Glen Rock, Pa., May 20, 1879. 

 My bees wintered with small loss, but 

 were reduced in numbers. They gathered 

 largely from fruit bloom, and increased in 

 numbers very fast. They are now nearly 

 all strong and ready for the real harvest, 

 soon to begin. I am getting up a club 

 for the Journal. I work for it, because it 

 works for me. J. H. Bupp. 



Dunkirk, N. Y., May 23, 1870. 

 Am troubled with little black ants on top 

 the honey-board ; how can I keep them off ? 

 Had my first swarm the 20th of this month. 

 Orchards are in full bloom. W. Bolling. 



[Many preventives for ants are recorded 

 in the back numbers of the Bee Journal. 

 A practical plan is to entirely break up the 

 nest, by brushing and smoking them when 

 found. They do the bees and honey no 

 harm, as they are glued out of the hive, and 

 only seek such quarters for the purpose of 

 borrowing a little warmth. — Ed.] 



Amadore, Mich., May 23, 1879. 

 The loss by wintering has been great. 

 Some of our hitherto successful bee-keepers 

 have lost heavily; some have lost all, others 

 over 90 per cent. We lay it to the excreta 

 of the wooly aphis, which was very plenty 

 on the beech trees during the latter part of 

 last summer. I have been engaged, more 

 or less, in bee-keeping for the last 35 years, 

 but never had any trouble in wintering 

 until about the year 1867; since which time 

 about every other year I have lost from 10 

 up to 75 per cent. How to winter success- 

 fully, is the question of questions with bee- 

 keepers in this climate. Geo. Smith. 



Lansing, Mich., May 21. 1879. 

 It affords me pleasure to read the Bee 

 Journal. 1 am confident that it is the 

 best bee literature which can be afforded to 

 promote the science of apiculture, and 

 I think it is unexcelled, for it looks to the 

 best interests and welfare of the beginners. 

 I speak from self-experience. In perusing 

 it, I find the names of but few ladies, who 

 have identified themselves in this work. It 

 would be pleasing to see the record of others. 

 My bees are doing nicely. I have had 

 no swarms issue, up to date. I have two col- 

 onies less than when I last wrote you. One 

 was robbed, and the second would have 

 been, had I not united it with another. 1 

 tried various methods to prevent it (mainly 

 by transferring to the cellar and left tore- 

 main a few days), but all efforts failed. The 

 above method proved a success. 



Mrs. J. W. Garlick. 



Webberville, Mich., May 5, 1879. 

 1 see by the Journal, that many con- 

 demn wintering in cellar, hence I will give 

 you my experience during the past severe 

 winter. On the last of November, I put 40 

 colonies in the cellar, and about Dec. 4th 

 put in 24 more, making 64 colonies. I ex- 

 tracted often from the brood chambers, dur- 

 ing the summer, so that the queen had room 

 for brood. On Jan. 1st 1 bought 44 colonies 



in the cottage hive ; they were full of 

 honey, but only a fair amount of bees. I 

 put them in the cellar on the 1st and 2d of 

 January. This made 107 colonies. They 

 remained there until March 8th ; I then set 

 them all out for a fly, and you may rest 

 assured they did fly. I put 104 back into 

 the cellar the following morning ; the other 

 3 had died out. Nearly all had brood in all 

 stages. I put all on the same stands during 

 the first week in April, and during the fol- 

 lowing two weeks I lost 24 out ot the 44 

 that were full of honey, that I bought. The 

 next day I doubled up 8 into 3, and during 

 the third week in April two swarmed out 

 and went into other hives, leaving brood in 

 all stages. I put their brood in the hives 

 with them, and last week I doubled up 10 

 more into 5, to get queens for 5 that had 

 killed theirs, or had become queenless from 

 some other cause. Now, you will readily 

 see that I have lost 39 colonies, and 36 of 

 them were the ones that were full of honey,, 

 that I bought Jan. 1st. Had those 36 been 

 treated similarly to the first 64. I think they 

 would all have been alive to-day. I now 

 have 50 very good and 18 fair colonies. 

 Ninety per cent, of the bees that were win- 

 tered out of doors are dead. If bees are 

 properly prepared and put into a good cel- 

 lar, we would not lose 1 per cent of them. 

 Harry Blackburn. 



May 28, 1879. 

 Does the first swarm of bees ever go back 

 in the hive again of their own accord ? 



Ira M. Alling. 



[First swarms frequently return to the 

 hive, both before and after alighting. Ina- 

 bility of the queen is the usual cause.— Ed.] 



O'Fallon, 111., May 19, 1879. 

 I think it my duty to my fellow bee- 

 keepers to make the following statement of 

 my dealing with N. C. Mitchell, of Indian- 

 apolis: In his price-list for 1878, he says, 

 " We will furnish pure Italian queens bred 

 from imported mothers, raised and fertilized 

 on Kelley's Island, 12 miles out from San- 

 dusky City, O. Our queens will be as pure 

 as if raised in Italy." I had an old claim 

 against him (a statement of which may be 

 found in Gleanings, Vol. 5, No. 5, page 126} 

 for which he promised, early last spring, to 

 send me a full colony of liis pure Kelley 

 Island bees, valued at $20, as soon as he 

 could raise them. I waited until the latter 

 end of July, when I wrote to him that I 

 was getting impatient for my Kelley Island 

 bees, though I had learned before this that 

 he had not a bee on that island. He replied 

 that he could not ship full colonies nor his 

 large frame nuclei in hot weather, as the 

 rough handling of the express companies 

 broke down the combs and killed the bees, 

 and asked how many queens I would take 

 in place of the colony. I replied that he 

 could send just as many as he thought 

 would make the thing fair and square, but 

 what he did send I wanted of the very 

 brightest and best, or I did not want any. 

 On the 6th of September I received 4 queens, 

 (2 of them being as dark on the back as 

 pure black queens, with a sert of yellow 

 abdomen; one of the others a dark leather 



