and was not tliere wlien it came in, as it 

 was unloaded in tlie niglit, and a worse lot 

 of honey no one ever beheld. Tiieie was 

 one ton of it, and all but about 500 lbs. were 

 badly broken. 



The bee-keeper who puts liis honey up in 

 ^accordance with the demands of the market 

 will be sure of a good price and quick sale ; 

 but the one who uses large, coarse boxes 

 and crates, and a large amount of wood and 

 glass will come to grief. H. Alley. 



Wenham, Mass. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bee Items. 



The past winter was one of the most fa- 

 vorable for bees in many years. I wintered 

 49 colonies on their summer stands, and did 

 not lose any. All but six of them were at 

 Newcastle, and I did not see them from the 

 2d of January until the 9th of April. At the 

 latter date I found one colony starving, at 

 least three-fourths of the bees being dead, 

 and the rest barely alive. I fed them imme- 

 diately and saved a good queen and enough 

 bees to form a moderately strong nucleus. 

 Expecting to remain at Logansport for at 

 least one year more, I moved my bees to this 

 place; the' removal by rail, a distance of 80 

 miles, being effected without accident or 

 loss. 



THE SPRING HARVEST. 



The show of fruit blossoms, peach, cherry 

 and apple, is simply immense The trees 

 could not be fuller than they are. The peach 

 and cherry trees, at the present date, are 

 passing out of blossom, and the apple trees 

 are just in their glory. From the time the 

 fruit blossoms begin to make their appear- 

 ance, until this time, the weather has been 

 almost uninterruptedly hue, and the secre- 

 tion of honey has been very large. 



RED BUD OR " JUDAS TREE." 



I have noticed in the bee journals, for 

 some months past, inquiries and statements 

 concerning this tree as a honey producer. 

 I have known for years that bees worked on 

 it, but I had not tliouglit of it as especially 

 valuable. At Newcastle, the only place 

 where I have given much attention to bee- 

 keeping are very few trees of that kind, not 

 enough to make it practically of any value. 

 Here it abounds. Biddle's Island, an island 

 in the Wabash river, within the city limits, 

 has a large number of the trees, and there 

 are many of them in other localities within 

 reach of my bees. The yield of honey from 

 them is really astonishing. Tlie bees that 

 have visited the reb-bud are readily distin- 

 guishable from others by having more or 

 less of the red pollen adhering to them. I 

 have never seen bees carry larger loads of 

 honey from any source than tliey do from 

 this. Some of my colonies are storing sur- 

 plus honey, and in a few days I expect to ex- 

 tract some red-bud and fruit-blossom lioney. 



ROBBING. 



I have discovered, within the last 24 hours, 

 a case of robbing in which the stock l)eing 

 robbed did not seem to be able to distinguish 

 the robbers from the bees of their own hive. 



The honey was being carried away as fast 

 as a strong stock could carry it, the robbed 

 stock being also strong; and the bees whose 

 stores were being appropriated were work- 

 ing away as if there was nothing wrong. 

 The tianspositiou of the hives (the robbing 

 and the robbed), this morning, has put ah 

 end to the mischief. I have observed a 

 number of cases of the same kind before, 

 and I have no doubt that they are more 

 common than is generally supposed. It 

 seems strange that bees should commit rob- 

 bery when honey is so abundant every- 

 where; and stranger still, that while the 

 bees that were suffering the loss would seize 

 strangers from other hives, they would per- 

 mit the bees of that particular colony to 

 carry away their stores without molestation. 

 The only explanation I can give is, that by 

 some means the two colonies have acquired 

 the same scent. M. Mahin. 



Logansport, Ind., April 23, 1878. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



"On Novice." 



We very much dislike to occupy the valu- 

 able space of that best of all bee journals — 

 the old American— with so poor a subject, 

 but force of circumstances leave us no al- 

 ternative. We shall endeavor to make the 

 disagreeable task as brief as possible, trust- 

 ing to a kind Providence to deliver us from 

 a like dilemma in future. 



In December last we sent a card to the A. 

 B. ,J. saying that we should give its readers 

 a few choice extracts from the history of 

 " that $50 damages." Several causes have 

 conspired to delay the fultillment of that 

 promise— chief among them being thti quasi 

 promises of A. I. Root. 



Uiuler date of Dec. 5, 18T7, Novice wrote 

 us an apologetical letter for his previous 

 treatment of us, and in conclusion said: 

 •• The matter of the foundation is, so far as I 

 am concerned, perfectly satisfactory." In 

 view of what he had published at the time, 

 we thought he ought to say as much in 

 " OleaniiiQs,'''' and wrote him to that effect. 

 In his reply to our suggestion, lie ottered to 

 leave the whole matter out to a third party 

 for arbitration. But as Novice had ex- 

 pressed himself as being per/ectt{/ satisfied, 

 we didn't see anything to arbitrate, as we 

 only asked him to say publicly what he had 

 admitted to us, and we told him as much. 

 He then wrote us another of his peculiar 

 letters, saying that he was " in a quandary;" 

 that he felt that "something should be said" 

 to us, but that he didn't know what to say, 

 etc. Further on, in the same letter, he said, 

 "Although it was right to give it when you 

 asked that amount (the $oO damages), I can- 

 not for a moment think it was riglit for you 

 to take it. I can conceive of no explanation 

 that would make it, nor can the people." 

 We thought it a little funny that if it was 

 so " very naughty " for us to take the money, 

 how it could be so proper and riijht for him 

 to give it. Perhaps he saw the "muddle he 

 was getting himself in as he gave this reason 

 for his action; " I gave my money for the 

 sake of peace and good will." It occurs to 

 us, however, that the many bee-keepers 

 whose rights and feelings he has infringed 



