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COSrVENTION DIRECTORY. 



1890. 

 JtUy 17. 



Time and place of meeting. 



-Carolina, at Charlotte, N. C. 



N. P. lyyles. Sec, Derlta N. C. 



Sept. 10.— Ionia County, at Ionia, Micb. 



H. Smith. Sec., Ionia, Mich. 



Jt^" 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 Editoh. 



International Bee-Association. 



Pkesident- 



Secretary- 



-Hon. R. L. Taylor.. Lapeer, Mich. 

 -C. P. Dadant Hamilton, Ills. 



ITational Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddou ..Dowagiao, Mich. 

 Sec't. and Man-\oer— T. G. Newman, Chicago. 





Splendid Prospects for a 4'rop. 



We have a splendid prospect for a good 

 honey crop. "White clover is all we couut 

 on for surplus. I have 80 colonies of bees 

 in good condition tor the time of jear. I 

 put about 3 bushels of sawdust around each 

 hive, to keep down grass and weeds. Is it 

 a good idea ? I have a good home market 

 — never send any honey away. I read the 

 Bee Journal more and more. 



Ed. Goff. 



Ashland, lUs., May 8, 1890. 



CSood Prospects tor >VI«ite Clover 



So far as heard from, 85 per cent, of the 

 bees in Green county, Ohio, have wintered 

 vrell. We have just passed 10 days of cold, 

 rainy weather, accompanied with strong 

 cold winds. Brood and drones are perish- 

 ing by the thousands. No doubt bees that 

 are neglected, will starve before clover 

 blooms. The prospects for white clover are 

 good. I have 56 colonies ready for the 

 harvest, today. C. E. Woodward. 



Xenia, O., May 12, 1890. 



Condition of Itees in iYIaiue. 



With the exception of one weak, feeble 

 colon}-, and a that are queenless, my 61 

 colonies of bees have wintered admirably. 

 The queenless colonies are rearing queens, 

 which will be ready for duty as soon as the 

 drones, now beginning to emerge, are old 

 enough to perform their functions. The 

 lost colony %vas the remnant of a colony 

 that was robbed last spring, and were 

 probably queenless when put into winter 

 quarters, and should have been united with 

 another colony ; but as it was too late to 

 do so when I got to them, I concluded to 

 let them go on the "hit or miss" system. 

 My bees are in the winter packing yet, and 

 will probably remain so a week or two 

 longer, if Sj^ring does not assume a more 

 genial countenance than that with which 

 we have been greeted to this date. At 

 present the outlook for a bountiful honey 

 crop is certainly not propitious, and a 

 change for the better must come soon, or 

 the bee-industry in this section, the coming 

 season, will be a repetition of the three 

 seasons preceding. J. F. Latham, 



West Cumberland, Me., May 12, 1890. 



hard frosts about every other night for the 

 past two weeks) bees would just I'oll in the 

 honey. Still, we should not find fault with 

 such small drawbacks, when we have so 

 many things in our favor. Bee-keepers 

 around us report their colonies strong, but 

 no swarms yet, so we think that we can 

 score the first swarm in this neighborhood, 

 for this season. J. W. Buchanan & Buo. 

 Eldora, Iowa, May 11, 1890. 



ltaclc\T»rdSprlns' — AVIiile Clover 



We are having a very backward spring 

 here — wet and cold. Bees are in good con- 

 dition, but they are short of stores. Fruit 

 trees are beginning to bloom, and the bees 

 are at work to day. I have two small 

 apiaries about one mile apart- 37 colonies 

 in one, and 23 in the other ; one colony is 

 queenless, leaving 49 in good condition. 

 White clover never looked better. 



B. W. Peck. 



Richmond Centre, O., May 13, 1890. 



An Experience 'with Bees. 



The winter loss of bees in this vicinity 

 was less than 5 per cent., and there has 

 been no spring dwindling. Though the 

 spring has been cold and windy, the bees 

 have reared brood well. My neighbor had 

 a swarm on April 30, which did well. The 

 weather has been very unfavorable during 

 fruit-bloom, and bees that were short of 

 stores have required feeding. I am nearly 

 60 years old, and all my life I have given 

 bees a wide berth, until 3 years ago a bee- 

 friend slipped a colony into my yard when 

 I was not at home. For one year I re- 

 spected them from a distance, for my 

 friend's sake, but got no boney or increase; 

 the next year it was the same, but the 

 third year there was signs of a boom 

 among the bees. I began to read the Bee 

 Journal, became interested, and ventured 

 a little closer to the hive, and soon began 

 to handle the bees, when friendship soon 

 ripened into love. Nest I got a few fi-ames 

 of honey, which pleased my wife, and when 

 fall came I had secured over 100 pounds of 

 honey, and put 5 colonies into winter quar- 

 ters. I am now the worst " bee-crank " in 

 Indiana. J. A. C. Dobson. 



Brownsburg, Ind., May 10, 1890. 



Examining Colonies in Spring. 



Generally about the first week in May, I 

 go over the entire apiary and examine the 

 condition of each colony, and make a note 

 of it in a small book, all the hives being 

 numbered. This examination I make just 

 as soon as all danger of wintering is passed. 

 Those colonies that I find have plenty of 

 honey and bees, I note down as in " good 

 condition ;" colonies that are weak in bees 

 and short of stores are classed as "weak 

 and need attention." This latter class 

 includes all queenless colonies, and those 

 that need help in any way. This record, if 

 properly kept, will show valued informa- 

 tion, and at any time the number of colo- 

 nies the bee-keeper owns, and the condition 

 of every hive in the apiary from year to 

 year, without the trouble of examining 

 each and every hive every few days. About 

 % of all the bees are dead in this locality — 

 mostly due from starvation. The winter 

 has been a mild one, but bees did not ob- 

 tain honey sufficient during the fall months 

 to last them through. We have lost quite 

 a number in summer hives, but very few 

 from those that were wintered in chaff 

 hives. J. M. Youno. 



Plattsmouth, Neb., May 8, 1890. 



First Btecs— ExtractiusT Honey. 



Bees were first noticed in theii' wild state 

 as we read of the ChUdreu of Israel using 

 honey in their sacrifice before the Taber- 

 nacle of the Lord. Races were not known 

 then as now — that was left for man to 

 develop. Man, in the course of time, saw 

 either by accident, or understand that 

 honey oozing from the comb was good. 

 Webster says that "extract" means "to 

 take from ;" wax, in itself, is not very 

 palatable to some, hence a desire to get 

 honey in its pure state. In this progressive 

 age. where everything is developed as fast 

 as Yankee, or any other nationality, can 

 devise the thought of profit, or " How much 

 can I make it pay?" is looked at from all 

 sides. Bees will produce so much more 

 honey if the extractor is used. What de- 

 lights a bee keeper's heart more than to 

 see the golden mass roll or run into his 

 receptacles ? Who does not love the 

 essence of sweetness confined in the midst 

 of this transparent liquid < As a medicine, 

 nothing can equal it; as for food, is it not 

 the nectar of the gods i 



Valparaiso, Ind. Mrs. E. M. Casbon. 



Small Lioss in Wintering:. 



Bees are doing well in this locality this 

 spring. There was very little loss the past 

 winter. Those wintered on the summer 

 stands, packed in chaff, were the strongest. 

 and have bred up the most rapidly. Of 10 

 colonies packed in chaff, we lost one that 

 had lost their queen during the winter, .and 

 had to be united with another colony this 

 spring. Of the remaining 9 colonies, one 

 cast a swarm on May 8, 6 more need watch- 

 ing every nice day, while the other two are 

 strong colonies. 



Out of 33 wintered in the cellar, we 

 lost two, one of which was a 3-frame neu 

 cleus of Carniolau bees, with an untested 

 queen, which we bought last fall, intending 

 to build them up into a good colony before 

 winter ; but although we fed them, and 

 they worked well, the queen did not la^-, 

 and so, instead of a strong colony to put 

 into winter quarters, we had only a nucleus 

 that died before the time to take them out 

 of the cellar. The other colony that died, 

 was one of the best and heaviest ones we 

 had. This leaves us 29 out of 33 colonies 

 to begin this season with. 



Fruit-trees are very full of bloom, and if 

 the nights were not so cold (there being 



Old Colonies ot Uees. 



Last fall I had 19 colonies, and my 

 mother had 3 ; 31 came through the win- 

 ter, one light colony belonging to me, hav- 

 ing died, but the rest are in good condition. 

 They were put in with lots of honey (fall 

 honey, at that), but as they had a chance 

 for a flight once in awhile, they came out 

 all right. I have bought 5 colonies, so we 

 now have 26. This is the best result that I 

 have had in wintering bees for a number of 

 years. Bees will winter on fall honey, if 

 they have a chance to fiy occasionally. 



I had three kinds of chaff hives on trial 

 the past winter — one a Root, one chaff Ecle- 

 tic, and 13 Falconer's chaff hives. The 

 colony in the Root hive seems to be a little 

 the strongest, although some of the others 

 are nearly equal to it ; the balance of the 

 colonies, excepting one, were in Langstroth 

 hives, packed in chaff, and they wintered 

 in very good condition. 



The old colony of bees which I call the 

 " Old Veteran," is still as good as ever. It 

 will be 30 years old on June 20. I saw 

 drones flying at this hive on May 2. I gave 

 a description of the "Old Veteran" on 

 page 316 ot the AjiericaxBee Journal for 

 1889 ; and on page 745 of the same vol- 

 ume is an article giving the history of an 

 old colony of bees owned by G. W. Bosen- 

 berger, of Rosendale, Va., which is called 

 the " Queen of Rosendale." I received a 

 letter from Mr. Rosenberger recently, in 



