18 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



F<^r tlio American Bee Journal 



The Agricultural College Apiary. 



Tlie forthcoming report of the Michigan 

 State Board of Agricnlture for the year 1876 

 will contain the following: 



Of the ten colonies of bees placed in the 

 new cellar Nov. 2(5tli, all but one, the ex- 

 perimental colony, with none but old bees, 

 came through the winter in fine condition. 

 That one lived till spring, and then died. 

 These colonies were all removed from the 

 cellar once in January, and once in March, 

 that they might have a purifying tlight. 

 They were not removed to the sunnner 

 stands permanently till the middle of April. 

 During the previous autumn the bees 

 were kept breeding even into October, and 

 consumed nearly all tlie pollen. Several 

 colonies had none. These had no brood 

 when removed from the cellar. I attempted 

 to supply this lack by feeding meal during 

 the last 'of April, but found that nearly as 

 soon as the weather would permit the bees 

 to fly they could get pollen, and thus would 

 not touch the meal. 



I fed sparingly of syrup till the fruit trees 

 were in bloom, and by tjlat time had (5 or 7 

 frames of brood in each hive. I also fed a 

 little between the fruit trees' bloom and 

 that of white clover, with the most satisfac- 

 tory results. 



During the season I have increased from 

 9 to 20 colonies, all large and in excellent 

 condition. I also procured two Italian 

 queens imported from Italy, but lost one in 

 introducing. The otlier has done well, and 

 from her 1 have Italianized the whole 

 apiary, though I am in doubt whether all 

 the queens were purely mated. 



I did not permit the colonies to swarm, 

 but practiced artificial swarming, or divid- 

 ing. I lost three colonies, one coming out 

 in the spring, and leaving at once, without 

 waiting to alight even; the other two going 

 off this fall, before I suspected any such 

 thing, choosing Sunday of course as the 

 time for their leave-taking. Had I pre- 

 viously clipped the queen's wings, all of 

 these would have been saved. I have now 

 no queens with undipped wings. 



I have extracted daring the season .507 Bbs 

 from the br(X)d chamber. About a third of 

 this was from basswood, and the other two- 

 thirds from fall bloom, and none was ex- 

 tracted except from worker comb, which it 

 was desired to keep free froin honey that it 

 might be used for brood. 



During me season I hake worked for 

 comb honpy, both in boxes. and in small 

 frames, anfl found that I could secure much 

 more in the frames. I find, too, that the 

 honey in small frames is liked quite as well 

 by consumers. 



In the spring I surrounded the apiary 

 grounds with numerous honey-producing 

 shrubs and trees, among which were bass- 

 woods, locusts, crab-apple, shaclbush, etc. 

 Most of these have done well— a few have 

 died. These have been kept mulched, and 

 the ground about them well spaded all the 

 season. I have also set out more ever- 

 greens, some for a wind break, others for 

 a shade for bees; and have started some 

 Concord grapevines and Virginia creeper 

 for shade. Some of the latter has been set 

 about the house, that it may climb upon it, 

 and has already made a fine growth. I 

 have also set oiit several kinds of bee-plants 

 of more or less repute, the following of 



which have done well, and all yielded 

 bloom except the two first, which will not 

 bloom till another season: yellow trefdil 

 clover, yellow Bokhara clover, mignonette, 

 black mustard, Cliinese mustard, borage, 

 common and silverleaf buckwheat, common 

 and Chinese sunflower, and Rocky Moun- 

 tain bee-plant. 



The following is the summary of the ac- 

 count with the apiary for the year: 



De. 



To improvement of grounds .'^26.17 



" experimental plats • 23.65 



" tools 20.45 



" making hives, feed, queens, and 



care of bees 84.81 



Total .^1.5.5.08 



CiJ. 



By 11 colonies of bees @ .flO .$110.00 



" .506}^ tt>s. extracted honey @ 16@ 



22c 83.19 



" 1483^ lbs. comb honey @ 22Kc .... 33.90 

 " 168 K)s. comb honey (unsold) @ 



20c 33.60 



" 5.5>< lbs. extracted honey (unsold) 



@ 1.5c 8.32 



" 60 frames worker comb @ 10c — 6.00 



" 9 unoccupied bee hives at $2.00. . . 18.00 



" improved grounds 26.17 



" experiments on bee-plants 23.65 



" 70 lbs. asparagus (§ 8c 5.60 



" tools, record book, etc 15.45 



" work bench 5.00 



'• lumber, oil, and paint on hand. . . 2.33 



Total receipts $371.41 



Total expenditures .'11.55.08 



Net profits on 9 colonies .$216.33 



" " per colony 24.05 



CONCLUSIONS FKOM YEAK'S WORK. 



The experimental hive, strong in old bees 

 but which contained no young bees, as no 

 brood was permitted to liatch after the mid- 

 dle of August, and which died in early 

 spring, indicates that spring dwindling may 

 come from the fact that there are no young 

 bees in the hive when the bees go into win- 

 ter quarters. This condition may arise 

 either from a poor queen, a poor honey 

 yield, or dearth of honey in autumn, when 

 even the best queen will refuse to do duty; 

 or, as has been the case here this fall, such 

 a great honey yield as to give the queen no 

 opportunity. 



NATURAX, SWARMING. 



I have proved, what reason and a know- 

 ledge of the natural history of the honey 

 bee would discover, that natural swarming 

 is always sufliered at a great sacrifice. This 

 insures a queenless colony for nearly or 

 generally quite two weeks, which is equiva- 

 lent to the loss of a fair colony of bees, as a 

 good fertile young (lueen will start a fair 

 colony in this time, especially as this is 

 generally at the time of the best honey sea- 

 son of all the year. 



THE EXTRACTOR. 



The great value of this machine has been 

 again demonstrated during the wondrous 

 honey yield of August and September. Al- 

 though the bees had plenty ot room in the 

 supers— both boxes and frames— still they 

 would fill up the brood space as fast as the 

 bees came forth, so as utterly to preclude 

 breeding. By extracting I kept the brood 



