AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



53 



COWVEWTIOW DIRECTORY. 



Time and place of meeting. 



1892. 



Jan. 18, 19.— Colorado State, at Denver. 



H. Knight, Sec, Littleton, Colo. 



Jan. 20, 21.— The Minnesota, at Owatonua. 

 Wm. Danforth, Sec. Ked Wing, Minn. 



Feb. 10, 11, 12 —Ohio State, at Cincinnati. 

 S. R. Morris, Sec, Bloom ingburg, O. 



In order to have this table complete, 

 Seci"etaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting. — The Editor. 



North American Bee-Keepers' Association 



President— Eugene Secor.. Forest City, Iowa. 

 Secretary— W. Z. Hutchinson Flint. Mich. 



ITational Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddon ..Dowagiac, Mich. 

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



Bee ajiil Hojiey Gossip. 



^P~ Do not write anything for publication 

 on the same sheet of paper with business 

 matters, unless it can be torn apart without 

 interfering with either part of the letter. 



Large Increase. 



I had 44 colonies of bees, Spring 

 count, which increased to 76 colonies, 

 and gave me 2,000 pounds of comb- 

 honey, and from 600 to 700 pounds of 

 extracted-honey, all of which was from 

 basswood — not a pound of dark honey 

 in the lot. I sold 1,000 pounds of comb- 

 honey at 153^ cents per pound to 

 Stewart & Elliott, at Minneapolis, Minn. 

 I have united them down to about 60 

 colonies for Winter. 



Geo. H. Aubinger. 



Bonniwell's Mills, Minn. 



Bees Working- Now. 



I have received the annual report of 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Union, to- 

 'fether with the membership blank, to- 

 1- ay. In reply I will say that I am glad 

 to see such an increased membership, 

 Und I am also glad to vote for some of 

 Dhe good members for- the offices to be 

 filled. At some later date I will give 

 you some little idea of bee-keeping in 

 this locality. Probably you will hesitate 

 to believe, when I tell you that my bees 

 are now working every day. Of course 



they are not storing any surplus, but 

 they are gathering enough to live on. 

 You know that the bees in tliis locality 

 are all wintering on the summer stands, 

 and require but little care during the 

 Winter. Bee-keeping here would be a 

 grand success, if carried on in as thor- 

 ough a manner as in the East; as it is, 

 we frequently get tremendous crops. 



W. A. Choate. 

 Coltou, Calif., Dec. 20, 1891. 



They Xiaugh. at TJs. 



I am very fond of reading the Ameri- 

 can Bee Joxjrxal, the contents of 

 which are always very interesting to me, 

 and are of much value for bee-culture in 

 general. In order that Germany may 

 profit by the advancements of American 

 apiculture, as well as other countries, I 

 have a column in the Bienen-Centralblatt, 

 in which I regularly once a month give 

 translations from American, French, 

 Italian, and other bee-periodicals. Allow 

 me to say that it would be better to stop 

 that humbug about the " golden Carnio- 

 lans." People in Carniola are laughing 

 about it, and such a stupid article as 

 Fleischmann's in the Leipziger, is the 

 result. H. Reepen. 



Hessen, Germany, Dec. 12, 1891. 



My First Lessons in Bee-Keeping. 



I was born in Preble County, O., Sept. 

 19, 1814, and when I was about 6 

 weeks old my parents took a notion to 

 move to Indiana Territory, and being in 

 my minority, I went with them. It was 

 there that I took my first lessons in bee- 

 keeping. We found our first colonies in 

 hollow trees, and from Nature we took 

 our first lessons, using sections cut from 

 hollow trees for hives. We wintered 

 our bees in those hives on the summer 

 stands, without any protection what- 

 ever, when the thermometer often indi- 

 cated 16^, 20^" and 25° below zero. 

 Here in Northern Iowa bees winter in 

 hollow trees, where 40° below zero is 

 no strange occurrence, and it was from 

 those indications that I planned my bee- 

 house. There has been great improve- 

 ment during the last 50 years in bee- 

 keeping, but we have had to go to the 

 bees themselves for the suggestions. 

 There may be a certain temperature in 

 which it would be best to winter bees, 

 but if there is, I would rather believe it 

 to be below than above the freezing 

 point. There is always more or less 

 dampness arising from a healthy colony 

 of bees, and it should have a way to 



