THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



731 



Local Convention Directory. 



1885. Time and place Of Meeting. 



Deo. 8— 10.— Michlpun Stnte. ut Detroit. Mich. 



H. U. ("uttinj,'. Sec. ('linton.Mlch. 



Dec. 8— in.— North American, at Detrcit, Mich. 

 W. Z. Uutchlnaon. Sec, RuMB'Sville, Mich. 



Pec. 8-in.— Northwestern, at Detroit, Mich, 



W. Z. llutchinsoo. Sec, Itugersvilie, Mich, 



Dec. 11.- Northeastern Kan., at Iliiiwatha, Kan. 

 It. C.CIarii. 8ec., Granada. Kan. 

 188(1. 



Apr. 117.— Des Molnea County, at Burlintrton, Iowa. 

 Jno. Nau, Sec.Middletown, Iowa. 



tar* In order to have this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetings.— Eu. 





The Se.isoii— Packing Bees.— R. A. 



Rosser, Nelsonville,tx 0., on Nov. 9, 

 1885, writes : 



Last winter I lost 17 colonies of 

 bees with precisely the same care that 

 I gave them tor three winters pre- 

 vious, the main cause being too long 

 a cold spell at a time. Several colo- 

 nies starved with at least 30 pounds 

 of nice white honey in each of their 

 hives. They ate all the honey in the 

 frames upon which they were clus- 

 tered, and viere not able to move to 

 the next frame. By April I had only 

 25 colonies out of 42 in the previous 

 fall, and all of the i!o were badly 

 affected with the diarrhea. As soon 

 as the weather was warm enough I 

 began to feed them. I fed 300 pounds 

 of coffee A sugar, and by May 10 I 

 had theui as strong as they were in 

 the fall, but owing to the many cold 

 days we had in May and June, they 

 were hindered in swarming. I did 

 not have a swarm until June 12, and 

 from that time until July 17 I had 13 

 in all. We have had frost in every 

 month this year, excepting July and 

 August. I obtained about 300 pounds 

 of comb honey this season. I have 

 packed my bees for a cold winter this 

 time, and they all have plenty of good 

 honey to winter on. 



Mv Report — A Siisgestion. — J. F. 



McSlillan, Ilealy,© Ills., on Nov. 5, 

 1885, writes : 



In the spring of 1884 I had 14 

 colonies of bees in box-hives, after 

 " spring dwindling " was over. I put 

 the swarms into standard Langstroth 

 hives and secured about 400 pounds of 

 honey in sections in the fall. I win- 

 tered them in the cellar nicely, and 

 on June 1, 1885, I sold 8 colonies for 

 $4 each (in box-hives), and afterward 

 I sold 8 piime-swarms for $2.50 each, 

 without hives. On July 3 I extracted 

 70 pounds of fruit-bloom honey, and 

 on July 17, 155 pounds of mostly bass- 

 wood honey. I also secured 200 

 pounds of honey in sections, and the 

 most of it was basswood. Many of 

 the sections were partly filled when 

 the How ceased. I have about 70 

 pounds in the sections that I am going 

 to extract, as the bees carried part of 



the honey below. My neighbors that 

 have worked theirs on the old style, 

 did not get a pound of surplus honey, 

 and so I sold them some. Some of 

 them hrimstoned their bees to get 

 some honey. My bees are in fair 

 condition for the winter, but they 

 would be in better condition if their 

 honey was all sealed. Some of the 

 late swarms I will feed. Mr. G. M. 

 Doolittle, on page 680, mentions a 

 plan by which to know the annual 

 yield of lioney in the United States. 



1 would suggest tliat tlie National 

 Bee- Keepers' Society, which meets at 

 Detroit, Mich., next month, decide 

 what is the average yield per colony, 

 spring count, of fruit bloom honey, 

 tlie average of white clover and bass- 

 wood, and the average yield of fall 

 honev. Some will not report, and to 

 help those that will in their locality, 

 would be for them to write to the 

 Secretary of the Society, Mr. W. Z. 

 Hutchinson, giving the amount of 

 honey, whether it be good, below or 

 above the average, and the Secretary 

 then to give the decision the same as 

 the Signal Service of the United 

 States is carried on. 



Bees and Fruit. — N. L. Minor, a 

 deaf-mute bee-keeper of Clarksville,($ 

 Mo., on Oct. 22, 1885, says : 



Some ignorant people claim that 

 bees injure their fruit, but really 

 it is the birds that first puncture 

 grapes, peaches, etc., and then the 

 bees gather the juice. Such birds as 

 woodpeckers, blue-jays, etc., are the 

 most troublesome. My apiary is 

 within 300 or 400 yards ot a vineyard, 

 and the owner is aware that it is 

 birds and not bees that injure his 

 grapes. The fruitgrowers in this 

 locality do not bother their neighbor 

 bee-keepers as they do in some sec- 

 tions of the country. I have obtained 

 only (50 pounds of extracted honey 

 and 40 pounds of beeswax from my 

 colonies. I extracted the honey from 



2 or 3 frames in each hive. 



Selliiijr Honey— Chloroformed Bees. 



— D. R. Rosebrougli, Casey ,o+ Ills., on 

 Nov. 9, 1885, writes : 



The past summer I took a load of 

 honey to a town some 20 miles away, 

 and sold it within 50 minutes after 

 arriving. Last month I took another 

 load to the same place, but I found 

 several hundred pounds of honey in 

 every store ; however, I managed to 

 sell a part of my honey for 15 cents 

 per pound, and the balance I kept at 

 a friend's place of business for a day 

 or two, when I sold it also at 15 cents 

 per pound. Others, who had sold 

 their honey before I got there, ob- 

 tained only 13 cents per pound. 

 Hereafter 1 shall sell my honey in this 

 way, viz : take it to market and 

 remain with it until it is sold. A 

 neighbor was going to brimstone his 

 colony of black bees for the honey, 

 when I told him to let me have the 

 bees, as I wanted to try chloroform 

 on them. I procured a quarter of an 

 ounce of it and poured it into a tin- 

 plate. I then placed a wire screen 

 over the chloroform and put the box- 

 hive over it. In 25 minutes I removed 



the hive and found the bees lying in a 

 pile apparently dead ; hut as soon as 

 the sunlight touched them they began 

 to revive, and in 15 minutes they 

 commenced to (!y. Kvery l)ee looked 

 as if it had been drowned. The queen 

 was found in the hive as dry and 

 lively as if nothing had happened. 



Grasshoppers and Bees. — R. M. 



Osborn, Kane, ? Ills., on Nov. 5, 1885, 

 writes : 



The honey season of 1885 has passed 

 and the honey harvest, like the wheat 

 liarvest of 1885, will be long remem- 

 bered in this vicinity. The bloom 

 was abundant,and the bees took to the 

 nectar, but now all is over, and the 

 honey crop here is a failure. Frequent 

 cold rainsand swarms of grasshoppers 

 did the work of destruction to the 

 nectar. The grasshoppers took pos- 

 session of all the main honey-plants, 

 except sweet clover and flgwort. I 

 have never seen any grasshoppers on 

 these latter plants. My .54 colonies 

 increased to CO, and produced 908 

 pounds of comb honey, 426 pounds of 

 extracted, and 28 pounds of wax ; 

 leaving about 1,885 pounds for the 

 66 colonies to winter on. They are 

 now all in splenc'id condition. On 

 Oct. 20 I prepared all my bees for 

 winter on the summer stands, on the 

 same plan that I have prepared them 

 for eight years past without the loss 

 of a single colony. We have not had 

 very much frost yet, but too much 

 rain. I had one acre of sweet clover ; 

 it grew about 7 feet high. My buck- 

 wheat did well for a few days, but 

 the grasshoppers drove the bees off 

 and took possession of it. I live in 

 hopes for better times in 1886. 



My Experience with Bees.— R. E. 



Scottcn, Edenville,© Iowa, on Nov. 

 5, 1885, writes : 



Last year I began with 17 colonies, 

 and the spring being cold and back- 

 ward, I lost 2 of them before they 

 were supplied with honey from the 

 flowers. The remaining 15 colonies 

 increased to .30, by dividing them, but 

 stored no surplus honey, and few 

 frames were tilled for winter, so I had 

 to feed the bees for winter stores. I 

 put them into a new cellar, a half mile 

 or more from home. The house not 

 being occupied, and no fire being in 

 the building all winter, it froze, 

 breaking fruit-cans, and the frost 

 collected overhead in the cellar, thus 

 making it wet and damp when it 

 thavied. I put the bees out for a 

 flight on March 7. after a confinement 

 of 110 days, and I found 14 dead 

 colonies. I returned them to the 

 cellar, intending to put them out in a 

 few days, but the weather continuing 

 cold 1 "left them for about 24 days, 

 and when I did put them out 5 more 

 colonies were dead. The bees and 

 combs were thoroughly wet, and the 

 combs were also moldy. On April 15 

 I moved home what colonies were 

 alive— only (i— and 2 more of these 

 perished. One of the remaining 4 

 was in fair condition, and 3 were so 

 weak that I put them all into one 

 hive. I put the top-story on and 

 filled it with frames partly filled with 



