THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



231 



would have been in much better 

 condition in the spring, if they had 

 been left on the summer stands, at • 

 least six weeks longer. 



"As one extreme follows another," 

 I predict that the weather will be 

 cold during the early part of the 

 winter, and warm during the latter 

 part, which would be the reverse from 

 what it was last winter. 



The colonies should be prepared 

 for winter early in October, whether 

 they are to be wintered in the cellar, 

 bee-house or on the summer stands ; 

 a certain amount of preparation is 

 necessary and it should be attended 

 to early, so that the bees need not 

 be disturbed when they have once 

 formed the winter cluster. 



We have wintered bees in tene- 

 ment hives and may use some of 

 them the coming winter. If pos- 

 sible, we will explain this hive in this 

 number with directions for using it. 



Early in July we sowed several 

 acres of buckwheat for the bees. 

 Our experience with this article was 

 rather limited, but we saw in the 

 Am. Bee Journal at the time we 

 sowed it, " July is the time to sow 

 buckwheat;" so we ploughed rather 

 more than three acres of land and 

 had that number of acres of buck- 

 wheat in full bloom for over six 

 weeks. It may do to sow buck- 

 wheat about the tenth of July in 

 some sections, but here in New 

 England we have learned by this 

 year's experience that it should be 

 sown as early as June 15, possibly 

 by June 10 to be of any benefit to 

 our bees. 



About the tenth of July the honey 

 flow ceased, and that is just when 

 the buckwheat should have been 

 coming into bloom. Just as it did 

 come into bloom, cool nights came 

 on, and, although we had three full 

 acres all white with flowers, the bees 

 were not in the least benefited by 

 it. Had the seed been put in one 



month earlier, the bees would have 

 had about four weeks of fine weather 

 to work upon it. 



During the past season we have 

 reared Syrian queens from homebred 

 and imported mothers. The results 

 as regards size and markings are pre- 

 cisely the same. We have found 

 that young Syrian queens are much 

 smaller and darker than the other 

 races. In fact, all Syrian queens 

 reared from imported mothers have 

 striped, yellow and black bands. 

 The yellow rings are very bright, and 

 the dark ones very black. The 

 worker bees of this race are not so 

 uniformly marked as the Italians. 

 Many of the bees show but one 

 narrow, yellow band ; nevertheless 

 the young queens are very uniformly 

 marked, all striped, and not a clear 

 black one is produced. An Italian 

 queen, whose workers would be as 

 poorly marked as Syrian workers, 

 would produce nearly all black 

 queens. This clearly indicates that 

 the Syrian bees are a distinct race, 

 while the Italians are not. We have 

 no race of bees that seem so strong 

 on the wing as the Syrians. 



We consider the Syrians the most 

 hardy of the new races. Many of 

 our customers have called for Ital- 

 ians crossed or mated to the Syrians. 

 They are the most desirable hybrids 

 we have. 



CANADIAN DEPARTMENT. 



K. H. HoLTERJiAX, Editor. 



The season has varied very much 

 in different parts of Canada. Along 

 the shores of Lake Erie we have the 

 best reports ; one lady (where about 

 fifty colonies are kept in the imme- 

 diate vicinity) reports three increased 

 to eight, 750 lbs. extracted and 50 

 lbs. comb honey, the remaining more 



