THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



33 



T. F. Bingham— Yes, on the principle 

 that "there's mischief for idle hands to do." 

 When bees have nothing to do— no honey to 

 gather — they breed rapidly and swarm. 



C. I. Balch— Will not heat indnce bees to 

 swarm? 



T. F. Bingham— I am not aware of it. 

 There's no reason abont bees. You can't 

 make bees work as you tell them to; but 

 they will follow out their instinct, which is 

 much nearer right than man's reason. 



Julius Tom linson— Does a moderate in- 

 crease of stock diminish the amount of sur- 

 plus honey? 



T. F. Bingham— New stocks will produce 

 the most and best comb and honey. They 

 are in the best possible condition for it. 



Pres. Balch— Can get more honey from an 

 apiary that is allowed to swarm. 



James Heddon— So can I with small 

 hives, but not with large ones. 



T. F. Bingham— Will Mr. Benton state 

 what effect the extreme heat of the South 

 has upon honey secretion? 



Frank Benton— Tennessee is hot a good 

 honey section. With prolific queens we got 

 a good amount of honey in the fall. 



T. F. Bingham— I always get the most 

 honey when the nights are cool and the 

 days are not too hot. The best honey lo- 

 calities in our country are where the nights 

 are short and cool. 



Frank Benton— The mountainous regions 

 of the South are the best honey-producing 

 localities of that section. 



T. F. Bingham— We never had so warm a 

 season as the past, and never had such an 

 abominable poor honey season. 



Secretary — How about Cuba and the is- 

 lands south of Europe? 



T. F. Bingham— The nights are cool, and 

 they also have a vegetation peculiar to the 

 latitude. 



James Heddon— I got honey from white 

 clover this season for the first time. Will 

 acknowledge that my previous opinion was 

 erroneous. 



H. A. Knapp— Buckwheat secreted with 

 me this year, was a failure last year. ; 



Dr. Southard — Sowed buckwheat early 

 for bees, but got no honey. Some sowed 

 later gave a very little. Think my bees 

 gathered honey this season from corn. 

 When bees lay out fronr heat, raise the hive 

 at the bottom. 



T. F. Bingham— Top ventilation does no 

 good in the summer. Ventilate at the bot- 

 tom. 



Secretary— When bees lay out heavily, 

 does it interfere with surplus honey? 



T. F. Bingham —Don't think it does. 

 They do it because they have nothing to do. 

 The reason why Dr. Southard's bees didn't 

 hang out was because there was honey in 

 the fields to be gathered. 



Secretary— My bees in the house apiaries 

 would cluster over the whole sides of the 

 building, yet they were the ones that stored 

 the honey. 



Frank Benton— Mr. Muth's bees are plac- 

 ed upon the top of a building where they 

 were very warm, but they do not swarm. 



T. F. Bingham— Bees do not swarm on 

 the last end of a flow of honey. They can 

 scent danger from afar. 



H. A. Knapp — I had a swarm come out on 

 September 14, that never gathered a pound 

 of noney. 



C. I. Balch — Have had swarms forced out 

 by the heat in September by the quantity. 



Dr. Southard— Has any one present used 

 a "lamp nursery?" 



Secretary— Have one, but haven't fired it 

 up. Have introduced young queens just 

 hatched with perfect success. Have even 

 supei'seded queens in box hives by simplj^ 

 letting a just-hatched queen run in at the 

 entrance. 



T. F. Bingham— This will work with 

 black bees, but very seldom with Italians. 



Mr. T. F. Bingham then read a paper on 

 "Apicultural Progress," being a review of 

 bee-culture for the past thirty years, which 

 called out some discussion of a general 

 character. The subject of "Humbugs" 

 brought out many severe criticisms on Mr. 

 A. J. Root's method of doing business, from 

 those present, it being claimed that he had 

 misled more people and had been the 

 cause of more failures than any other per- 

 son in America. 



Adjourned until to-morrow, at 2^4 a. m. 

 December 21, 1876. 



Convention called to order at 9.30 a. m. 

 President Balch in the chair. The Secretary 

 stated that he had just received a paper from 

 Mr. J. L. Davis, — Delhi, Mich, on " Surplus 

 Honey," which was read. lie advocated 

 the system of using section frames for comb 

 honey, instead of boxes. 



Prof. A. J. Cook.— It seems to me that 

 frames for surplus honey should be talked 

 up more, and boxes less. I can get bees to 

 commence sooner in frames and they sell 

 more readily in the Lansing market. 



James Heddor— The objection to frames 

 is that the bees do not build the combs true 

 in them; and in selling them you will break 

 the comb and have a sticky article to handle. 



Julius Tomlinson— Agreed with Mr. Hed- 

 don's views. 



Dr. Southard— During the past season, 

 have tried both boxes and frames, and give 

 the decided preference to the former. They 

 sell better, and can get as much honey as in 

 frames. The bees accept the boxes readily 

 and fill them rapidly. 



Prof. A. J. Cook— What was your amount 

 of surplus? 



Dr. Southard— Fifteen hundred pounds, 

 from 19 strong and 25 weak ones. 



.James Heddon — I can perform the same 

 amount of work with boxes in one day, that 

 requires five days with frames. 



Prof. Cook— Mr. Davis has a large amount 

 of honey in the Lansing market in small 

 frames; they don't leak; they look beauti- 

 ful and sellreadily. Comb-foundation is a 

 success with me. 



James Heddon— This question of box- 

 honey interests me, as it bears directly upon 

 dollars and cents. Have used wooden guides 

 during the past season in the boxes, and 

 they work so well that I shall discard guide- 

 combs. Can get truer combs with less work. 



Julius Tomlinson— Would it not be better 

 to wax the wooden guides? 



James Heddon — Can see no benefit. 



Prof. Cook— We are on dangerous ground, 

 I think. What our most experienced bee- 

 keepers can do, cannot be done by us all. 

 Some people can do what others cannot. 



Julius Tomlinson— Cut a saw-kerf in the 

 ends of boxes, and they can be taken apart 

 and the combs sold separately. 



C. I. Balch— I will wager with any one 

 that boxes with guide-combs will give fifty 

 per cent more honey than boxes without. 



Dr. Haskins— My experience with guide- 

 combs has developed nothing in their favor. 



