100 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



mix %ttUx ^ox. 



Dundee, 111., Feb. 6, 1877.— "Our bees are 

 doing splendidly." J. Oatman &Co. 



Dakota Co., Minn., Jan. 29, 1877.— 1 have 40 

 swarms in the cellar, doing well. Last sea- 

 son was a poor one, but my black bees 

 stored the most honey in boxes and hives. 

 No pure Italians did as well; though some 

 hybrids did. Italians will keep themselves 

 clear of worms, etc., better than blacks." 



L. E. Day. 



Saginaw Co., Mich., Feb. 2, 1877.—" Last 

 spring I had but 2 stands of bees left out of 

 42 in the fall. Tliese I increased to 34, and 

 took 20 on shares; so am now wintering 54. 

 1 have Italians and use the Quinby hive; I 

 have a saw mill' for making hives." 



De. C. M. Joslin. 



Lancaster Co., Pa., Jan. 27, 1877.—" Bees 

 did but little last season in storing honey. 

 It rained all the time during fruit bloom, 

 and white clover failed. This is a hard 

 winter on bees, and losses will be heavy." 

 J. F. Hershey. 



Waukesha Co., Wis., Jan. 27, 1877.— "My 

 bees in the cellar appear to be doing first- 

 rate; I have 26 colonies in a bee house I 

 had made a la mode Coe. They winter 

 well but loose their queens. I like them 

 better outside, in the summer; they are 

 easier to handle, and there is no loss of 

 queens." H. S. Harbison. 



Chickasaw Co., Iowa, Feb. 6, 1877.—" My 

 bees are wintering well, so far. I have 

 them on their summer stands, packed in 

 chaff, and so arranged that I can fly them 

 under glass on any sunshiny day, with the 

 thermometer up to or above freezing point. 

 The plan worked well with me, last winter, 

 and seems to be doing so this winter. 

 Please keep us posted through the Jour- 

 nal as to how bees are wintering through 

 the country at country at large." 



O. O. POPPLETON. 



Livingston Co., Mo., Feb. 2, 1877.- "We 

 have had a thaw-out, and are in a delightful 

 warm spell. I have just cleaned out the 

 bees and find them in better condition than 

 usual at this time of the yeai-. They have 

 worked lightly on their stores of sealed 

 honey. I have lost but one colony in 3.5. I 

 left them on their summer stands. I believe 

 that is the best place to winter them. The 

 requisites are: plenty of honey, strong 

 colonies with a fair quantity of late bees, a 

 hole throughe very comb,and no upward and 

 but very little lower ventilation. I use no 

 quilts or cobs or straw, this time— only a 

 honey board, % in. thick." 



J. W. Greene 



Scott Co., Iowa, Feb. 1, 1877.—" The past 

 season was a splendid one, in this section, 

 for bees and honey. I had 30 stands in the 

 spring of 1876, increased to .50 (eight first 

 swarms left for the woods; they would 

 come out and go off without stopping to 

 cluster). I received 2,000 lbs. of honey— 

 600 lbs. of comb and 1,400 lbs. of extracted. 

 From Nov. 15th to Jan. 25th, the bees were 

 confined to their hives on account of a con- 



tinual frost, but the last four days of Jan. 

 has been warm, and gave the bees a chance 

 to fly. I am wintering on summer stands; 

 all have chaft' boxes over the bees; part of 

 my hives are packed with about a foot of 

 straw between them, also between them 

 and the fence, but they contained more 

 frost than those in the open yard. I have 

 used one of Finn's double-walled bee-hives 

 for the past two years, with the best suc- 

 cess, lo-dayitis stronger than any of my 

 other swarms. The past summer I obtain- 

 ed two swarms and 125 lbs. honey — 95 lbs. 

 comb and 30 lbs. extracted. I have been 

 slow to adopt this hive as a standard, but 

 after two years of experience, I have come 

 to the conclusion that it is the hive for out- 

 door wintering; let others think and do as 

 they wish, but I want a hive that gives 

 good returns in summer and always ready 

 for sudden changes of weather and winter." 

 Geo. L. Gast. 



Erie Co., O., Dec. 13, 1876.— "My hives are 

 made as follows: A long box with 20 re- 

 versible frames. I can take the frames out, 

 set the hive on end, and put the frames in 

 two sections of ten each, one above the 

 other, making a double decker; or by re- 

 moving the upper set, boxes or small frames 

 for comb-honey can be put in. The long 

 principle is for breeding in spring, and the 

 reversed form for honey and wintering. An 

 Italian swarm will fill the hive with bees, 

 and then by reversing, they maybe crowded 

 into the upper apartment. Please give us 

 your opinion of our arrangement." 



Geo. H. Mackey, 



[ Opinions differ as to the value of your 

 plan of changing. Just now we think those 

 who use extractors favor the two-story ar- 

 rangement. — Ed.] 



Nashville, Tenn., February 5, 1877.— "The 

 Binder you sent me has come to hand, and I 

 like it so well that I send for another, as I 

 wish to preserve my Bee Journals in a 

 convenient form for reference." 



Mrs. a. E. O'Neill. 



[ This is the universal verdict of those 

 who have Binders for their Bee Journals. 

 We now get them up so that they will just 

 hold one volume of the Bee Journal, and 

 as each number can be inserted as soon as 

 it is received, it is thus preserved, and is in 

 the most convenient form for reference at 

 any moment.— Ed.] 



DeWitt Co., 111., Feb. 1, 1877.— "In the 

 fall of 1875, I made a box 14 ft. long, 2 ft. 

 high and 20 in. wide. I then made a frame 

 for every hive, 4 in. deep and 14 in. wide, by 

 20 in. long. In the front end there was a 

 door slide with a screen in it, %x5 in.; then 

 a strip 4x14 in. was laid on loosely, to be 

 taken off at will. Then another strip, 4x14 

 in., nailed down stationary, so as to leave a 

 space 12x14 in.— the size of my hive. On 

 this I placed my hives, leaving a space of 4 

 inches below the comb for an air chamber, 

 and the screen in the slide pieces as a ven- 

 tilation for the bees. I then filled the 3 in. 

 space around the hives with sawdust, cover- 

 ing up the top of the hives. They wintered 

 well. Last fall I made the box so that it 

 would take in a double row of hives, on the 



