^oumntions. 



The National Convention. 



The following is tiie gist of the correspon- 

 dence omitted, in the report of this Con- 

 vention as given last mouth : 



Statistics. 



Kev. A. PI. Hart, Appleton, Wis., says : 

 "According to the best information 1 have 

 been able to obtain, the product of this 

 State is 850,000 lbs. of honey, and 8,250 lbs. 

 of wax." 



W. M. Kellogg, Ocjuawka, 111., says : 

 " The No. of members in the 'Western 111., 

 and Eastern Iowa Association,' is 79. No. 

 of colonies of bees kept by its members 

 May 1st, 1878, was 3,989. No. of pounds of 

 lioney gathered in 1877, was 144,000." 



D. "D. Palmer, New Boston, III., says he 

 estimates that " in the ytate of Illinois there 

 are 500 persons keeping bees ; they have 

 about 14,000 colonies, from which they 

 receive about 500,000 lbs. of honey and 70,- 

 000 lbs. of wax." 



John H. Keippart, Columbus, O., promises 

 information soon. 



Gen. LeDuc gives, as the "probable 

 amount of honey produced in .the United 

 .States, forty-five millions of pounds. In 

 Kansas in 1873 the assessors reported 14,845 

 colonies of bees, with a yield of 133,384 lbs. 

 of honey, or only 9 1-10 lbs to the colony." 



Rev. M. Mahin, D.D., Logansport, Ind., 

 writes : " I estimate the number of colo- 

 nies in the State of Indiana to be about 

 570,000— yielding less than 25 lbs. per colony, 

 the honey production of the State being 14,- 

 250,000 lbs. At 15c. per lb. this would 

 amount to ;$2,137,500." 



J. M. Shuck, Des Moines, Iowa, says : 

 "The honey interest in our State is a large 

 one, and sliould be properly organized, and 

 if we had been blessed with county oi-gani- 

 zations or societies for the propagation of 

 our interests, I believe a line honey report 

 from Iowa would have been promptly fur- 

 nished." 



New Comb Founilatinn and Maciiine. 



Mrs. Frances Dunham, DePere, Wis., sent 

 samples of her foundation, made upon a 

 machine of her own invention and said : " I 

 do not claim anythingfor it, only hope it will 

 be an improvement. I beg you to judge the 

 product, not the machine, which I do not 

 consider perfect in working ; but expect my 

 new machine to be so, and also am going to 

 have the cells a little deeper, though of the 

 same round form. I have not experimented 

 with it at all in the hive, with the excep- 

 tions of the imperfect frame sent you, 

 which 1 placed for my own gratification in 

 the center of one of my strongest colonies, 

 in the hot weather ot July ; it was tilled 

 from top to bottom bar, pressed into place 

 at the bottom. I have applied for a patent, 

 not to make the price of foundation or 

 machines higher, but because I hope to be 

 allowed to benefit by what has cost me much 

 thought, although I am ' only a woman.' " 



standard of Purity. 



R. M. Argo, Lowell, Ky., writes : " I ex- 

 pect our National Convention, shortly to 

 meet in New York, will be called upon to 

 establish a standard of purity for Italian 

 queens. I am in favorof some such standard 

 if it can be made, but if they should under- 

 take it at the next convention I fear they 

 will find it rather a herculean task, as hardly 

 any five or six prominent bee-men of long 

 experience agree on the same test. Also, 

 all who have imported queens direct from 

 Italy know very well that they are several 

 shades darker and th.at the bright color is 

 bred in this country and does not come till 

 the second or third generation. If the con- 

 vention should establish a standard it will 

 be properly called the American standard of 

 purity of the Italian queen bees, and then 

 when queens are imported by those who had 

 never imported before, and tiieir color is 

 far below the standard of purity, what will 

 they say ? Will they not say our standard 

 is defective or their queens are hybrids ? 

 Had we not better first settle the question 

 whether there are hybrids in Italy, as I 

 believe there are, and if it is a fact that 

 there are hybrids in Italy, we will then be 

 far better able to establish a standard of 

 purity." 



Bees in Italy. 



Mr. C. J. Quinby, who had just returned 

 from Europe being called upon by the Presi- 

 dent for a speech, said: "That he had 

 visited nearly ail the principal bee-gardens 

 and queen-breeders or Northern Italy and 

 was surprised to find their bees so black ; 

 they were generally three-banded, but one 

 had to look closely to see the bands. He 

 had also thoroughly inspected all the 

 apiarian displays at the great exhibition 

 and pronounced them very inferior when 

 compared with our own appliances for mani- 

 pulating the bees and their products. He 

 pronounced our ' American Italian bees ' 

 decidedly superior in all respects to any- 

 thing he saw in Europe." 



Bee-Keeping in California. 



The settlement of California by white 

 people has been so recent, and the peculiari- 

 ties of its flora so different from most other 

 parts of the world, that the introduction of 

 many plants and animals common elsewhere 

 but not indigenous here, has occurred within 

 the memory of men of this generation, or 

 the one preceding. While in other countries 

 the knowledge and use of certain plants and 

 animals extends back of civilized history, 

 and in the United States, east of the Missis- 

 sippi river, no exact date can be assigned to 

 their introduction ; in California most of 

 the cereals, the fruits, the domestic animals, 

 and the enemies and diseases that attack 

 them, can be traced to the exact date of 

 their introduction, and in most instances 

 the importor can be named. 



The first settlers, in 1760, were the catho- 

 lic missionaries who did most remarkable 

 work in civilizing the Indians and introduc- 

 ing tlie products and appliances of civliza- 

 tion. 



But among the many things brought by 

 them, there is no record of the honey-bee, 

 nor did any of the Spanish native residents 



