12 



THE SMERIC^tM BEE J©^mKSt. 



'■-■»— ■■^■—^^^^^■'—'^—■■^^^^^^r^*^*^*^*^ *^***^*^*^*^* 



again. I have built a slied, and paclied my 

 53 colonies in it on Dec. 1.5. We have had a 

 nice fall, and bees were flying almost every 

 day. I had a good yield of honey the past 

 fall, from heart'sease and golden-rod. I 

 am selling the honey for 20 cents per pound. 

 My honey sells mure readily than Califor- 

 nia honey, and my customers say that it 

 tastes more like honey. 



Crossing Itacex ot Mees.— W. H. 



Anarews, McKinney, Tex., on.Dec. 33, 1888, 



writes : 



I wish to sav that the whole yield of the 

 apiaries of North Texas for the last six 

 years would not equal one good crop. All 

 of my bees did not gather enough last sea- 

 son to winter halt of them this winter. I 

 am a paralytic, has'ing suffered a stroke 

 upon ray rignt side. It came the 1.5th of 

 last July. 1 write with my left hand. The 

 man who talks about "crossing" the races 

 of bees with the view of establishing a 

 superior " breed," is clearly lost— off his 

 reckoning. If mongrels are his aim, he 

 need only go to his neighbors' yards, and 

 take the first colony he comes to ; 95 per 

 cent, of all the bees in North America are 

 just mongrels, ready made to his hand. 



Rearing llrood in December.— 



Alex. Sherington, Dutton, Mich., on Dec. 

 34, 1888, writes : 



Yesterday one of ray colonies of bees was 

 flying very strons. when the weather was at 

 5° above zero. On examining them. I found 

 that they had five frames partly tilled with 

 brood and eggs, and young bees crawling 

 all over the combs. It is a strong colony, 

 and has plenty of honey. My bees are 

 packed on the summer stanJs, with 14 

 inches of chaff aroupd them. 



[We have been having fair summer 

 weather, and surely the bees thought that, 

 as "December is as pleasant as May," they 

 may as well have a "flying spell."— Ed.] 



Uees l>id Fairly ^Vcll.— Mr. John 

 Booth, Barry, Ills., on Dec. 34, 1888, writes : 



I have about 30 colonies, mostly hybrids, 

 and on Ahg. 26 or 37 there was not a pound 

 of honey in any of my 30 hives ; but about 

 Sept. 1 my bees began to gather some 

 honey, and by Sept. 15 they were fairly out- 

 stripping anything I had ever seen in the 

 way of gathering honey. But being a 

 plasterer by trade, I was necessarily called 

 away from my bees just when they needed 

 the most attention, to make them the most 

 profitable ; but they did fairly well, and our 

 buckwheat cakes will not go dry this winter. 



YVilling to Try Again.— Nathan 

 M. Woodman, Bushnell, Ills., on Dec. 24, 



1888, says : 



In this section, we who have tried to do 

 something in handling bees for the past 3 or 

 4 years, have had such bad luck that we 

 have about become discouraged, and many 

 have ceased keeping bees entirely. I, like 

 the rest, have had my bad luck, but I do not 

 feel like giving up, and I will try once more. 



a record of all the colonies of bees lost last 

 winter, and found that one-half of the bees 

 in this section were lost then. I have tried 

 several honey-plants, and have had no good 

 of them yet. Nearly all of my Alsike 

 clover dried up in July and died. It headed 

 out about July 1, and by July 15 it was 

 gone. I watched, but I never saw my bees 

 at work on it. I sowed some sweet clover 

 and catnip seed. The catnip is the best 

 honey-plant we have here, excepting buck- 

 wheat. Mo.st of the honey taken the past 

 season was from buckwheat. It is good 

 enough for me to use on winter pancakes. 

 We had a very dry summer. I expect to 

 keep bees, if I can. so long as I can get 

 what honey we want to eat. 



No SnovF Yet, etc.— Edwin Bump, 

 Marshfield, Wis., on Dee. 33, 18S8, says : 



I commenced in the spring of 1888 with 23 

 colonies of bees. I sold onecolony in June, 

 increased my number to .53, and took oft 

 1,500 pounds ot white comb honey. I put 

 my bees into the cellar on Nov. 14 ; that is 

 not bad for a climate where the mercury 

 goes down to 48° below zero. We have no 

 snow yet. My bees are Italians, and I 

 handle them without veil or gloves. A bee- 

 sting does not hurt me as badly as a mos- 

 quito bite. 



Packing Hives '»vitli Savt'diist. 



—Samuel King, Jr., New Paris, O., on Dec. 



■21, 1888, says : 



The forepart of this season was tolerably 

 fair for honey in this locality, but the fall 

 has been the poorest one for 30 years, on ac- 

 count of dry weather. My crop of comb 

 honey was about 7.50 pounds, from 28 colo- 

 nies. My 35 colonies of bees at this time 

 are in pretty fair condition, although I had 

 to feed some. I have wintered my bees 

 heretofore altogether on the summer stands, 

 and my method for the past two winters 

 was by using outside casings packed wiih 

 sawdust, with chalf cushions above the 

 bees, and I think 1 have wintered them suc- 

 cessfully. This year I have put a few colo- 

 nies into the cellar, to test cellar wintering. 



Ups and UoM'ns of Bec-Cultiire. 



—A. J. Fisher, East Liverpool, O., on Dec. 

 Hi, 1888, writes : 



I have kept bees for 25 years, and never 

 have I during that time had as poor results 

 as the two summers of 1887 and 1888. Not 

 one pound of surplus honey did I get, but I 

 had to feed freely for winter stores. If I 

 was a specialist, and depended upon my 

 bees for my bread and butter the last two 

 summers, I would have had to practice 

 Tannerism pretty freely. But if the season 

 of 1889 proves likewise, shall I quit the 

 business in disgust '.' No, never, as long as 

 a bee lives, and I live. All business has its 

 ups and downs, and these two seasons have 

 been the "downs" in the bee-business with 

 me. Now I am going to prepare for the 



'ups." Long may live the good old Ameui- 

 <;an Bee Joijknal ! Uurrah for 1S8U ! 



Snarniing-Oiit, etc.— R. A. Rosser, 

 Nelsonville, Ohio, on Dec. 34, 1888, writes : 



I commenced the season of 1888 with 33 

 colonies in the spring, increased them, by 

 natural swarming, to 48, which are now in 

 good condition. 1 have taken 7.50 pounds 

 of comb honey. My bees did exceedingly 

 well until the last of June, when we had a 

 very hard rainfall, lasting several days ; 

 after the rain it turned cold, and bees did 

 nothing after that. I had to feed in the fall 

 .300 pounds ot sugar. Some of my new col- 

 onies kept swarming out in October, and 

 when I examined into the cause, I found 

 that they were starving ; so 1 fed them, and 

 had no more swarming. All now have 

 plenty ot stores, and if other conditions are 

 right, I have no fears about their wintering. 



Experience >vitli Bees. etc. — J. E. 



Brooks, Howell, Mich., on Dec. 17, writes : 



I commenced in April, 1887, with 10 colo- 

 nies of bees in double-walled hives, and 

 they were increased to 33 colonies by the 

 following fall ; but in wintering them in the 

 cellar the combs all molded, and I Install 

 but 5 colonies, so last spring I began with 

 that number. As no honey was gathered in 

 1887, 1 tried to winter my bees by feediui; 

 syrup. The season of 1888 has been a fail- 

 ure, as I only had about 100 pounds of sur- 

 plus honey, and now I have 9 colonies, be- 

 sides losing some swarms each year by their 

 absconding. I packed my bees on the sum- 

 mer stands this winter. We have had but a 

 few days of cold weather yet, and no snow. 

 I was plowing on Dec. 11, and the ground is 

 not yet frozen. It is raining to-day. Our 

 assessor, last spring, had blanks, and made 



:»Ielissa— lloiv Far Bees Fly.— S. 

 L. Watklns, Placerville, Calif., writes thus: 



Last spring I received a small package of 

 melissa seed, and planted a small patch of 

 it about the middle of April. About July 1 

 it commenced to bloom, and continued until 

 frost came. It grows luxuriantly on our 

 mountain soil, and seems to be a great 

 yielder of honey. Bees work well on the 

 blossoms, and during the height of its flow- 

 ering, bees swarmed on it. I think that it 

 would pay well to cultivate it for honey. 



"How far will bees fly in search of 

 stores?" is often asked. In reading some old 

 numbers of bee-papers recently, I find that 

 there is quite a diversity of opinion, as re- 

 gards the distance bees go in search of 

 stores. I do not know how far bees will go 

 in a level country, but I can come some- 

 where near how far they go in this moun- 

 tainous part of California. In bee-hunting 

 I never tracked black bees more than two 

 miles from their habitation. I have Ire- 

 quently seen Italians and Carniolans three 

 miles from the apiary. I do not believe that 

 bees make much headway when working 

 over three miles from home. Carniolans 

 and Italians are stronger flyers than the 

 common bees, and go further in search of 

 stores. 



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