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219 



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COTVVEMTIOM DIRECTORY. 



1890. Time and place of meeting. 



April 16. 17.— Missouri Stale, at MHrahall. Mo. 



J. W. Kouse, Sec, Santa Fe, Mo. 



May 1.— Southwestern Wisconsin, at Boscobel, Wis. 

 BenJ. E. Kice, Sec. Boscobel, Wis. 



May 3.— Susquehanna Co.. at Hopl)Ottoin. Pa. 



H. M. Seeley, Sec, Harford, Pa. 



May 7, h.— Texas State, at Greenville. Tex. 



J. N. Hunter, Sec. Celeste. Tex. 



May 19.— Northern Illinois, at Cherry Valley. Ills. 

 D. A. Fuller, Sec, Cherry Valley, Ills. 



■ In order to have this table complete, 



Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting.— The Editor. 





Hiv«-Enlrances and Ventilation. 



In reply to Mr. A. N. De Groff's question 

 on page, 188, I would say: To close, or 

 partly close, the hive entrance, I use a 

 square piece of board % of an inch thick, 

 and some longer than the entrance of the 

 hive, driving an inch wire-nail through the 

 center, the point reaching ^g of an inch 

 through, so that when placed at the en- 

 trance, with a little pressure it fastens it to 

 the bottom-board so that the bees or wind 

 cannot remove it. It is very handy to ad- 

 just as desired. I remove my bees from 

 the cellar in the evening; the next day they 

 will come out undisturbed, and locate 

 themselves much better. In removing bees 

 from the cellar in the daytime, it helps very 

 much to fill the cellar with smoke ; then 

 placing on the blocks, you need not lose a 

 bee. It will not do to shut bees in long at 

 a time, unless they are in the dark, as they 

 will worry themselves to death. 



Bronson, Mich. Byron Benton. 



Double-^Valled Hives. 



I have read with interest the discussion 

 for and against double-walled hives, and 

 cannot help giving my experience, for I 

 have used nothing else for the last five 

 years, and have not lost a colony. I make 

 mine out of 's-inch lumber planed on both 

 sides, with )-j,'-inch dead air space, and loose 

 bottom-boards % of an inch thick. In win- 

 ter I simply fill the cover with chafl:, first 

 putting canvas on top of the broodframes. 

 These hiyes are no heavier than hives made 

 of %-inch lumber, and are much cooler in 

 summer. Thej- are the easiest for tiering 

 up for comb honey, for the tiers can be run 

 to any heighth ; or can be used for extract- 

 ing, as I do, by putting on extra brood- 

 chambers on top, in place of the sections. 

 F. W. Taylor. 



Uee-Keeping; in Nebraska. 



Last season bees here did fairly well, but 

 not so well as the year before. The yield 

 was good for this part of the country, but 

 not as good as in-some other places. Bees 

 are wintering will, as a general thing. 

 Mine are wintering out-of-doors, banked 

 with hay; they were put away in Decem- 

 ber, and I had not looked at them until to- 

 day. I found one colony dead out of 35 ; it 

 was a late swarm, coming in September, 

 and did not have enough honey ; but the 

 balance have plenty so far, and will have 

 if the .spring is not very late. I have been 

 keeping bees three years, and this is the 



flnst that I have lust, I take the greater 

 part of my honey with the extractor, and I 

 like it best. 1 have no trouble in selling it, 

 having sold my cn)|i so far at 10 and 12'.! 

 cents for extracted, and 12}4 cents per 

 pound for comb himey. The extracted is 

 much less trouble, and easier to take care 

 of. I put it in open stone-.iars, tie a paper 

 over the top of the jar, and put it upstairs; 

 it has cured nicely, and has not grained 

 any yet. I use tlie Langstroth frame, but 

 not the hive, but one similar to it, except 

 the cap. The body of the hive is like the 

 Langstroth, except that I nail a band 

 around one inch from the top, and have the 

 cajj rest over that, making a water-proof 

 box, and it is handy. Jas. Kixoaid. 



Clay Center, Nebr., March 13, 1890. 



Wintered i\icely— Xiering Up. 



I started last spring with 13 colonies, and 

 increased them to 37, which I will have to 

 commence with this season. They have all 

 wintered nicely so far. I noticed on page 

 187, in a letter entitled " Management of 

 Bees," the writer said that he had some 

 trouble in getting his to start to working in 

 the supers. If you will permit me, at some 

 future time, I will give my method of tier- 

 ing up. I prize the Bee Journal very 

 highly. A. M. Tinker. 



De Witt, Iowa, March, 14, 1890. 



[Certainly ; we want aU the light, and if 

 you have anything new, we would like to 

 give it to our readers. — Ed.] 



Spacing; and Inrerting Hives. 



For two or three years I have been try- 

 ing to think of some way of inverting and 

 properly spacing Langstroth frames, and 

 without cutting the projecting ends of the 

 frames off. I am pleased to say that I have 

 found it in the Wilcox spacing arrangement. 

 I have changed my eight-frame Langstroth 

 hives with fixed bottoms, to loose bottoms, 

 with '4-inch strips on the two sides and 

 rear end, so that they can be inverted or 

 tiered up. This arrangement also provides 

 against unproper spaces at the ends of the 

 frames, as they sometimes get racked end- 

 wise. It also keeps the ends of the frames 

 free from propolis, and holds one or more 

 frames in place as well as a hiveful, and is 

 also a great convenience when moving or 

 shipping bees. Walter Harmer. 



Hive-Entrances wlien lUovinsr. 



On page 188, Mr. A. N. DeGroff asks 

 " how to close the main entrance to hives 

 when moving them to and from the cellar," 

 etc. My plan, which I find very conven- 

 ient, is to take a piece of board ^d'-inch 

 thick, and about one inch wider, and 2 or 3 

 inches longer than the opening in the hive; 

 cut a piece from one edge, about f.j-inch 

 wide, and 2 or 3 inches shorter than the 

 strip; tack wire-cloth over the space thus 

 made, and place this strip over the entrance 

 to the hive, having first fitted a screw 

 through the upper edge of it, and a few 

 turns of the screw will hold it securely in 

 place, closing the hive, and giving the ven- 

 tilation desired. A wooden buttom placed 

 above the strip in such a way as to be 

 turned down over the strip, will hold it in 

 place, and is even more convenient than 

 the screw for contracting the entrance 

 against robbers or cold air. I use a strip 

 without the wire-cloth, moving it to one 

 side so as to give space for one bee or more 

 to pass at the side of the entrance. A square 

 piece of wood placed on the alighting- 

 board, heavy enough to remain in position, 

 will answer the purpose. J. M. Clark. 



Hillsdale, Mich., March 15, 1890. 



AerainHt iMi{;i*alory Uee-Heepingf. 



I notice on page 145 that Byron Walker, 

 of Michigan, wants to come with a big l(;ad 

 of bees in July, when basswood is in blos- 

 som. I will say right now that we do not 

 want him here at all, if he comes with so 

 many bees to take the bread from our 

 tables, and then sell the honey for almost 

 nothing here, and ruin our markets all 

 along the Mississippi. That is what we do 

 not like, for it is not profitable for us here 

 on the river. I had 12 acres of land, but it 

 was not good for bees, so I sold it last year 

 and bought a better place here, close to the 

 Mississippi river, about 20 miles north of 

 Dubuque, Iowa. I want to make some 

 money, and I do not want to be bothered 

 by Byron Walker and his bees. There are 

 more bee-keepers here that talk the same 

 as I do. Cannot Mr. Walker stay at home 

 and make the business pay, as any other 

 good bee man does' Peter Em.. 



Sherrill's Mount, Iowa, March 10, 1890. 



Ciood Season Expected in Utah. 



After one of the hardest winters, we are 

 just beginning to have spring, which is 

 rather late for this region. The probabili- 

 ties are considerable loss in bees; we antici- 

 pate, though, a much better honey season 

 this year than we had last. 



John C. Swaneh. 



Salt Lake City, Utah, March 17, 1 890. 



Enli;;litened by tlie Almanacs. 



On March 12 bees had their first flight 

 since Nov. 15, 1889. There is 2 feet of 

 snow on the ground now. I was in town 

 the other day, and asked a woman if she 

 did not want some honey. She wanted to 

 know if the bees made honey when there 

 was so much snow on the ground ! Another 

 person wanted to know what the queen did 

 when the " king " died. I will give these 

 people some Honey Almanacs, to enlighten 

 them. I got one barrel full of golden-rod 

 honey. Some of my colonies in the cellar 

 have the diarrhea. Henry Stark. 



Pulcifer, Wis., March 17, 1890. 



Xlie Use of Swarm-Hivers. 



I have read Mr. Lacy's description of what 

 he calls a " swarm-hiver," on page 170. It 

 seems to me that Mr. Lacy, or myself, has 

 attached a wrong name to such a device. 

 How can the arrangement of Mr. Lacy's 

 be called a " hive-s warmer?" Any one who 

 will look at that arrangement for a mo- 

 ment, will say that no queen is likely to 

 pass through the side of the hive, and into 

 an adjoining hive at swarming time. It is 

 natural for the bees and queens, when a 

 swarm issues, to pass out at the regular 

 entrance that the bees have been accus- 

 tomed to use. Then, again, if the queen 

 should pass into the vacant hive, what will 

 prevent her from returning to the home 

 hive * If Mr. L. has a device to prevent the 

 queen from returning to her own combs, 

 then he infringes my "rights." But as 

 there is so little chance of any queen being 

 captured by the arrangement he proposes, 

 I will not take space to discuss it here. 



It seems to me- when Mr. Lacy constructed 

 his swarmer, he did not properly consider 

 the nature of the bee; had he done so, he 

 would have devised a little different ar- 

 rangement. When I devised my swarmer, 

 the following points were considered, viz : 

 1. The bees must issue from the hive 

 through the regular entrance. 2. Some 

 way to rid the swarmer of drones must be 

 provided while the swarmer is on the hive, 

 as the drones will certainly leave the hive 

 by the same exit that the other bees do. In 

 this respect, the swarmer will serve as a 



