H. K. Meisky winters his bees on a sum- 

 mer stand. He lias tried nearly every plan, 

 but likes the summer stands best. 



P. S. Reist, after trying all the various 

 plans recommended, has concluded leaving 

 the bees on their summer stands as the best. 

 He covers them with blankets, but nothing 

 else. He recommended some covering. 



DO BEES DESTROY FRUIT ? 



J. F. Hershey watched his bees closely 

 this summer. He took a bunch of grapes, 

 dipped it into some honey and put it into 

 a hive ; the bees removed all the honey but 

 left the grapes untouched ; he left them for 

 days, ne also cut the skins of grapes, after 

 which the bees abstracted the juices, but 

 they did not go at the sound grapes. He 

 also exhibited grapes that had lain in a hive 

 of bees 41 days and they were never touched. 

 His bees are' Italians. 



S. R. Boyer has studied the natural his- 

 tory of the bee. His neighbors have fre- 

 quently complained of his bees destroying 

 their grapes, but he watched them closely 

 and he never saw them injure a single 

 grape. He has known persons who actually 

 trapped bees and killed them. He thought 

 this both a sin and a shame. 



I. G. Martin watched his bees closely this 

 summer. He took a bunch of grapes, 

 bruised them, when they were immediately 

 covered with bees who eat them. He then 

 removed the crashed grapes and put whole 

 ones in their place ; after running over them 

 and finding no open fruit, they gave over 

 their search and left. 



H. K. Meisky had a grape vine close behind 

 his bee stand. He watched his grapes by 

 the hour and never saw a single one torn 

 open by the bees. 



Elias Hershey has also watched them but 

 could detect no damage done by them. 



Frank R. Diffenderfer said : Up to Sep- 

 tember 30th there were no broken or bursted 

 grapes on his vines, and as he expected, no 

 bees. On the evening of that day, however, 

 there was a rain, followed by a hot sun on 

 the following day. A good many grapes split 

 open in consequence, and in a few hours 

 the bunches were covered with bees, for the 

 first time during the season, hunting out the 

 broken grapes, and, as usual, molesting none 

 of the sound ones. A careful watch revealed 

 no depredations by bees on grapes that 

 were not first injured by some other means. 



The unanimous opinion of the persons 

 present was that the bees do not tear open 

 and destroy fruit. 



IS THERE SUCH A THING AS BEES FREEZ- 

 ING IF ORDINARY CARE IS USED ? 



S. R. Boyer once thought they did, but he 

 has changed his mind completely. They 

 become dormant sometimes as to be seem- 

 ingly dead, but a change in the weather 

 revives them. Keep a colony dry, hang it 

 up or let it stand, and it will never be injured 

 by cold. 



J. F. Hershey does not believe bees will 

 freeze in the hive, but he has seen them get 

 dormant, and in that condition, being 

 unable to get at the honey, they starved— 

 starved not frozen. 



D. H. Lintner had a colony that congregated 

 at the bottom of the hive over night, in the 



morning they were all lying on the ground 

 seemingly dead ; he took them into a warm 

 room, when they all revived. 



J. F. Hershey had a similar experience. 

 In this case, thinking they were dead, he 

 threw them into the snow, but taking up 

 the queen she gave signs of life ; he then 

 scraped up the rest and they revived when 

 fed. 



It was generelly agreed upon that bees 

 starved oftener than froze. They can grow 

 cold and freeze between two combs of 

 honey— honey is itself cold enough to freeze 

 them. They must have means to keep them- 

 selves warm besides honey itself. It was 

 however stated that bees sometimes are 

 frozen when rilled with honey. 



WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF COMB 

 FOUNDATION ? 



J. F. Hershey read a short paper on this 

 question. There is a great gain in using 

 comb foundation, one-fifth of the labor be- 

 ing saved. The great advantage is that if 

 such a foundation, 12 inches square, is given 

 to a colony, over 2,000 bees can go to work 

 at once to draw out the cells. On the other 

 hand if an empty frame is given to them 

 only 5 or 6 bees can go to work until the 

 comb is started ; in 5 or 6 hours, perhaps 75 

 more bees can get to work and so each hour 

 the number is increased until the frame is 

 filled. It is thus seen how much time is 

 saved by the use of the foundation. A 

 stright comb is insured in every case. 



I. G. Martin agreed with Mr. Hershey. 

 He has tried the comb foundation and has 

 had excellent results. In 24 hours the bees 

 can have complete combs. They can all get 

 to work at once and press forward their 

 work rapidly. 



On motion, the meeting adjourned to 

 meet again the second Monday iii February. 

 P. S. Reist, Pres. 



F. R. Diffenderfer, Sec. pro tern. 



Southern Kentucky Convention. 



This Association met at Horse Cave, Hart 

 Co., Ky., Nov. 1, 1878. After reading the 

 minutes of the last meeting and attending 

 to the routine business, a discussion was 

 inaugurated upon 



introducing queens. 



Mr. Greer said he had successfully intro- 

 duced queens by the following method : 

 Catch the old queen and remove or kill her, 

 then smoke the bees until they are all sub- 

 dued, turning the queens loose in the hive ; 

 he had put in live queens thus in one day 

 without loss. 



Mr. Smith would cage the queen, put in 

 a hive between brood comb and release her 

 in 24 to 4S hours. 



Mr. Munford said hungry bees would kill 

 a strange queen ; he would smear the queen 

 with honey before releasing her. 



The President preferred to cage queens 

 unless all the bees were young ; if hatching 

 brood was removed to a new hive and the 

 queen put in, there would be no danger of 

 her jbeing killed, but that could only be 

 done in very warm weather. 



