THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



157 



profitable enough to rae us it is, 

 and I don't ever expect to see the 

 extractor laid on the shelf. 



NOTES FROM THE BAY 

 STATE APIARY. 



Henry Alley. 



We stated in our last notes that 

 in all probability^ no more of our 

 bees would be placed in a cellar to 

 winter. Our experience since the 

 bees were taken from the cellar 

 has been such that we have finally 

 resolved never to put another col- 

 ony of bees into a bee-house, cel- 

 lar or other place, except on sum- 

 mer-stands, to winter. Those 

 wintered in the cellar, where the 

 temperature did not go below 45° 

 and stood for one hundred days at 

 50°, are not at this date half as 

 strong in numbers as those that win- 

 tered on the summer-stands. Al- 

 though the colonies seem weak,3'et 

 they work vigorously, and perhaps 

 by the time the honey harvest be- 

 gins they may be as strong as any 

 in the yard. The colonies tliat 

 wintered on the summer-stands, are 

 very full of bees, and as they 

 were packed in double-wall hives 

 consumed no more honey than 

 those colonies placed in the cellar. 



APRIL WEATHER. 



The weather during the entire 

 month of April was very unfavor- 

 able for bees. We had several 

 snowstorms, and it froze hard, at 

 least eighteen nights during the 

 month, and what was worse than 

 cold nights, were the cold north- 

 west winds which blew almost a 

 gale nearly one-half the time. 



QUEEN-REARING. 



Ovving to the unfavorable weath- 

 er during April the bees were kept 

 back and none of our colonies 

 were as strong at the usual time 

 queen-rearing is commenced as we 



like to have them ; consequently 

 cells were not started until about 

 one week later than we generally 

 commence queen-rearing. At this 

 date (May 20) cell-building is go- 

 ing on rapidly, and no doubt 

 should the weather continue favor- 

 able we can commence to ship 

 queens daring the first week in 

 June. 



THE OUTLOOK FOR HONEY. 



Fruit trees give promise of blos- 

 soming very lieaAaly, and as this 

 vicinity is a fruit-raising locality, 

 our bees vvill find plenty of em- 

 ployment in a few days. We do 

 not look for a heavy crop of white 

 clover, as last season we had an 

 unusual heavy blossom of that best 

 of all flowers for the bees to gather 

 honey from. A succession of such 

 blossoms seldom follows, though 

 there may be enough of white 

 clover to furnish all the forage 

 several hundred colonies can work 

 upon. Though there was more 

 clover last year than ever known 

 before, the bees did but little in 

 gathering honey from it. The 

 weather did not seem to be just 

 right for the nectar to secrete 

 in the blossoms. I have known 

 bees to gather honey very fast 

 when little or no white clover 

 could be seen, and on the other 

 hand have seen the fields almost 

 white with clover, and the bees do- 

 ing nothing. All depends upon 

 the state of the weather. 



THE FIRST NEW HONEY. 



Tuesday, May 3, was a very 

 warm day, and the bees gathered 

 the first new honey from the blos- 

 soms of the soft maples. There is 

 very little nectar secreted in soft- 

 maple blossoms, and the show of 

 honey in the combs, even after the 

 bees have worked on them a week, 

 is quite small. 



AN EXPERIMENT. 



The following experiment will 

 be tested in the Bay State Apiary 

 the present season : 



