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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Wavelets of News. 



Butter Tubs to Hold Water for Bees. 



When an apiary is not located near a 

 stream, water should be provided for the 

 bees in suitable vessels early in the sea- 

 son, before they have located their 

 drinking places. After having chosen 

 a drinking place, they will frequent the 

 same during the season. 



Bees drinking at neighbors' wells and 

 water troughs, have been the source of 

 disputes and grievances ; for horses and 

 cattle will suffer with thirst rather than 

 drink water bordered with bees. Wooden 

 tubs, such as butter is shipped in, make 

 good water receptacles, much better 

 than crockery ware, for bees can climb 

 out of a wooden vessel if they fall into 

 the water, but they cannot from a 

 smooth, glossy receptacle. 



Put some cloth into the water, and let 

 it hang over the tub. It will act as a 

 siphon, and the bees will sip the water 

 from the sunny side. Renew the water 

 often, and change the cloths; part of 

 the vessels should contain water slightly 

 brackish (about a tea-spoonful of salt to 

 a pailful of water). — Exchange. 



Body to Honey. 



The honey stored on the prairie, I 

 believe, is thicker than the honey gath- 

 ered in the timber ; there is an abun- 

 dance of wild flowers here that bees 

 work on, but I think the past season my 

 bees got the most honey from a field of 

 mustard on an adjoining farm. — H. V. 

 PooKE, in Farm, Stock and Home. 



Spring Work, Etc. 



Spring is here. How have the bees 

 wintered? In central northern Iowa 

 the mortality is great. The Winter has 

 not been severe, hence the loss has not 

 been caused by severe weathta*. Last 

 year was a poor on(! for honey. The 

 colonies not fed in the Fall were not 

 supplied with stores sufficient to carry 

 them six months. Empty hives is the 

 logical result. 



As nearly everything produced brings 

 a good price when no one has it to sell, 

 we. think honey will be in demand 

 another year. With fewer bees to 

 gather it, the crop is not likely to be 

 extensive in localities where a failure 

 was experienced last year, and bees died 

 of starvation. A year of plenty is likely 



to follow one of scarcity. Do not let the 

 bees you have left, starve before the 

 honey-flow begins. 



A dollar's worth of sugar may save 

 several colonies, and pay several hundred 

 per cent, on the investment. Look well 

 to your bees from now until June 1. See 

 that they do not get out of honey. 'If 

 they do, brood-rearing will stop, even if 

 they do not die outright, and you cannot 

 get a harvest without workers. — Eugene 

 Secok, in the Fanner and Breeder. 



Keep Bees Dry. 



Above all things keep your colonies 

 dry. Thousands of colonies perish every 

 year by leaking covers. Whenever mois- 

 ture from without is added to the gen- 

 eral moisture or evaporation from the 

 bees within, a damp and chilly atmos- 

 phere is the result, which generally 

 proves fatal in frosty weather to the 

 bees. Tin roofs well painted, with ven- 

 tilating holes in the gable ends, are a 

 sure preventive. A cushion made of 

 cofl'ee-sacks, the size of the hive, and 

 filled with wheat-chaff, is an excellent 

 absorbent of moisture. 



Such hives as will not admit a cushion 

 within, can be aided by having a venti- 

 lating aperture on top 2 inches square, 

 covered with wire-cloth and a cushion 

 without. Such a cushion must be made 

 of "duck," impermeable to rain, or oil- 

 cloth, so cut as to go over the outside of 

 the hive, and with a drawing-string of 

 twine run through the edge of the cloth 

 so that it can be fastened tight to the 

 hive. Chaff is put into it, and it is then 

 drawn over the hive and tied. — Farm 

 Journal. 



Diiferent Thoughts and Views. 



Many men have many minds, and 

 many bee-keepers have different styles 

 and systems of managing bees. One 

 makes a discovery in a certain branch 

 of apiculture, and another in something 

 else, and so on; and if they would ex- 

 change their thoughts and inventions, 

 they would benefit themselves and all 

 interested in apiculture greatly. One 

 could easily write enough to till an ordi- 

 nary bee-pai)er, but this is not the way 

 to do ; the views of any person are too 

 one-sided, and the public may tire of 

 them. What is needed is variety, and 

 the more the better. Let every bee- 

 keeper give his opinion on that branch 

 of apiculture that he is proficient iii. — 

 Exclumge. 



