Pine Grove, Pa., Aug. 81, 1879. 

 With two old-style straw skeps, contain- 

 ing light colonies of black bees brought to 

 my place by my father last spring, we started 

 into the bee business. By reading the 

 American Bee Journal, Prof. Cook's 

 "Manual," Quinby's "Bee-Keeping," King's 

 "Text-Book," and L. C. Root's "Bee 

 Notes," we have so far got along admira- 

 bly, but not without some mistakes. In 

 May we purchased two additional colonies 

 in Mitchell hives, which we transferred, 

 and by dividing made seven colonies, and all 

 but one have done as well as could be ex- 

 pected. By a late season and getting a late 

 start, followed by a very severe drouth 

 during June and July, our bees did not gain 

 much until the latter part of July, when they 

 had increased in numbers to about the aver- 

 age of an ordinary colony. One of the colo- 

 nies was too long with a barren queen, but 

 they are fast recovering, and will, we think, 

 have ten Langstroth frames filled yet with 

 plenty to winter on, and have plenty of 

 young bees to come out strong in the spring, 

 if successful in wintering. Our honey 

 harvest is now at its best, as buckwheat 

 abounds in this locality, which appears to 

 secrete a great deal of honey, and several of 

 the best colonies are working in the prize 

 boxes, filling them with beautiful white 

 comb and the very best of honey. Second 

 crop clover, golden rod and other fall flowers 

 also afford some honey, so that the bees are 

 taxed to build comb fast enough to hold 

 what they gather. We are using founda- 

 tion in the brood frames and quite small 

 triangular pieces in the sections for starters; 

 using no separators, and it appears as if 

 each comb would be separate and straight. 

 Our stock is a little mixed yet, having 

 blacks, hybrids and Italians. Have pur- 

 chased several " warranted pure Italian 

 queens," one of which produces pure hy- 

 brids with one and two bands. We would 

 prefer to, and expect, to have all Italians, 

 but somehow the impression was obtained 

 that the blacks would work better on buck- 

 wheat ; we are in doubt whether we had 

 best make the change when the buckwheat 

 crop is one of our main sources of honey. 

 Can you, or anyone with experience on this 

 subject, advise through the Journal, ? So 

 far as our observation has gone, there is no 

 difference what kinds of flowers are visited, 

 the bees appear to be all engaged side by 

 side, even on red clover. It has been 

 written that all beginners are tempted to 

 experiment, and we are no exception, hav- 

 ing started with the original Langstroth 

 hives, we changed the form to boxes 12 

 inches deep, 15 inches wide and 15 inches 

 long inside, so our frames are nearly 11x14, 

 consequently have already two sizes. In 

 taveling through this State and in part of 

 Maryland we found time to visit some of the 

 most extensive and experienced apiarists, 

 also some less extensive, but found them 

 generally enthusiastic and adopting the 

 latest improvements. Of quite a number 

 visited, some are subscribers to the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, some have been, and 

 all should be. I have so far only found one 

 who has had a large experience and been 

 apparently successful of late, whose educa- 

 tion is complete. He says that he knows all 



465 



the books and periodicals contain or likely 

 to contain. Just think what an acquisition 

 such a person would be as an editor ! 

 Among others visited, I will mention D. A. 

 Pike, of Smithsburg, Md., who is already 

 widely known as a successful apiarist. 

 Mr. Pike rears and sells a number of queens 

 and uses all the latest improvements, taking 

 pride in showing visitors" everything that is 

 interesting about his yards, and never tires 

 of explaining and imparting useful infor- 

 mation. His clear extracted and beautiful 

 comb honey show the fruits of his success. 

 Lancaster Co., Pa., has an Association of 

 Bee-Keepers, who are all intelligent and 

 wide-awake in the art. Mr. J. F. Hershey, 

 of Mt. Joy, is an expert, and right at home 

 among his bees. He had an Italian imported 

 queen, just received from the office of the 

 American Bee Journal, from which he 

 expects to rear a few queens yet this fall. 

 Mr. Hershey rears and sells a great many 

 queens, and believes in improving the stock 

 by infusing imported blood among his al- 

 ready improved strains of bees. The yield 

 of honey is not as large this season as some 

 others, except perhaps where buckwheat is 

 raised ; it may make a fair average. I send 

 you for name an insect that I caught with 

 its victim a honey bee. The specimen was 

 quite perfect but a meddlesome boy in open- 

 ing the case and drawing out the contents, 

 separated and lost a part. W. H. S. 



[Italian bees will gather and store honey 

 from plants and at all times when native 

 bees and hybrids can. The bee-killer you 

 send is rendered useless as a specimen by 

 being entirely destroyed as to shape and 

 appearances. — Ed.] 



Birmingham, Ohio, Aug. 21, 1879. 

 To-day I noticed 3 dead queens before the 

 entrance of a hive, and on opening the hive 

 found four more live queens on the combs 

 (2 on a comb) which seemed to care as little 

 for each other's presence as do the workers. 

 Now, according to the authorities on bees, 

 the first queen that hatches out destroys all 

 the other cells; but it seems there are ex- 

 ceptions to all rules. They were all nice, 

 large, yellow queens, and just what 1 wan- 

 ted, as I had 2 swarms that were queenless. 

 C. A. Graves. 



Bowden, Ga., Aug. 17, 1879. 

 On June 7th I bought and had shipped to 

 me a colony of Italian bees, and on the 15th 

 of August a large swarm issued from it. I 

 watched for the queen, and caught her, put 

 her in a cage, and placed a new queen at the 

 entrance of the old hive, and when they be- 

 gan to return I put her at the entrance of the 

 new hive and the bees returned and entered 

 the new hive. I then moved it off and gave 

 them 3 frames of comb and honey, and they 

 are doing finely so far. This is 23^ months 

 later than we usually have swarms in this 

 section— most of our swarms are in April. I 

 have 20 colonies of black bees, and am going 

 to transfer all into frame hives and Italian- 

 ize, for I am satisfied the Italians are far su- 

 perior to the blacks. I had no swarms this 

 summer, but made it up in honey. 



H. McWilliams, M. D. 



