•rHi? mjmmmi€:mn b.e» j©oR]Mai<. 



811 



COIVVENTION DIRECTORY. 



Time and phtce of meeting. 



Dec. 10.— Huron, Tuacola and Sanilac Counties, at 

 Bad Axe, Mlcb. John O. Kundinger, Sec. 



Dec. 16, 17.~Nortliern lilinois, at Uocltlorcl, Ills. 



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



Deo. IS, 19.— Carolin.T. at Pineviile, N. C. 



N. P. Lyles, Sec, Derita, N. C. 



Jan. 1, 2.~Michipnn State, pt Detroit. Mich. 



II. D. Cutting. Sec, Clinton, Mich. 



May 7.— Susquehanna County, at Montrose, Pa. 



U. M. Seeley, Sec, Uarlord, Pa. 



J^" In order to have this table complete, 

 Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time aud the place of 

 each future meeting. —The Editok. 



North American Bee-Keepers' Association 



President— P. H. Elwood. ..StiirkviUe, N. Y. 

 Secretary— C. P. Dadant Hamilton, Ills. 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddon ..Dowagiac, Mich. 

 Sec'y and Manager— T. G. Newman, Chicago. 



simsiim 



^t^ 



Veiililatioii iu Winter. 



When packing the Langstroth portico- 

 hive in an outer box, or chaff hive, what is 

 the proper size of opening through each, in 

 front, to give suitable ventilation tor win- 

 ter ? I pack the hives all around, on top 

 and beneath, except in the portico. 



Linneus, Mo. C. F. Collixs. 



[As you do not pack chaff in the por- 

 tico, the ordinary entrance will give suffi- 

 cient ventilation for the bees in winter. 

 Then the bees, it wintering well, are almost 

 dormant, aud require but little air. — En.] 



Union Bce-Ueepers^" Convention. 



I wish to correct a few mistakes made by 

 the Secretary of the Union Bee Keepers' 

 Convention, in his report, in the American 

 Bee JouKXAL, of Nov. 1, 1890, on page 730. 



L.N. Black asked: "How old must 

 a queen be when she mates with a drone, 

 in order to become prolific i" Mr. Wallace 

 answered : "From three to seven days. 

 Then she should lay in three or four days 

 from the time of mating. In other words, 

 a good queen usually lays on the eleventh 

 or twelfth day after she is hatched, if the 

 weather is favorable." This is what I said. 



Mr. Lefler asked, " How do you rear the 

 most prolific queens T' Mr. Wallace re- 

 plied : " I now rear them in the strongest 

 and best colony, by taking the queen out 

 and letting them make queen cells. When 

 the cells are ten days old, I put a small 

 wire cap over as many cells as I desire 

 to save ; this is to keep them from being 

 destroyed after the first one is hatched out. 

 I do uot think of keeping the old queen in 

 the hive at the time of rearing, or making 

 cells." 



There were some other small mistakes, 

 but they were not worth noticing. The 

 two mentioned make quite a difference in 

 the meaning. Thomas S. Wallace. 



Clayton, Ills., Nov. 17, 1890. 



I/I<|n«'lj'inis Honey. 



Will granulated honey, if heated up to 

 the liquid point, and sealed air-tight, while 

 hot, granulate again ; or will it stay liquid' 

 Please answer this in the American Buk 

 Journal. Max Stepuexs. 



[If it is heated to 300 degrees Fahr., and 

 then sealed up air-tight, while hot, it will 

 not granulate again while thus sealed up. 

 — Ed.I 



A Poor Season. 



Bees in this section have had a poor sea- 

 sou, aud a good many who have neglected 

 to feed the bees will have empty hives next 

 spring. I have an apiary of 40 colonies to 

 go into winter quarters with, and I have 

 fed more this season than ever before since 

 I can remember. I started in the spring of 

 1890 with 30 colonies, all in good condi- 

 tion except two. One lost its queen, and 

 the other was weak. I united them and 

 made a good colony. They increased to -15 

 colonies, and were doubled up to -10. I 

 usually take 50 or 60 pounds of surplus 

 comb-honey to the colony. I shall not this 

 year have more than 15 pounds to the 

 colony, spring count. I sell my honey in 

 my own and adjoining towns. I get 18 

 cents for one-pound sections. The season 

 opened up unfavorably. It was cold and 

 wet up to the last of May. We had a short 

 flow of white clover honey, then it came on 

 dry, and the bees just gathered enough to 

 supply their daily wants, then from the 

 middle of August to this date, it has been 

 very wet, and swarms that issued late have 

 starved, when not fed. I have fed all of 

 my new colonies, and part of the old ones. 

 I keep hybrids and pure Italians. Most all 

 in my locality keep black bees. 



Frank A. HouonTox. 



Harvard, Mass., Nov. 19, 1890. 



l>rone!«. 



Do drones 



Please answer this query 

 ever gather honey and pollen ? 

 Decatur, Ills. R. T. Davis. 



[No. Nature never intended them to do 

 such work, and therefore did not sujiply 

 them with the means of doing it. You 

 should get a good Manual and study it. — 

 Ed.] 



I^o Surplus Honey. 



Score another against Mr. Clarke, who 

 said our brethren across the northern 

 border were not Americans. If they are 

 not, who are they ? That is the question. I 

 began the season with 2 colonies, and ended 

 with 7, having lost 2, and got no surplus ; 

 but I am not discouraged, as I have not 

 heard of any one who is overloaded with 

 honey, in this section. M. E. Wilson. 



Black River Falls, Wis., Nov. 30, 1890. 



Insuring Bees. 



Please inform me, through the American 

 Bee Journal, the name of any Fire In- 

 surance Company that will insure bees, 

 while in the cellar. Also their rates and 

 what value per colony they will insure 

 them for. E. L. Plumb. 



Windsor, Conn., Nov. 18, 1890. 



[We do not know of any Company that 

 will insure them. Since their experience, 

 some 16 years ago with Mrs. Tupper, all 

 that we know of refuse to take such risks. 

 —Ed.] 



CoiunionerM. 



If I wrote "consumers" in the 11th lino 

 of my letter, on page 780,1 never meant 

 it, but commimcrs. " Are drones com- 

 moners ; was what I meant to write, if it 

 was not so written. Would be sorry to be 

 so illinformad as not to know that drones 

 are connumers. If we have bee pl'js, the 

 drones would surely fill the bill. 



T. F. KlXSEL. 



[The writing was quite indistinct, and 

 looked like cunnumers ; so the printer "set 

 it up," and it slipped through. We cheer- 

 fully make the correction. — Ed. J 



Xliirty Pounds to tlie Colony. 



I have but a small apiary. 18 colonies, 

 but they are all going into winter quarters 

 in good condition. I have Italianized all 

 of them. This Fall they yielded about 30 

 pounds of surplus honey, per colony, in one- 

 pound sections. I never disturb, or take 

 honey from the lower story. 



Joseph G. Banning. 



Brookfield, Mo., Nov. 29, 1890. 



Poor Season for Honey. 



This has been the poorest season for 

 bees in several years. I have Italian bees, 

 but I formerly bad the blacks. 



A. M. Mason. 



Homer, Ga., Nov. 17, 1890. 



Bee-Perlotlieals. 



On page 729 the Rev. W. F. Clarke criti- 

 cizes the Canadian Bee Journal and one 

 of its editors respecting the payment of 

 contributors to bee-periodicals. Permit me 

 to say that I, and not Mr. Jones, am the 

 author of the paragraph which he takes as 

 his test, and that I had in my mind's eye 

 none other than him when I penned it, and 

 the shoe pinched so hard that it made 

 the wearer squeal. I left lots of room 

 for " such men as Prof. Cook, Heddon, 

 Doolittle, Cornell, McKnight, Holtermann, 

 Dr. Miller, and others." One of the above, 

 Mr. McKnight, never accepts pay for any 

 article he writes, and there is more solid, 

 practical sense in one of his articles than in 

 a dozen of Mr. Clarke's wordy discourses. 



He says; "It is foreign to the true 

 literary instinct to write merely for pay." 

 Perhaps so, but Mr. Clarke's instinct is 

 " money first and money always," his own 

 statements to the contrary notwithstand- 

 ing. True, he does sometimes write with- 

 out pay, but he always has an object, and 

 not always a worthy one, in view, when he 

 does so. I suspect that the present article 

 is one of these, and his object, in this case, 

 was to get a rap at the Canadian Bee 

 Journal and its publishers, because they 

 pursue the even tenor of their svay without 

 reference to him, and without hi? assis- 

 tance. He is possessed with the idea that 

 he, and he only, can run a bee-periodical. 

 As an instance of this, about a year ago he 

 made the statement that he wished that he 

 " had continued the Amekicax Bee Jour- 

 nal." I replied, " Then there would not 

 have been any American Bee Journal 

 now." 



Why does he bear a grudge against the 

 Canadian Bee Journal ? When it was 

 started, his advice was not asked, and this 

 he cannot forget. In fact, many of our 

 friends whom we did advise with, told us 

 to leave him severely alone, if we would 

 make a success of the venture. When the 

 American Bee Journal reduced its price 

 to one dollar per annum, he said. " It cut 

 off aft its paid contributors," and he was 

 one of the number. This he told me him 



