THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Correspondence of the Bae Journal. 



Council Bluffs, Iowa, Ang. 22.— My bees 

 are at work on sunflowers again this fall, and 

 are making more honey than I ever knew he- 

 fore in my life. I had a swarm come off on the 

 12th of August, and on the 21st T opened the 

 hive and found every frame filled with honey 

 and brood. This is a half-blood stock. My 

 half-bloods have done better than the black 

 bees, or the full blood Italians. Mr. Gallup 

 thinks the hybrids are no better than the black 

 bees. Perhaps he has some queens to sell. I got 

 three swarms from one hybrid stock this season. 

 The old stock and the two swarms tilled one set 

 of boxes, and the second set over one-half full. | 

 The third swarm is the one above mentioned. 

 My hives are the Langstroth hive«with three i 

 boxes, each holding eleven pounds of honey. I \ 

 think that is pretty good for one eolouy in one ; 

 season. From my other stocks, that only ! 

 swarmed once, I have taken off fifty -eight \ 

 pounds of honey each ; and I think they will 

 make fifty pounds more before the fall flowers 

 are gone. The sunflower has been in bloom 

 for two weeks, and my bees have filled some of 

 their boxes in that time. AVe find it a very 

 good article of honey. Last year the honey was 

 strong, and we thought the sunflower was the 

 cause of its rank taste. 



We have some old fogies here that are in the 

 bee business, but do not take your Journai-, 

 though they borrow it of me, and are always in 

 a hurry to see it, so that I have barely time to 

 read it through. So I thiak when they read 

 this, they will perhaps send for copies for them- 

 selves.— H. Faul. 



Osage, Iowa, Aug. 28.— My bees are doing 

 well, and have been since the 8th of this mouth; 

 that is, all stocks that were in a condition to do 

 anything. I was from home on business fre- 

 quently, and thus several swarms became so re- 

 duced in the period of scarcity, that I hardly 

 think they will get in condition to winter. 



When I have leisure I must give the readers 

 of the Journal a history of the season for bee- 

 keeping. Any number of swarms perished 

 here, between the 20th of June and the 20th of 

 July ; and many more became so reduced that 

 they are entirely worthless. And what is 

 curious, nearly every bee-keeper calls it foul- 

 brood. One would imagine, from the local 

 papers and talk in the country, that Iowa is a 

 terrible region for foulbrood ; and yet I have 

 never seen a case of real foulbrood in all my ex- 

 perience.— E. Gallup. 



Fulton, Ills., Aug. 30. — Bees are storing 

 honey more rapidly here at present than I have 

 ever seen them do before. I have one swarm 

 storing in extra frames on the top, which I 

 empty with the machine. It has, for the last 

 two weeks, averaged five pounds per day of 

 strained honey. 



Bees are swarming here, now, as much as 

 they did in June and July. Even hives that 

 swarmed once already, in those months, are 

 swarming again ; and the swarms are larger 



than they were in June. Besides there is no 

 end to wild flowers, and we shall get a good 

 yield yet for the season, if fine weather holds 

 for three weeks longer. — R. R. Murphy. 



Wilfrid, Ontario, Canada, Sept. 1. — This 

 has been a poor season here for honey, but a 



good one for swarming ; the yield of honey 

 being just enough to keep the bees breeding 

 and swarming all summer. From eight stocks 

 that I had last spring, I hived twenty-four 

 swarms, besides three sent back. I had a young 

 stock cast a swarm, and on the eighth day I cut 

 out the queen cells. On the twelfth day I in- 

 troduced an Italian queen, at the entrance, in a 

 wire cage with a cotton rag tied over the ends, 

 and the bees liberated her the next day. I paid 

 no further attention to them until the twenty- 

 second day, (after the swarm came off,) when I 

 observed them swarming again. I then opened 

 the hive to see what was wrong, and fouud eggs 

 and brood from the introduced queen ; and, 

 moreover, a queen cell with a living queeu in 

 it, from the old queen that left with the swarm 

 twenty-one full days before. The queen in the 

 cell was a small one, though not smaller than 

 some others that I have. There can be no mis- 

 take about the time, for I have the dates noted 

 of every transaction in my apiary. 



I cannot do without the Bee Journal, 

 which I prize very much. Inclosed you will 

 find two dollars for the current volume.— D. 

 Reekie. 



Salem, N. C, Sept. 5. — This has been a 

 tolerably good year for bees. Out of forty-seven 

 hives, I had thirty-five to swarm, which cast 

 between seventy-five and eighty swarms. I 

 had two swarms ou the 25th of August. 



The Italian bees have done very well ; but 

 the black bees have done poorly. 1 have been 

 enabled to take about sixteen hundred pounds of 

 surplus honey this season. 



The prospects are good for an abundance of 

 honey "this year from the aster. Some seasons 

 bees store from twenty -five to forty pounds, 

 from this source. — J. W. Hunter. 



Allenton, Mo., Sept. 8. — Bees have done 

 well in this vicinity, in the way of swarming of 

 stocks, but only very moderately in the way 

 of storing surplus honey. I started in the spring 

 with two Italian stocks. I now have nine good 

 ones — had one stolen, and five good swarms 

 left for the woods. I depended on natural 

 swarming this year, being without experience 

 in artificial modes ; and having adopted a dif- 

 ferent hive from the one I commenced with, 

 could not change from the old ones into the 

 new. I think I shall have to adopt the artifi- 

 cial mode next year, seeing the swarms have 

 such a predilection for running away. — T. 

 R. A. 



Madison, Wis., Sept. 9. — The season in this 

 part of Wisconsin has been better than the last. 

 Although there has been a good deal of rain, 

 which kept the honey thin, brooding went on 

 nicely. 



I have a honey pump, as the editor of the 

 State Journal calls it. I made the outer case 



