attack- 

 ing his neighbor's sheep. If that is a fact, 

 he must have a different race of bees than 

 any other bee-keeper that I ever heard of. 

 If more is needed to defend such suits, I 

 am willing to pay my share. 



Wintering Bees on Natural Stores. — 

 R. A. Morgan, Columbus,© Wis., on 

 July 23, 188.5, writes : 



In regard to Mr. Heddon's letter, on page 

 443, in reference to wintering bees on nat- 

 ural stores without excrement after long 

 confinement, I would say that in the fall 

 of 1881 1 put 2.59 colonies of bees into three 

 cellars, and took them out on April .5, 

 1882, after a confinement of 141 days, and 

 they flew as freely and as easily as they 

 did on the day they were put in ; and 

 there was no excrement that was visible 

 even on newly-painted boards. Their 

 stores were strictly white clover honey, 

 gathered in a prairie country. This is a 

 statement of the facts as nearly as I could 



perceive them. There was a dust on the 

 bottoms of the hives which I supposed to 

 be the pieces of old comb which had been 

 cut away for breeding purposes. Con- 

 trary to the conunon tlieories I have al- 

 ways found that the colonies wliich bred 

 most, wintered the best ; and that a low 

 degree of temperature is the cause of all 

 wintering troubles. The most of the bee- 

 men in fighting against cold, defeat their 

 own cause. 



Fertilizing Queens, etc.— J. L. Pink- 

 erton, Lebanon,© Mo., on July 23, 



1885, says : 



The honey season has been one of the 

 poorest on record in this section. Bees 

 have done nothing in the section-boxes 

 yet. They are now beginning to come in 

 laden, being at work on the white sumac, 

 and as there is considerable white clover 

 yet, we hope to get some honey. A friend 

 of mine had a colony that became queen- 

 less in the spring ; he obtained a frame of 

 brood and eggs from a neighbor, and gave 

 it to them, when they immediately un- 

 capped the brooii and stuck their heads 

 foremost into cells in theadjoiningcombs. 

 What was the cause of this ? I never 

 knew of such a case. Another friend has 

 heard of the plan of fertilizing queens 

 while in the larval state, by means of 

 drone-larvie, and has been asking me 

 about it. Will any correspondent en- 

 lighten us through the columns of the 

 Bee Jotienai. ? 



Poisoning Bees.— Moses Bray, New 

 Almaden,*o Calif., on July 17, 1885, 

 writes : 



Although I will not have a pound of 

 honey to handle from the 188.5 crop, yet I 

 cannot afford to ignore the Bee-Keepers' 

 Union, as I do not know how soon 1 may 

 be in jeopardy. I would suggest that the 

 idea of making a party prove by marks on 

 the bees, etc., be dropped. If a party 

 poison my bees, I would not like to be 

 asked to prove by marks that they were 

 my bees. A lady but a few miles from 

 my apiary was guilty of poisoning bees 

 last season near my place. They were 

 trespassing on her grapes. She said that 

 it was a decided success, and one could 

 see the bees lying dead on the ground. An 

 act of this kind should be considered a 

 misdemeanor, without stopping to find out 

 whose bees had been poisoned, and 

 punished accordingly. 



Methods of Managing Bees, etc. — D. 



L. Sbapley, Randallsville,© N. Y., on 

 July IS, 1885, says : 



If each one who writes for the Bee 

 JotriiNAL would give a carefully prepared 

 statement as to how they manage with 

 their bees both during summer and in 

 winter, 1 think it would be a great help 

 to any one just starting in the business; 

 also to old bee-keepers, for the way one 

 does in one locality might prove destruc- 

 tive in another. 1 think this would give 

 information so that one cmdd tell what 

 would be best in that locality in which he 

 might wish to start an apiary. I have lost 

 only 3 colonies since I commenced, three 

 years ago— one through carelessness and 

 ignorance, one by queenlessness, and one 

 was robbed. 1 do not know whether it is 

 my good luck or what, but it seems strange 

 to me that so many lose heavily, and I, a 

 beginner, not having lost any to speak of. 

 I had 20 colonies to commence with last 

 spring, and all have swarmed except one ; 

 they are just beginning to get honey from 

 basswood. The white clover harvest was 

 very light, as there was only three or toxn 

 days that bees could work on it ; but 

 everything previous to that yielded bounti- 

 fully, and we are expecting a heavy crop 

 from basswood, if the weather is favorable. 



