TMBi mvasmiemn bes j@uhhjs&. 



93 



Cauelit a Runaway Swarm.— S. 



E. Weseott, Oxford, N. Y., on Jan. 21, 1SS9, 

 writes : 



I caught a swarm of runaway Italian 

 bees oil July 2, 1S8S, and hiynd them in a 

 Laiigstrotli hive on strips of loundation. It 

 Wris a large swanii, and I expectnd them to 

 get enouuh honey lo winter on, but tliey did 

 not. On Oct. 4 they had 9 pounls of honey. 

 Up to tills time they had been at the place 

 where 1 was worliiiig. I then moved them 

 home, aid ted them 1.3 pouiidsof su^ar made 

 into syrup. When 1 examined tln-m I found 

 tliein nearly one-half black bees. Will some 

 one state a good reason for this? The 

 queen is well striped, and so were all that 

 came with here. They seem to be wintering 

 Well, and are in good condition. 



L.ayins: WofUcr.9.— John B. Avery, 

 of Stittville, X. Y., writes : 



Last summer I had a colony with laying 

 workers. It being my first experience wilh 

 them, I was puz/.leil as to how to get rid of 

 them. I had read that it was a hard matter 

 to get them to accept a queen as long as there 

 were laying workers in the hive. ( I'hey 

 had been at wiirk for some tiuie, for the 

 drones were hatching, and they had 6 frames 

 of eggs and brood. A aoodly pare of the 

 brood was sealed.) Having a laying queen 

 on hand, I thnught that I would experiment 

 will! them. I did not divide the colony, as 

 Mr. B.-ckly did (see page 42), but 1 ti>ok 

 away all their brood and egus, and then 

 shook them all in fiontof a new hive, filled 

 with empty combs, and placed it on the old 

 stand. It worked well. The queen com- 

 menced laying at once, and that was the 

 last of the laying workers. 



Bee-Keeping; in IVcbraska.— Ira 



N. Lyman, St. Peter, Nebr., on Jan. 14, 

 1SS9, writes : 



We have some large apiaries in this 

 (Cedar) and adjoining counties. One man 

 in this CDunty, in a good place near the Mis- 

 souri river, has had bees a great many years, 

 and has hives of almost every pattern, and 

 if any one wants lo see the old fashioned 

 bee-gum, or hollow log, used to put Dees in, 

 he can .~ee it there now. He built a new 

 bee house last spring, with a good shingle 

 root, in an an »le like an old-ta^hioned rail 

 fence. It backs toward the nortli west, and 

 is open on the southeast. He has two rows 

 of hives, one above another. 



I put my bees into the cellar under a 

 kitchen. It is a good, dry, warm cellar. No 

 vegetables freeze in it. 1 put the bees into 

 the cellar on Nov. as, 18S8. They wie fly- 

 ing on Nov. 27, when It turned cidder. I 

 thought that I would put them into the 

 cellar before it got too cold. 



I weighed the bee-hives this year, when I 

 put them into the cellar, with the covers on, 

 as they st'iod on the summer stands. One 

 weighed (58 pounds. One of my new colo- 

 nies came out on Aug. 29. It was a second 

 swarm. One colony wt-igheil 90 pounds. It 

 was the first swanii out of thrf same old 

 colony. The old lolony that it came out ot, 

 Weialied SO pounds ; a»oth>'r 02 pounds, ami 

 one 86 pimuds, with about 20 piunds off lor 

 top covers. They are in 10 frame Lang- 

 stio'h hives. Bees carried in pollen as late 

 as Oit. 14— very late fur this part of the 

 country. 1 introduced an Italian queen into 

 a weak, quHpnIess colnny on Jiiie 24, ISSS, 

 and Iroiu that colnny I receiveil my 2 new 

 swarnH. 1 think that is liood for last 

 year. Colonies all entered the cellar last 

 fall in gniid condition, save one. It tnok 

 drones in with them. I fear they have no 

 queen. I did not examine them as I should 

 nave done. 



Uee-Keepins: in Arkansas.— J. 



A. King, SuU Kosa, Ark., on Jan. 14, 1889, 

 writes : 



So far the winter in this part of Arkansas 

 has been verv mild and favorable for the 

 wintering of bees. We have had no snow, 

 and the temperature has not been lower 

 than about 20°, Fahr. 1 beaan last spring 

 with 24 colonies ot bees, increased them to 

 SS, and olitained an average of abnut CO 

 pounds of extracted honey per colony, 

 which is about a fair average for tliis 

 locality. The majority of bees in this 

 neiiihborh'iod are blacks, manaized after the 

 fashion of " good auld times," and have 

 hardly stored enougii to keep "the wolf" 

 from their own door. I have the only Ital- 

 ian bees that are kept in the immediate 

 vicinity. 



A great many bee-keepers here " know it 

 all," in their own e>timation, and would 

 have the " king " to " bo^s," and the drones 

 to lay the eggs, and prefer the old " gum " 

 to any style of "hive." lam well pleased 

 with the Bee Joukxai,, and wish it a long 

 and piosperous career. Bee-keepinij, in its 

 more approved form, is slowly gaining a 

 foothold in this State. Other industries 

 seem to consume all the time, antl those en- 

 gaged in bee-keeping are content to follow 

 on in the tracks their grandfathers left in 

 this art. Althouuh we have never heard 

 the mention of cotton, it seems to be about 

 our most profitable honey-plant. 



Wintering^ in a Ilee-IIonse.— Mr. 



Joseph Hillman, Galesburg, Ills., on Jan. 

 26, 1889, says : 



I have 70 colonies of bees wintering 

 nicely in a house built for the purpose, with 

 double walls, and filled in with sawdust I 

 could not do without the American Bee 



JotlRNAL. 



Itee-Keepinji; in Oolorado.— R. C. 



Aikiii, of Holyoke, Colo., on Jan. 19, 1SS9, 

 writes thus : 



I am now a resident of Colorado, but lived 

 the pa>t 15 years at Sliambaugli, Iowa. The 

 summer of 1S87 was poor, but I made some 

 increase of ciihinies, and got a few pounds 

 ot suiplus honey, and by averaging stores, 

 the hees had barely enoui;h to winter on. I 

 put 46 colonies into the cellar in the fall of 

 18.S7, and in the spring of 1888 I had 35 to 

 stait with. I increased them to .50 cohmies, 

 and obtained 2.000 pounds of mostly ex- 

 tracted honey, from heart's ease. The best 

 yield of one colony was 116 pounds ; the 

 averaae yield, spring count,beiiig.57 pounds. 

 The honey was allot fine quality. Isold 

 1.000 pounds in Iowa, at whoie-ale, the ex- 

 Iraited at 10 cents, and the comb honey at 

 12K cents. I brought 1,000 pounds to Col- 

 orado, and I am retailing it at 15 to 25 cents. 

 I am now in a very new county, being only 

 three years since the Erst settler came into 

 it. 



There is not a tree for miles and miles, 

 and not much else but buffalo grass ; but I 

 am here to try the bee-business in connec- 

 tion with poultry on a quarter section of 

 government land. I hrought with me from 

 Iowa 20 colonies ot hees, and I now have 

 them safely housed in a uood cave. My best 

 average yield in Iowa was 227 piiunds pi r 

 colony ; the poorest, 0~tlie latter only one 

 year ; wliile my average for the past ten 

 jears was ciose to 100 pounds per colony, 

 spring count. The desire to jiossess .some 

 real.s'ate, and not being able to buy in 

 Iowa, has brought me here. I am the tir>t 

 to embark in tlie bee business in iliis pari of 

 Colorado; and while I do note.xpect the 

 yields 1 hid in Iowa, yet, being the only 

 apiary tor many miles around, and with 

 good prices, I hope to succeed. 



Report for Two Vearnt James 



Jardine, Ashland, Nebr., on Jan. 14, writes : 



I have not done very well wilh my bees 

 for the last two years. In 1887 I had over 

 100 colonies, and they did not make any 

 more than a living till the basswood came 

 into bloom ; that helped them some until 

 the dry weather set in, and then they had a 

 hard time of it to store a very little in the 

 sections. I did not get more than 100 

 pounds in all. They were put into winter 

 quarters, the most of them with plenty of 

 honey, but I do not think that it was very 

 Kood honey ; at least my bees did not win- 

 ter well on it, and when I took them out on 

 April 9, I found 15 colonies dead, that had 

 the diarrhea very badly. Some of the other 

 colonies were in very bad condition, and 

 they dwindled down very low, till the warm 

 weather came, then they did better. 



I had hut a few swarms in 1888, but got 

 about 1,000 pounds of good honey in the 

 comb, ht for market, which I sell at home 

 this year for 25 cents per pound. I put 80 

 colonies into the bee-cellar on Nov. 20, 1888; 

 all were in pretty good condition for winter, 

 and they seem to be doing nicely so far. 

 The temperature is at 42° to 45°. 



I hope that we will have better honey 

 seasons for some time hereafter, for if I had 

 depended upon my bees for a living the last 

 two years, it would have been rather slim 

 living. I was very sorry that I could not 

 attend our'State beeconveniion. I have 

 had the rheumatism for a mouth or so, but I 

 am gettiug better. 



Carniolan Bees.— F. H. Harrington, 

 Hartwick, N. Y., asks the following : 



1. Are Carniolan and Caucasian hees the 

 same ? 2. Can Carniolans fly at a lower 

 temperature than Italians ? " 3. Are they 

 more willing to enter supers for storing 

 comb honey than Italians? 4. Would a 

 Carniolan queen mated with an Italian 

 drone produce workers superior to pure 

 Italians, for comb honey and wintering on 

 summer stands in a cold climate ? 



At our request, S. W. Morrison, M. D., 



answers as follows : 



1. Carniolans and Caucasians are certainly 

 very different bees, if I may judge the Cau- 

 casians from the only person I can find who 

 has written of them. Carniolans are very 

 gentle, unsurpassed as workers, splendid de- 

 fenders of their stores aaainst robbers, not 

 disposed 1 1 rob. 7iot nutde cross by smoke, 

 find do not build more queen cells tlum 

 lUillims. They aie of a darK aray cohT, not 

 " orauijc like,'' not long and slim." not 

 ijiven to swarming more tlmn Italvins. 

 'I'he rever.se of me italicized lines will de- 

 scribe Caucasians. 



2 While I had both Italians and Carnio- 

 lans toi!elher in my apiary I could have 

 demonstrated on any morning during the 

 honey season, to any visiti r, the tact that 

 Carniolans are always at work in the morn- 

 ing before Italians, and especially is this 

 true and noticeable in cold mornings. 



3 When honey is abundant I do not claim 

 that Carniolans will go into boxes more 

 readily than Italians; but during a season 

 like the past one, many persons have writ- 

 ten me, who had bofti races, that they got 

 surplus only from Carniolans. Newsnarms 

 will beiiin st'^riiig in boxes within three 

 days, invariably, if properly treated. 



4. Carniolan queens mated with Italians 

 somellmes produce workers which are very 

 irritab e, but not as frequently as do black 

 queens mated with Italian drones. I have 

 seen some very fine workers from the 

 "niixins;," but desiring only purely mated 

 queens in my apiary, I ilid not keep them. 

 No race la superior to Carniolans lor win- 

 tering. 



