all the bees affected either never had or 

 •completely lose the last two bands, and 

 that part occupied by them is black and 

 glassy in appearance. Thinking that it 

 might be fault of queen, at suggestion of 

 Dr. Allabin, a gentleman of large experi- 

 ence in bee-keeping, took her away and 

 gave colony a cell from which they have 

 now a laying queen, but there is no im- 

 provement. What is the matter, and what 

 shall I do with the colony ? An answer in 

 the Journal would be greatly appreciated. 

 The bees are idle here now for lack of pas- 

 turage. J. H. More. 



[The complaint described above is one of 

 those peculiar features occasionally arising 

 among bees, as well as in the human fam- 

 ily, frequently without precedent and often 

 inexplicable. It may have arisen from some 

 cause produced during winter or spring, or 

 from one of many causes which would re- 

 quire much investigation to determine. Not 

 being able to answer the inquiry satisfac- 

 torily in our own mind, we forwarded the 

 letter to Prof. Cook, and were favored with 

 the following indorsement : " I have heard 

 of several similar cases. Bees have been 

 sent to me, but I could discover no trouble. 

 My opinion is, that it is a fungous trouble, 

 but this Is only a guess."— Ed.] 



Callicoon, N. Y., July 25, 1879. 

 The season of basswood and clover bloom 

 in this county has not yielded well, owing 

 to its having been too wet and cold, espe- 

 cially evenings and mornings, cutting off 

 the usual best hours of labor. With us the 

 Spring honey crop is cut short at least 50 

 per cent. A. E. Wenzel. 



Lincolnville, Ind., Aug. 11, 1879. 

 My sample hive, with prize boxes and tin 

 separators, which I ordered from Hartford, 

 Wis., came to hand, and I put the first swarm 

 into it June 5 ; took the boxes out the other 

 day all full of nice comb honey in good 

 order. I might perhaps have had another 

 set filled, if I had had them. I must try to 

 have a thousand or two of them ready for 

 another season, together with enough broad 

 frames to hold them. This is the nicest 

 way of obtaining honey in good shape I ever 

 tried. I have been using 2-story hives, and 

 cutting the honey out of the upper frames. 



1 had a swarm June 26, which I put into one 

 of these hives, and July 8th I opened it and 

 cut out 27J£ lbs. of nice, white comb honey, 

 leaving the comb in one of the frames above 

 and not interfering with any in lower story. 

 Who can beat that ? The hive has 9 frames 

 below and 9 above ; the frames are 11 inches 

 square. The 18 frames were all filled in 12 

 days. My bees are the native gray or yel- 

 low bee, and are good workers ; I do not 

 know whether the Italians are any better or 

 not. I received 3 queens from H. A. Burch 

 last Saturday, and introduced 2 of them in 



2 of my hives, after taking out their queens. 

 I think it was not the proper time for Ital- 

 ianizing, being cool nights and a time of 



scarcity of honey. A great many robbers 

 came among them before we could find the 

 queen, as we had to go over the frames the 

 second time before we found her ; then, 

 after sprinkling the combs and bees with 

 sweetened water with a few drops of pep- 

 permint in it, and sprinkling well the Italian 

 queen we introduced her. The colony, a 

 strong one, then commenced a general 

 slaughter, and next morning I found about 

 a pint of dead bees around and in the en- 

 trance, nearly stopping it up. I cleared 

 them away, searching diligently for the 

 queen, but failed to find her among the 

 slain. It is now about 48 hours since we 

 introduced her, and the bees seem to be 

 quiet and at work some. I am in hopes she 

 is not killed. The other hive had not so 

 strong a colony and we found the queen 

 more readily. We took her out and intro- 

 duced the Italian. We, however, did not 

 proceed with this one as we did the other : 

 we first smoked them, and then carried 

 them under a shed, putting another hive on 

 the stand to catch the returning bees. When 

 we had the new queen introduced, we 

 brought the hive back and placed it on its 

 old stand, after removing the one we had 

 placed there, shook the bees out of it and 

 they entered their former home. We closed 

 up the entrance so that but few bees could 

 pass in and out at a time. There were not 

 near so many killed at this hive as at the 

 other. There seems to be a pretty strong 

 guard at and about the entrance, and when 

 a bee comes flying around suspiciously they 

 dart at it. This is my first experience 

 Italianizing; I don't know what the result 

 will be yet. Joel Brewer. 



Paoli, lnd., Aug. 1, 1879. 

 Inclosed you will find sample of weed or 

 bush. I would like for you to tell me what 

 it is. The bloom is white, and the bees 

 work on it all the day. I have been keep- 

 ing bees 6 years, and I never knew so poor 

 a season. I have known some young colo- 

 nies to desert their hives on account of no 

 honey. Please inform me if this plant will 

 pay to cultivate for bees. B. M. Lingle. 



[This is sweet clover {Melilotus alba) and 

 with the bees at the Journal apiary has 

 been the best honey plant this season. It 

 commenced to bloom about the 10th of June, 

 and at this writing (Aug. 4) our bees are 

 gathering honey from it quite plentifully. 

 In fact, the bees prefer it to mustards and 

 all other plants growing in West Chicago, 

 where it has been growing spontaneously 

 along the streets and roadsides for years— 

 certainly since 1871-2, and we cannot learn 

 when it was cultivated. The honey from 

 sweet clover is nearly or quite as desirable 

 as that from white clover. We think if any- 

 thing alone will pay to cultivate for honey, 

 this will ; but, unfortunately, it has the 

 reputation of being good for nothing else. 

 Why not plant your fence corners, lanes 

 and by-ways with sweet clover ?— Ed.] 



