684 



THE AMERICAJ!^ BEE JOURNAL. 



Mrs. Kerman and Miss Tiillis then 

 sang a duet, entitled, "Murmuring 

 Sea ;" then came the election of offi- 

 cers, which resulted as follows : J. 

 M. Hume, President ; S. H. Moss, 

 Vice-President ; Mrs. Staley, Treas- 

 urer ; and J. G. Norton, Secretary. 



Rev. E. L. Briggs again addressed 

 the convention, and dwelt somewhat 

 on what the essayist said of despond- 

 ency. Although the losses of the past 

 winter were great, there is no business 

 without loss; we still have our hives, 

 frames and honey on hand. He stated 

 how he had left his bees to a man to 

 take care of, and all were lost ; but 

 by buying more colonies he had made 

 alarge profit the first year. He said 

 we must keep the Italian bees, as 

 they are the best, and are moth-proof; 

 moths do not kill bees, but when a 

 colony is reduced, motlis come to fill 

 the vacancy. He also gave a full 

 description of the sex and offices of 

 bees. 



Mr. C. P. Dadant, then in answer to 

 questions, said that he would not 

 make passage-ways through the 

 combs for bees in winter. Bees should 

 be clustered in the front of the liive 

 in winter. The entrance of a hive 

 should be from one to two inches 

 wide in winter; the back of a hive 

 should be one inch higher than the 

 front. Leaves make an excellent 

 packing material for bees. 



A vote of thanks was tendered the 

 choir for the excellent music rendered. 



The convention adjourned to meet 

 at Macomb, Ills., sometime in the 

 spring of 1886, at the call of the Presi- 

 dent and Secretary. 



J. G.Norton, Sec. 



siess^Mim 





mio-x"' 



Good Results.— W. II. II. Stewart, 

 Galt,"o Ills., on Oct. 11, 1885, says : 



I have obtained over 1,400 pounds of 

 honey from my .32 colonies of bees, 

 while some of my neighbors did not 

 get an ounce ; and this result comes 

 from my reading the American Bee 

 Journal. 



Honey Market at Detroit.— W. Z. 



Hutchinson, llogersville, 6 Mich., Oct. 

 17, 1885, writes : 



Upon seeing comb honey quoted at 

 good figures in the Detroit papers, I 

 took a sample of my honey there, but 

 found the market overloaded and 

 " more a-coming," so I would advise 

 no one to send honey to Detroit at 

 present. The scheme that had caused 

 the high prices and the consequent 

 glut in the market, I am informed is 

 something like this: As the market 

 was bare of honey, and none was 

 coming in, several dealers clubbed to- 

 gether, paying SI each, and hired the 

 newspapers to quote honey " away 

 up," and the consequence is that 

 honey has been coming in there by 

 the tons from every direction. I think 

 that it would be a benefit to bee- 



keepers to known this, and not go to 

 Detroit with the expectations of sell- 

 ing their honey at the " big price " at 

 which it is being quoted. I wish to 

 warn bee-keepers in this matter. 



The Weather— Hybrid Bees.— J. H. 

 Andre. Lockwood,? N. Y., on Oct. 

 15, 1885, writes : 



To-day it is cool and cloudy, but 

 the bees are busy bringing in pollen 

 from witch-hazel. Mention is made 

 in the Bee Journal regarding the 

 differently marked bees in the same 

 hives containing hybrids. I find that 

 all hybrids in this vicinity liave bred 

 back, the Italian strain predomina- 

 ting,andsome apiaries showing it that 

 have never been Italianized ; and I do 

 not know of any pure Italians within 

 several miles of here. It is very singu- 

 lar, and I think it will be of great 

 benefit to bee-keepers next season, if 

 not thereafter. 



Old Bees for Winter.— James Hed- 



don, Dowagiac, 9 Mich., says : 



I notice that some bee-keepers are 

 fearing the results of the coming win- 

 ter because their colonies ceased 

 breeding early, and the hives contain 

 no young bees. I think this fear is 

 ill-founded. Bees do not grow old 

 with time, but from exertion. Colo- 

 nies of bees that have not bred late 

 have not exerted themselves like 

 those that have. The creation of 

 young bees is always at the expense 

 of the vitality of the older ones. My 

 experience has taught me that young 

 bees do not so readily enter tlie 

 quiescent state, so desirable for safe 

 wintering, as do old ones. In this 

 quiescent condition but little food is 

 taken, and scarcely any vitallity is 

 lost. No matter if the youngest bee 

 in the hive was hatched on Sept. 1, 

 because none were hatched later, she 

 has preserved her vitality, hence her 

 age, and if she passes the winter in 

 quiescence, she will last until her hive 

 is populous. Bees preserve their 

 vitality (age) wonderfully during au- 

 tumn, when conditions are such as to 

 discourage breeding. The converse 

 of this proposition is equally true. 

 Beekeepers should have no fears be- 

 cause colonies go into winter quarters 

 with old bees. 



The Season— Dwarf Drones. — W. S. 



Douglass, Lexington,© Tex., on Oct. 

 16, 1885, writes : 



Last year I started with 9 colonies 

 of bees, and increased them to 22. 

 The horse-mint crop was splendid. 

 The bees filled their hives, and then 

 commenced to build comb under the 

 bottom-boards and around the en- 

 trances. Several bee-trees were found 

 with combs on the outside that were 

 filled with honey. I helped a man cut 

 a tree that contained about 200 pounds 

 of pure honey ; but this was a hybrid 

 colony. This year the horse-mint did 

 not yield so well ; although the bees 

 Isave filled their hives from other 

 flowers. This season I had 10 swarms, 

 and I now have .32 colonies. I have 6 

 hybrid colonies which are far ahead 

 of the German bees. They swarm 



more and gather more honey. I no- 

 ticed them gathering honey from 

 flowers that tlie black or German hees 

 hardly noticed. They protect their 

 combs better from the web-worm. 

 This summer one of my very best col- 

 onies seemed to be "dwindling." I 

 discovered dwarf drones in it, so I 

 concluded that they had no queen. I 

 opened the hive, and as I discovered 

 the queen in a few minutes, I thought 

 that they just reared a queen, and I 

 shut up the hive. I waited several 

 weeks, but nothing but dwarf drones 

 seemed to be hatching out, and finally 

 nothing was left except a few drones 

 and the queen. 



[A defective queen was, no doubt, 

 the cause of the trouble. — Ed.] 



No Surplus Honey.— C. M. Roberts, 

 Chillicothe,? O., on Oct. 23, 1885, 

 writes : 



This season has been a complete 

 failure so far as a surplus of honey is 

 concerned. I have black colonies 

 that have not yielded a single pound 

 of surplus, and yet they are now ab- 

 solutely starving. My Italians gath- 

 ered some surplus from red clover, 

 but not 10 pounds to the colony. All 

 the black bees in this locality will die 

 during the coming winter unless they 

 are fed. White clover, upon which 

 we depend for a surplus, froze en- 

 tirely out last winter, and the crop 

 from" the seed has not blossomed yet. 



Local Convention Directory, 



1885. Time and place of Meetirto. 



Oct. 28, 29.— Central Illinois, at Jacksonville, Uls. 



Not, r>, 6.— N. J. 4 Eastern, at Trenton. N. J. 

 Wm. B. Treadwell, Sec, 16 Thomas St., N. T. 



Nov. 12.— Central Michigan, at Lansing, Mich. 



E. N. Wood. Sec, N. Lansing, Mich. 



Dec. 8— 10.— Michigan State, at Detroit. Mich. 



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



Dec 8— 10.— North American, at Detroit. Mich. 

 W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec, Rogersville, Mich. 



Dec. 8-10.— Northwestern, at Detroit, Mich, 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec, llogersville, Micb. 



1886. 



Apr. 27.— Des Moines County, at BurlinEton, Iowa. 

 Jno. Nau, Sec, Middletown. Iowa. 



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

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetings.— Ed. 



The National Bee -Keepers' Union. 



MEMBERS RECEIVED SINCE I,AST ISS0E. 



Baldwin, A. A , | Hogue, R._M., 



Baldwin, L. W.. 

 ('hristie. Jno. II.. 

 Drew, Wm., 

 Gibson, F. A., 



1 Jones. J. H., 

 Salisbury, S. W., 

 Sumner, T. B., 



I Valentine, J. M. 



Tlie Ciuide and Haud-Book.is a book 

 of ready reference and an encyclopfedia of 

 everything desirable to know. As a guide 

 to the hoine-seeker, it is invaluable. Its con- 

 tents are partially given on page 686, and 

 will convince any one of its value. We do 

 not think any of our readers can afford to 

 do without it. As a book of ready reference 

 we find it of great value in our library. We 

 will send the Weekly Bee Journal for a 

 year and the Guide for $1.30. 



