THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



725 



It is a peculiarity of bees that they 

 will at times kill their queen wlien 

 she is brushed into a liive suddenly. 

 My explanation is, that the bees have 

 ni)t missed tlieir queen, and when 

 she is suddenly dropped in their 

 midst she is taken for a stranger.— J. 

 E. Pond, Jk. 



When for any reason the workers 

 are living in a state of jealousy re- 

 garding their queen, they are very apt 

 to " lay at her door" ttie blame for 

 every disagreeable circumstance — 

 such as the disturbance created by 

 opening tlie hive, upon which occasion 

 they often " ball," sting and kill her. 

 —James Heddon. 



Explanatory.— The flffures before the 

 names indicate the number of years that the 

 person has liept bees. Those after, show 

 the number of colonies the writer had in the 

 previous spring and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This mark O indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near the centre of the State named; 

 6 north of the centre ; 9 south ; O* cast ; 

 ♦Owest; and this 6 northeast; >3 northwest; 

 o» southeast; and 9 southwest of the centre 

 of the State meutioned. 



For tne AJnerlcan Bee Journal. 



Judging Exhibits by Scale of Points. 



H. D. CUTTING. 



To do the judging for a bee and 

 honey exhibit is an undertaking of no 

 small magnitude. When the com- 

 mittee consists of three, you can 

 make if all right with a dissatisfied 

 exhibitor, as far as yourself is con- 

 cerned, by saying, " 'Twas the other 

 fellow that did it." But when you 

 are filling the position of " Expert," 

 the case is different. You only have 

 your own experience and judgment 

 to go by, and without a scale of 

 points to help, it is no easy task. 



In many departments at. an Exhibi- 

 tion you will find the " score cards " 

 used, and all judging done by an 

 established scale of points. In the 

 cattle, sheep, hog, poultry and dairy 

 departments the judging is done by 

 the "scale." I cannot see vi'hy it 

 cannot be done in the apiarian depart- 

 ment as well as any of the above. I 

 know that in many cases where I have 

 acted in the capacity of judge I have 

 been obliged to use a scale of points 

 to decide, especially where competi- 

 tion was very close. It has been a 

 great help to me, and I know it must 

 be to others. A system of this kind 

 once adopted will prove of such value 

 to exhibitors that no well-conducted 

 exhibition will be judged with the 

 use of score blanks. 



With the promiscuous judging at 

 present in usage an exhibitor does not 

 know what to do. For instance, this 

 year you make an exhibit of a certain 



line— say extracted honey put up in 

 jars ; the judge examines it closely for 

 color, body, tlavor, manner of puiting 

 up, etc., and he decides you have the 

 best-flavored and best-colored honey 

 and gives you the first premium. So 

 next year you work for flavor, color, 

 etc., and along comes another judge, 

 picks up a jar, tips it upside down, 

 notes the time for the air globule to 

 rise, and gives the first to the exhibi- 

 tor on the north side of the building, 

 as his honey has the most body. 

 Mind you, he does not draw a cork or 

 sample in a single case, so you are 

 left in the dark as what to do next 

 year. If you knew that you were to 

 have the same judge again, you would 

 put a few jars on ice and be ready for 

 liim. But if a system was adopted 

 where all judging could be done by 

 the standard, then all these little 

 failures would be done away with, 

 and then each exhibitor would know 

 just what to work for, and in this 

 way we could elevate this above the 

 jockey system of preparing exhibits. 



The question now is, can we adopt 

 a standard for our rule and guidance 

 in preparing an exhibit, and have it 

 judged by said standard ? I wish the 

 readers of this would give it their 

 careful consideration and publish 

 their views, that we may, in the near 

 future, adopt a standard. It cannot 

 be done all at once, and no one man 

 should undertake to do it all. We 

 should have the ideas of all progres- 

 sive apiculturists. 



Clinton,? Mich., Nov. 9, 1885. 



For tbe American Bee Joumai 



How I Winter my Bees. 



C. E. JONES. 



I would like to give my experience 

 in wintering bees. I have been keep- 

 ing bees for 1-5 years. I began by 

 hunting wild bees in the woods, 

 climbing tlie trees and cutting the 

 combs out, and I know pretty well 

 how they winter in their natural 

 home. I cut out II colonies in one 

 fall, and I found most of the hollows 

 were about one foot in diameter and 

 three to five feet long, with the honey 

 always at the top. and generally with- 

 out upward ventilation. 



For the last i\ve, years I have used 8 

 different kinds of frame hives, and I 

 find by experience that the tall hives 

 will do without ventilation at the top 

 better than the shallow ones, because 

 the bees keep the top part of the hive 

 warm, so that no condensed moisture 

 is formed. When the heat formed 

 by the bees comes in contact with 

 some parts of the hive that is not 

 warm, there water forms. If we 

 could keep the outside frames in tlie 

 shallow hives as warm as it is above 

 the cluster of bees, they would need 

 uo upward ventilation. 



I knew a successful bee-keeper in 

 Missouri that kept his bees in tall 

 hives without bottoms ; the hives sat 

 on tressels 2 feet high, and wide 

 enough apart to let the outside edges 

 of the hive rest on the tressels, and 

 the bottoms were left open all winter 

 without ventilation at the top. 



Two years ago this fall I had 7.3 

 colonies, and wintered them on the 

 summer stands with a loss of only 

 two. They had no protection when 

 it was SS-" below zero. Last fall I had 

 T2 colonies, but there was a cider mill 

 within 300 yards of my bees, in which 

 they made cider for three months. 

 Tliousands of the bees were killed 

 every day, which weakened them, and 

 the cider they carried in killed them 

 all. I put 50 colonies in a good cellar, 

 and left 22 on the summer stands. 

 Those I put in the cellar lived the 

 longest, and ;ill had plenty of honey 

 in the spring. I bought more bees, 

 and now have 52 colonies in good 

 condition. 



I like to read the experience of 

 other bee-keepers. We do not all 

 work alike, and never will; but all 

 want to get the best results. 1 like 

 the Langstroth hive, or any hive that 

 has plenty of room for surplus honey. 

 I have gotten up a double-walled hive 

 this fall which takes the Langstroth 

 frame ; the inside of the hive folds 

 up half way, and I take the five 

 frames having the most honey and 

 hang thera over the other five that ttie 

 bees cluster on. The bees go in the 

 hive at the bottom. The hive stands 

 18 inches from the ground. It has a 

 drop-leaf alighting-board on the 

 underside of the hive, allowing the 

 bees a dry place on which to alight. 



Delaware,© O., Nov. 7, 1885. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Robbing— Large Honey-Yields. 



C. W. DAYTON, (1 10). 



From page 504 it may be understood 

 that 100 colonies of bees were win- 

 tered in a cellar containing .550 cubic 

 feet of space, and that all chances for 

 the change of air were nearly cut off. 

 With that number of colonies in a 

 cellar of that capacity, and with 150 

 days' confinement, the bees of all the 

 colonies seemed to have become of 

 nearly the same scent. After placing 

 the colonies on the summer stands, 

 and having passed around to ascertain 

 their condition as to the amount of 

 stores, I began feeding honey to a few 

 colonies by placing it in combs behind 

 the division-boards. Finding that 

 the bees removed the honey readily, I 

 continued to supply it for several 

 days. 



One day, while examining one of 

 the best of these colonies, I was much 

 surprised to find it containing a large 

 amount of brood, and apparently in a 

 very prosperous condition, the brood- 

 chamber being entirely destitute of 

 honey. Again I fed the colony 5 

 pounds of honey in a day, and in the 

 evening no honey remained in its 

 brood-chamber. During the day 

 there had continued a steady and 

 moderate number of bees Hying from 

 the hive, but there had been none of 

 the usual indications of robbery. 

 Upon examination I found that sev- 

 eral colonies had been quietly and 

 slowly robbed of their stores, while 

 several unfed colonies began to whiten 

 and bulge their combs with honey. 



