THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



137 



[For the Aniericau Bee Journal.] 



Letter from Iowa. 



;Mb. Editor : — I suggest that your corres- 

 pondents who keep bees give, t)) rough the "Bee 

 JOUBNAL," their modes of ai-tificial swarmhig, 

 and how they keep their combs straight ; in fuct 

 let us have tlieir entire management of bees. 

 Also, how they pack honey for siilpment to mar- 

 ket; wliere they sell it; the prices obtained; 

 tlie present and the prospective demand. There 

 are but few beekeepers that would not receive 

 some benefit from such communications, if hon- 

 estly and laitlifuUy WTitten. Let us liave the 

 facts — no theories. 



I came through the \\inter -i-slth fifteen .stocks. 

 Eigiit of the best were selected for the collection 

 of honey. Tlie spi-ing being so very wet made 

 me afraid to di\'ide tlie ^^•hole. Two of the eight 

 swarmed, and the swarms went off into the 

 woods. 1 Imd taken five frames of brood and 

 honey from one of these stocks, and two frames 

 of brood and about half a gallon of young bees 

 from the otlier. 



My Ijangstroth hives are fitted for two sets of 

 boxes, the American for same box, and other 

 small frames for surplus. Two of the Lang- 

 stroths gave me fifty-six (56) 5-pound boxes 

 gross. One of the eigiit failed to gi\'e me a 

 swarm or any surplus, througli some aciM(l( i;; to 

 the queen. I have now twenty-iiiiir stocks. 

 The amount of surplus honey was clcxcu hiiu- 

 di'ed (1100) pounds box honey, except four gal- 

 lons of strained lionej'. These results are qiute 

 satisfactory, if I could only sell the honey at a 

 reasonable price. All I have sold as yet has 

 been for twenty cents a pound in store goods. 



My favorite mode of di\itliug is, to take the 

 parent stock and place it two or three feet on 

 one side of the old stand ; get an empty hive 

 with all the frames in place except one ; open 

 the parent stock, take out a frame of brood '\^ itli 

 the adhering bees, paying no attention to the 

 queen, and place it in the emptj^ hive ; then lift 

 out the frames one at a time, shake ott'the bees 

 in front of your new hive, replace the honey 

 board, and the division is made. If the old Mve 

 gets too many bees, move it a little further oft', 

 and vice versa. 



Another way is to hunt out the queen and re- 

 turn her to the parent stock. The old bees, not 

 finding their queen ^\ill return to their old stand. 

 The young bees will remain and raise queens 

 better than the old ones. Vvlien making swarms 

 in tliis way, the old stock must be put on the 

 old stand. The "nucleus" can be put any- 

 where you clioose. When the young queen be- 

 comes fertilized, give frames of capped brood. 

 If made at the proper time, the parent Mve will 

 hardly miss what is taken from them. More 

 anon, if this suits. 



Frederick Crathorne. 



Bethlehem, Iowa. 



The common locust and the honey locust are 

 very desirable trees for the vicinity of an apiary, 

 yielding mucli honey at a time when peculiarly 

 valuable to the bees. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Burying Bees. 



Some j-ears ago a friend informed me that he 

 had kept bees in Massachusetts, and the better 

 to winter some young swarms that were short of 

 honey, he had buried them. He said he always 

 selected those that he judged would not winter 

 in the common waj\ He had bmied some at 

 difterent times, he judged as many as twenty 

 stocks in all, and never lost any liy so doing. 

 They always did well. 



rollo^\ing his instructions, I that winter 

 buried tAvo weak colonies ir a coarse sand bank. 

 I put tliem beneath the frosi, gave them novent- 



I ilation, and filled the gravel in against and on 



I top ot the hiA'es. Some space was left beneath 

 the luves, to secure them against damage by 



! water. The bees were put in on the 18th of 



j December, and taken out on the 14th of April 

 following— being as early as the ground thawed 



j over them. The combs were not badly molded, 



j and there were only about a dozen dead bees on 

 each bottom board, which I presume were there 

 when the hives were put in. Those bees did 



! well the next summer. 



Last fall I buried fom- hives in the same way, 

 except that I put them in fine compact sand. 

 Two of these hives were well tilled. They all 

 iiiolded jiretty bafl ; tlu^ two full ones were lo.st 

 a- a roiiseiiuiMiCf. and lirsidc^. tlie i»:a^s of the 

 otlier hives died as niucU as vttliers wintered on 



I their stands. Both the .stocks that survived did 

 very well for the season this summer. 



As the honey season here has been very poor, 

 and I have a number of young swarms that have 

 but little houey, I have resolved to bmy ten of 

 them in a gravel bank, but shall give them vent- 

 lation this time. I mean to put them in just 

 before ^Ainter sets in. 



I use the Coltoii hive. Movable comb hives 

 and Italian bees are scarce here. 



The fact that bees can be wintered well a 

 number of feet under ground, without ventila- 

 tion, and Willi the ground frozen over them, is 



; (with me) good evidence that bees need but little 

 air in winter. 



Alonzo Barnard. 



' Bangor, Mb.. Nov. 5, 1869. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Borage Seed Wanted. 



We frequently find, in reading woiics on bees, 

 that Borage is highly recommended as a bee 

 pasturage. 



Why do not some of those who cultivate this 

 plant advertise the seed for sale through the col- 

 umns of the Bee journal,, as they do their 

 Alsike clover seed? 



We feel confident that any one so doing would 

 be well repaid, as, in some sections, it is im- 

 possible to find this seed, though we have heard 

 it inquired for times a\ ithout nmiiber. 



December, 1869. 



