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all. If he wished •• help " at a certain 

 time, anil they did not come until too 

 late, sundy he would not keep and 

 board them G or 8 months because it 

 was not convenient for tliem to come 

 sooner. Oh. no, ho would tell them 

 that he did not want tliem, for it was 

 too late. So I say, that when he says 

 that he wauts the hive over-flowing 

 with bees in the fall, only to consume 

 honey during the winter and die be- 

 fore the next honey harvest comes, 

 there must be a mistake somewhere. 



Why I prefer the It.alian bees to all 

 others, is for the reason that they are 

 more susceptible of being handled so 

 as to get the hive over-flowing with 

 bees at the right time, than are the 

 bees of any other race. Also, that as 

 soon as the honey harvest arrives, the 

 queen will cease her proliticness, and 

 thus we do not have a lot of "hungry 

 hands" to board, when they are of no 

 use to the apiarist. To show that I am 

 not alone in this, I will quote thj fol- 

 lowing from one of our largest honey 

 producers, who a few years ago was 

 quite a prominent writer for the vari- 

 ous bee-papers: "I get ver}- much the 

 best results from my purest and most 

 yellow Italians. The Italians seem to 

 be much more disposed to p.artially 

 stop brood-rearing, and bend all their 

 energies to honey-gathering whenever 

 there is a heavy flow of nectar, than 

 any other kind of bees which I have 

 tried, and this is a very great ad- 

 vantage." 



That the Syrian bees cannot be 

 managed so as to get a large amount 

 of brood at any other time, save in a 

 heavy flow of honey, is one of the 

 worst faults that any race of bees can 

 possess ; for an extra amount of brood 

 during the honey yield, always means 

 a multitude of mouths to feed after the 

 honey harvest is past. 



I tried the Syrian bees with the only- 

 hope that they would prove better than 

 the bees which I already had, but when 

 I found out that I could not coax the 

 queens of this race to lay eggs rapidly 

 except in the honey harvest, I saw that 

 it would be an impossibility for them 

 to give a large yield of honey. After 

 doing mj' very best with them the sec- 

 ond year, thinking that I might not 

 have full}' understood them at first, I 

 was obligeil to record only 50 pounds 

 of honey from the 6 colonies which I 

 had, while I had to feed them a large 

 amount to get them prepared for win- 

 ter, taking combs of sealed honey 

 from the Italians to do the feeding 

 with, while the same number of Italian 

 colonies gave over 500 pounds of sur- 

 plus during the same time and with the 

 same management. 



The Syrian bees would increase but 

 little till the honey harvest arrived, 

 when- they would crowd every availa- 



ble cell witii brood, whicli Ijrood would 

 u.se up ^nearly all the honej' the few 

 workers reared before, I'ould gather 

 while the honey harvest lasted, ■ On 

 tlie contrary, wlicn the honey harvest 

 opened, tlic Italians would have a hive 

 over-flowing with bees and everj' comb 

 lilled with brood, and this brood would 

 graduall}' decrca.se till at the end of 

 the harvest I had lots of honey and but 

 few mouths to feed. 



Here is an item which many bee- 

 keepers seem to overlook in following 

 their profession. Bees are only of 

 value when the}' come in time to take 

 advantage of tlie honey flow, and 

 whether througli the race of bees or 

 the carelessness of the apiarist we fail 

 in this point, little profit, or none at 

 all, is sure to be the result. 



Then again, these Sjriau bees arc 

 subject to the laying-worker nuisance 

 to a greater degree than any of the 

 other races, which in my estimation is 

 a fault of itself great enough to war- 

 rant us in not keeping them, if they 

 were as good as the other races of bees 

 in all other respects. Every time a 

 change of queens is made, tliese la}'- 

 ing workers lill the cells with eggs so 

 that the combs are filled with drone 

 brood before the j'oung queens get to 

 laying, so that they have little room in 

 which to deposit eggs after they be- 

 come fertile, while these useless drones 

 require much honey in their rearing 

 and afterward ; besides, drones in 

 worker comb does not leave the comb 

 in very good shape for after-using. 



Borodino. N. Y. 



sci^^M^^M 



fi/j^ li^TmmmBmf^ 



Honey, Itirtis and Flo^Ter<«. 



We have had one of the best honey flows 

 I ever saw in this section. Spring opened 

 early, and swarms began to issue in March, 

 and continued uutil July. I have 150 col- 

 onies in Simplicity and dovetailed hives. 

 I worked about 40 colonies for extracted 

 honey, and the rest for comb honey, in 

 one-pound sectious. I have some of the 

 finest comb honey I ever saw, gathered 

 from horse-mint and sour-wood. I am sell- 

 ing it without any trouble in the home 

 market. Fall flowers are beginning to 

 yield honey now, and they look promising 

 for a good crop. This is one of the pleas- 

 antest climates to live in— so many birds 

 and flowers. Willie Doiglass. 



Lexington, Texas, Sept. 22, 1890. 



Bee-Keepins: in Florida, etc. 



We have 1,300 colonies of mostlj- Italian 

 bees, and have taken only 13 barrels of a 

 very poor qualit3' of honey, and fear that 

 we will have to buy sugar for them, as 

 there is no honey here. What is the best 

 way to prepare sugar for feeding them ; 

 There are over 2,380 colonies of bees in 

 this neigborhood, and all failed to gather 



lioney. Them was lots of bloom, but it 

 failed to secrete any nectar. The cold 

 wave in the spring was the cause ; the 

 bloom seemed to be dwarfed. We had 

 great hopes of a fall flow, to feed the bees, 

 Imt it rains every day, so things look 

 gloomy ; but we must not let the bees 

 starve. We can imly hope for a good How 

 next season, and good prices. It will not 

 do to be discouraged. We must examine 

 every colony, and see that they have a 

 good living, which will be 3.5 or 10 pounds 

 each, as our bees commenced to get their 

 living about the first of February, from the 

 orange bloom, maple and other swamp 

 blooms. 



At one of our apiaries the bears made 

 several raids. We killed two of them, and 

 shot one more ; two others we did not get 

 to shoot, but they have taken warning, and 

 left. They are great lovers of honey, even 

 risking being shot for it. The last one that 

 came was shot about eight times before she 

 got enough of it. We hope that she will 

 stay in the swamps and let the bees alone, 

 as she is a bad " apiarist." She would take 

 up a hive and carry it eight or ten steps 

 from the bench, then take off the cover,and 

 eat all of the honey, and scatter all the 

 brood on the ground. She would take three 

 to four hives every night, and destroyed 

 20 or more colonies, as no one was living 

 at the apiary. Alderman & Roberts. 



Wewahitchka, Fla., Sept. 15, 1890. 



Bees in Fine Uonditiou. 



My bees did very well, considering the 

 poor season. I obtained 309 pounds from 

 4 colonies, spring count, and the bees are 

 in fine condition for winter. 



Jennings, Mich. W. H. Fowler. 



Small Crop ot Honey. 



This has been the poorest season for 

 honey since I have kept bees. My average 

 is 3 pounds to the colony, spring count— all 

 from linden bloom. I had 2 colonies that I 

 wished to hreak up, and I killed their 

 queens in July, and afterwards destroyed 

 all the queen-cells, and I thought that they 

 were hopelessly queenless, but about Sept. 

 1, I found brood in both hives, in all stages. 

 Now will some one please tell me where 

 they got their queens i Jesse White. 



Perry, Iowa, Sept. 20, 1890. 



Bee-lieeping' in Mississippi. 



Bees are as busy bringing in honey and 

 pollen now as I ever saw them, and it is 

 nearly all from golden-rod, but some of it 

 from other flowers. We are glad to have 

 a flow from some source or other, for our 

 bees needed it, and right badly too. About 

 two weeks ago some colonies did not have 

 5 pounds of honey ; to-day they have about 

 25 pounds- enough to winter on, and save 

 feeding— a thing which I once thought I 

 would have to do. Some of my Italian 

 bees have stored from 10 to 15 pounds of 

 surplus comb honey within the last week, 

 and I think they will give me at least 25 

 pounds before they stop. I said last year 

 that I did not think that golden-rod yielded 

 much honey, but I will change now, and 

 say that it does yield, and abundantly— at 

 least in some seasons. I reared a fine lot 

 of Italian queens this year, and now have 

 but one colony of black "bees, a few hybrids, 

 and the balance pure Italians. There is no 

 surplus honey of any account here. 



W. R. Tate. 



Goodman, Miss., Sept. 26, 1890. 



Clnbs of 5 for $4.00 to any addresses. 

 Ten for $7.50, if all are sent at one time. 



