TMm mvmmmiGmn mm,m joiiiRifsiu. 



315 



causing the greatest mortality among 

 tlie bees that was ever known in this 

 part of the countrj' ; wliile in some 

 seasons the beos gather honey-dew that 

 is of a light color, and no bad eii'ects 

 follow. 



Last fall, a bee-keeper (older than 

 I) prophesied a great fatalitj' among 

 the bees the last winter, on account of 

 much dark honey being stored in the 

 fall ; and claimed that it was honey- 

 dew. I disagreed with him, and 

 claimed it to be a mixture of buck- 

 wheat and boneset — in the forenoon 

 the bees were busy on buckwheat blos- 

 soms : in the afternoon they worked on 

 the boneset until dark ; and, the I'esult 

 is, bees never wintered better, or were 

 more healthy in the spring. 



I am of the opinion that the honey- 

 dew is a secretion In the leaves, which, 

 under certain conditions of the atmos- 

 phere, is forced to the surface ; there- 

 force, these insects having a "sweet 

 tooth," find it and congregate there to 

 feed upon it. Nature's laws make the 

 honey, and the bee is the collector of 

 these stores ; but let those advocates of 

 the excrement theorj- sample some of 

 the productions of the bees in that 

 line, and see how much sweet is in it. 



Mr. Tyrrel says, on page 26-i, that 

 trees covered with lice and slugs, and 

 those oul}', produced honey-dew. Now 

 I do not think that he lives in a wood- 

 ed country : I have found leaves cov- 

 ei'ed with lliis honey-dew, but on ap- 

 plying the microscope, I could not de- 

 tect the presence of any insect. I 

 would be pleased, if some of those be- 

 lievers in the "excrement theory" 

 would be kind enough to send me a 

 dead or dry leaf this summer, having 

 the honej'-dew and the apis on it. 

 Pluck it from any tree that can be 

 found in the timber. "The proof of 

 the pudding is in the eating." 



Slippery Rock, Pa. 



LOSS IN WINTER. 



Wliy Did tlie Bees Leave tlieir 

 Hive§ so Abruptly ( 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BV G. N. BENHA:*!. 



There was a terrible loss of bees all 

 over this section of country, during the 

 past winter. We had a very mild and 

 open winter here, plenty of ice, and 

 but little snow, as the sun would melt 

 the snow to a slush, and at night it 

 would freeze, making the roads a solid 

 bed of ice. 



As I reported last winter, I had 42 

 colonies of bees in the cellar, and a 

 good portion of the time I had to open 

 the outside cellar-door, and also the 

 cellar windows, besides giving upward 



ventilation through the chimney. I 

 carried great quantities of snow and 

 ice into the bee-cellar to keep the bees 

 as quiet as possible, but one reason I 

 ventilated so thoroughlj' was, to clear 

 the cellar of a most terrible stench that 

 came from the hives. I made a long 

 hook of heavy wire, that I used to 

 reach into the hives where dead bees 

 accumulated, and pulled them out. 

 thereb}' giving the bees plenty of fresh 

 air in their time of trouble. 



The hives were badly spotted all 

 over the fronts, some of them even to 

 an eighth of an inch thick on the 

 alighting-board. I am a beginner, and 

 how I did it, I scarcely know, but I 

 only lost 3 colonies in the cellar, and 2 

 of these I can account for, as one 

 starved, and the other was queenless, 

 but the third died of this "mysterious 

 disease," as the old bee-keepers call it. 



I would like to be enlightened on 

 the probable cause of this great loss of 

 colonies. 



Then, we have sustained a great 

 loss of colonics this spring in another 

 way. On April 11, the temperature 

 was from 80- to 8(1^ above zero in the 

 shade, and the country was alive with 

 bees, swarms, queens and all, going 

 in every direction, leaving their hives 

 never to return. I had 4 swarms come 

 out, but I was on hand, and stopped 

 the in ; I gave them clean hives, and 

 plenty of honey, and they are doing 

 well. One of mj- neighbors had 24 

 colonies leave their hives the same 

 daj" — in fact, we all suflered more or 

 less loss that day. 



I would be glad, indeed, to know 

 what caused these colonies to be so 

 displeased with their old home as to 

 leave it, and go in search of a new 

 one. I would suggest two reasons, 

 viz : 1. The hives were so filthy, and 

 the colonies so reduced, tbat they 

 could not clean them, and they would 

 not live in such filth. 2. Hunger was 

 "staring them in the face." 



I have bought a few more colonies 

 this spring, enlarging mj' apiarj- to 46 

 colonies. I am feeding only such colo- 

 nies as need the honey to eat. I have 

 induced one old bee-keeper, who has 

 40 colonies in box-hives, to use the 

 Langstroth hive, and to exchange the 

 "Starch-box caps" to the .super and 

 one-pound sections. 



Red Wing, Minn., April 25, 1890. 



COIVVENTIOM DIRECTORY. 



Xlie Report of the proceedings of the 

 20th annual session of the International 

 American Bee- Association contains, besides 

 the interesting report, the new songs and 

 music then used, and engravings of the 

 present officers as well as the retiring ones. 

 In all, it contains 36 pages. It is for sale 

 at this office. The price is 35 cents, post- 

 paid. 



1890. Time aiid place of meellnij. 



May 10.— York unrl CumherlancI, at Buxton ('tr., Me. 



C. W. CoHtellow, Sec, Waterboro, Me. 



May l3.-Cortlan(1 Union, at Cortland, N. Y. 



M. U. Kairbanks, Sec, Homer, N. V. 



May 17.— Haldimand. at CayuKa, Ont. 



E. C. Caniphell, Sec, Cayuj^a. Ont. 



May 20.— Northern Illinois, at Cherry Valley, UIh. 



D. A. Fuller, Sec, Cherry Valley, U\s. 



July 17.— Carolina, at Charlotte, N. C. 



N. P. Ijyles, Sec, Derita N. C. 



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 Euitou. 



International Bee-Association. 



PuESiDENT— Hon, K. L, Taylor.. Lapeer, Mich. 

 Secretary— r. P. D:idant Hamilton, Ills. 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— .James Heddon ..Dowag-iiic, Mich. 

 Sec' Y. AND MAN.4GER— T. G. NewmiiQ, Chicago. 



S^tf£77QA|jr> 



Ciood Prospect tor '^Vhite Clover. 



Bees %vintered pretty well in this part of 

 the country. They were all left on the sum- 

 mer stands, with only a few boards put 

 around them to keep off the wind, and 

 some without any protection at all. They 

 are having a good time now ; trees are in 

 full bloom, and there never was a better 

 prospect for white clover. There are plenty 

 of brood and young bees in the hives, and 

 we can expect a swarm any day. 



Ed. E. Sch.midt. 



Carpenter, Ills., April 28, 1890. 



A Simple Iloney-Board. 



I have noticed two or three remarks 

 lately in the Bee Journal, by prominent 

 bee-keepers, to the effect that when the 

 openings from tbe brood-chambers to the 

 surplus department was much less than 

 those in the ordinary slatted honey-board, 

 still it seemed to make no difference in the 

 amount of honey stored. That being the 

 case, why not make the honey -board with 

 only two or three broad slats i or have it 

 simply one solid board, with two or three 

 long slits cut in the centre ? A queen ex- 

 cluding strip could be tacked over these, if 

 desired. It seems to me that such a board 

 would be much easier to make, and, more- 

 over, stiffer than the slatted board. 



HoR.\.i'E N. Jones. 



Clay Center, Nebr., April 25, 1890. 



■..arjSfe or Small Hives. 



The schools of to day impart information 

 by object lessons. The eye sees things 

 when the rod fails to make any impression 

 on the mind for good. For the 99th time, 

 "large or small hives " have been harped 

 upon. A small hive is not advocated by a 

 solitary writer, but a small brood chamber 

 is a different matter entirely. My object 

 lesson win show this difference, which Mr. 

 Fisher has not learned in his SO years' 

 experience, as given on page 265. The 

 brood box or chamber is 13 inches wide 

 from front to rear, by IS.^.,' across the 

 frames, by lOV; deep below the rabbets, 

 containing 9 bi-ood-frames which are the 



