THE jHLMERICffP* BE© JOURNKLr. 



427 



COTWVESJTIOM DIRECTORY. 



1889. Time and Place of Meeting. 



Aug. 20.— Northern Illinois, at Guilford. Ills. 



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



Auk. 31.— UaldiniaiKl. at Flsherville, Ont. 



K. C. Camphell. Sec, Cayu^ia, Out. 



Sept. —.-Maine, at Llvermore Palls, Me. 



J. V. Fuller, Seo., Oxford, Me. 



Bept. .^.-Erle County, at Buffalo, N. V. 

 O. L. HerBhiser, Cor. Sec, Big Tree Corner, N. Y. 



Dec. 4, 6.— International, nt Brantford, Ont., Canada. 

 K. F. Holtermanu, See, Brantford, Ont. 



t^~ Id order to have thia table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetinKS.- Bd. 



^^ms^ 



Bus)- Oathering Honey — K. L. 



Tucker, Lexington, Mo., ou June 24, 

 18S9, writes : 



We are iu the midst of a bii.sy hone}- 

 season at last. Swarming is about 

 over, and clover is still in bloom, with 

 linden also, and when the weather is 

 warm and nice, the bees store rapidly. 

 I have taken 1,700 pounds of extracted 

 honey — all clover — from 30 colonies. 

 I am running J)0 old colonies, with 

 their increase, for comb honej-, and 

 expect quite a nice crop, as they al- 

 read}' have over 3,000 sections about 

 ready to take ofl'. I will give a com- 

 plete report a little later on. 



Bees lire Booniing^. — O. B. Bar- 

 rows, Marshalltown, Iowa, on June 21, 

 1889, says : 



To-daj- it is cool, and yesterday it 

 rained all tlay, but before that the bees 

 were booming — swarming and gather- 

 ing white clover lioney. Many colo- 

 nies have the second tier of sections 

 on, with basswood, buckwheat, golden- 

 rod, Spanish-needle, and all the "back 

 counties " to hear from. Who says the 

 prospect is not good for a honey crop 

 this year ? 



Oood 'Weather Needed. — Vet 



Tucker, Shelby, O., on June 24, 1881), 

 writes : 



I packed 55 colonies on the summer 

 stands last fall, and they were all in 

 fair condition this spring, except that 

 three were queenless. Thej- built up 

 rapidl}' until about May 10, when a 

 cold, wet spell set in, which has con- 

 tinued to the present. To-day it is 

 cold, with a north wind, so that the 

 bees can work onl}- a few hours in the 

 middle of the day. During this cold, 

 wet weather, they consumed all their 

 stores, and had to be fed, and as I ex- 



pected that each succeeding day would 

 bring fair weather, when they could 

 gather stores, I feil only sufficient to 

 carry them a day or two, and of course 

 brood-rearing nearly ceased. In this 

 locality there was an abundant rasp- 

 lierry bloom, and now iicres and acres 

 are covered witli Alsike and white 

 clover blo.ssoms, fiiiiiishing plentj- of 

 hone}', if the weather were suitaljle. 

 I have hail no swarms yet, and do not 

 expect any soon, though the hives are 

 full of brood. The basswood promises 

 a very heavy bloom, and I hope that I 

 may yet get some honey. My bees are 

 a samijle of the bees in this section. 

 They generally wintered well, did well 

 during April and the first of May ; 

 many starved in May and the first part 

 of June, but they are getting some 

 stores now. Very few swarms issued, 

 and bee-keepers are generally dis- 

 couraged. 



Bees Doing Well.— S. Burton, 

 Eureka, Ills., on June 24, 1889, says : 



Bees are doing well both in swarm- 

 ing and storing honc^y. I shall have to 

 begin taking oft' honey next week, I 

 tliink, if they continue to do as well. I 

 think that they will do better now, as 

 white clover is in abundance here. I 

 have had 22 swarms, and lost one that 

 absconded ; it was a second swarm, 

 and a small one at that. 



New Honey. — Mr. S. D. Haskin, 

 Waterville, Minn., on June 24, says : 



I have just taken oft' several cases of 

 sections of honey pretty well filled and 

 capped. I ha\e often remarked that 

 Minnesota was not blessed with honey- 

 dew, but this year, so far, it is not 

 snow-fiakc or golden-rod honey. Bees 

 are swarming cautiously. It is oh, so 

 dry ; and yet my bees have done well. 



Peculiar Season for Bees. — 



Geo. Gale, Adams, Xebr., on June 22, 

 1889, says : 



The season, so far as it relates to 

 bee-keeping, has been a very peculiar 

 one here, yet in the main it has been 

 favorable to increase, but bees have 

 stored no surplus, as yet. Crops of all 

 kinds are looking as well as ever I 

 have seen them. Late frosts have not 

 damaged anything ixcept some of the 

 small fruits, "and that only to a slight 

 extent. Bloom has been pretty plenti- 

 ful most of the time, but we have had 

 a good deal of cool and windy weather, 

 so that the bees could not work. I 

 look for a good season yet. The hives 

 are overfiowing with bees, but I have 

 had only one swarm from 15 colonies, 

 so far. 



Disposing ol' the Honey.Deiv. 



— P. M. Richardson, Magnolia, Iowa, 

 on June 22, 1889, writes : 



Bees came out in good condition in 

 the spring. At present the outlook for 

 a good surplus yield is favoral)le. Last 

 year, when basswood blossoiiKul, my 

 liivcs did not average one pound of 

 honey in the biood-chamber ; now the 

 hives are full, with some honey-ilew iu 

 the sections. When honey comes in 

 more freely, to ijrcvent the bees from 

 gathering honey-dew, I will take it 

 oft'. One of my neighbors has a lot of 

 it sealed in sections — what shall we do 

 with the stuff? Will it do to keep it 

 and feed it to the bees next spring ? 

 In 1888 I took ofl" more than 100 

 pounds of comb honey per colony, 

 spring count. I hope to do as well this 

 year. 



[Yes ; it can be used for spring feed- 

 ing, when the bees can fly occasion- 

 ally.— Ed.] 



Reversing and ITneapping — 



Mrs. Ada Dorsey, Holliday, Mo., on 

 June 25, 1889, says : 



My bees are doing real well, but I 

 liavc lost several young queens. Please 

 tell me how old a queen has to be to 

 lay worker eggs. Whoever that was 

 that advised reversing a hive and un- 

 capping the honey, ought to have a 

 shaking ; for 1 have just tried it, and 

 lost lots of honey and several colonies. 

 No more uncapping for me ! I have 

 hatl one prime swarm that weighed 12 

 pounds. How is that for size ? 



[Queens usually begin to lay when 

 8 or 10 days old.— En.] 



Tlie Season in Nebraska — The 

 Union. — James .Tardine, Ashland, 

 Nebr., on June 24, 1889, writes : 



I put 81 colonies into the cellar on 

 Nov. 20, 1888, and toi^k them out on 

 March 25, 1889. I had 80 colonies in 

 o-ood condition. I kept the cellar tem- 

 perature as near 42' to 45= as I could. 

 I tried some 20 colonies with a piece 

 of "-unny-sack over the brootl-frames, 

 atufthey did finely. I will prepare 

 the most of them that w.ay next win- 

 ter. I never hail so many (pieens die 

 as early this spring; so I had to give 

 them brood to rear queens. I hail lots 

 of drones in some strong colonies to 

 mate with, so I did very well. I never 

 have seen so much honey-dew in May 

 and June as there has been this year. 

 It kept the bees with plenty of food for 

 the young brood. They hav<! beiMi 

 swarming since the middle of May. I 

 am looking for lots of swarms in July, 

 this year. The bees are working on 



