1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



143 



as well — whereas the rest of my hives did not do 

 so Avell, leavinj:^ aside the artijEicial .swarms. 



This, Mr. Editor, I think was doing pretty- 

 well for this part of the country, considering tlie 

 operator and the season. Tliis has heen a very 

 poor season, during the hr.st and last part ; but I 

 believe I owe part of my success to stimulative 

 feeding in the spring. The last half of June and 

 the first half of July was the only good time for 

 bees here this season. I intend to go in for honey 

 next season, if all goes well this winter. So tell 

 Novice to bo very careful, or this frozen region 

 ^ will be after him with a sharp stick. 



Please, Mr. Editor, if it is not presuming, I 

 should like to be chi^sfd among y(jur life mem- 

 bers for our Journal ; for as long as I can raise 

 the needful I must have the Journal, as I do not 

 see how any one can keep bees witiiout it. By 

 the way. Mr. Editor, jdease let me know if I can 

 get the first two volumes, and what they will 

 cost. 



As you must be getting bored almost to death, 

 I had better stop. But first I should like to 

 shake hands all around, and hurkah for the old 

 stand-by, the American Bke Journal. Yours, 

 bee nightedly, 



Geo. T. Burgess. 



.Lucknow, Ontario. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



B:es in 1871. 



My field is two miles east of Albany city, in 

 North Greenbush, though Albany is my post- 

 office. My field for honey is but an ordinary 

 one. and the season less favorable than the last, 

 or an increase in the number of swarms required 

 a larger field. JMy neighbor, not one hundred 

 rods distant, with one colony and one new 

 .swarm, had no surplus. Another bee man three 

 miles off, with eleven colonies, had less than one 

 hundred pounds of surplus from them all. His 

 bees did the best of any 1 have heard of in the 

 old swarming hives in this vicinity. 



I have, with my new swarm, thirty colonies ; 

 liutthe unfavoraV)le season and limited field have 

 s > shortened my suri>lus tiiat I got biit about half 

 a ton from the thirty colonies. The colony that 

 gave me two hundred ('200j pounds last season, 

 gave me but one hundied and forty-three (148) 

 pounds this season. This was rather a dis- 

 ai'pointment to me, as 1 had hoped an improve- 

 ment upon last season. I had last season ex- 

 pressed, in some commuincation, the hope of 

 being able to do better than two hundred pounds 

 to one colony, and our agricultural society had 

 offered a premium of twenty dollars for the 

 largest amount of honey from one swarm. This 

 season friend Quinby had the hive that gave two 

 hundred (200) pounds, and mine gave but one 

 hundred and forty-three (143) pounds. Still 

 there were some alleviating circumstances. 



1. I flatter myself that St. Johusville gives a 

 much better field for sur]>lus honey than my 

 bees have access. to. 



3. That though Mr. Quinby took the highest 

 premium, he had to use my patent to accomplish 



it. Duty to others may require me to say so 

 much. 



My most successful colony is one of ten that I 

 purchased in 1867, for Italian bees, of a neighbor 

 some three or four miles from my residence. 

 Some were more strongly marked than others, 

 and probably all of them were hybrids. In the 

 five seasons it lias cast no swarm, and I regard 

 it as the best colony I have ever had or ever seen. 

 Is there any convenient way to secure new stocks 

 from that colony, unmixed with other strains? 

 If the stock yard, the breed of horses, the stye, 

 the fiock, and all the different beasts or fowls of 

 the farmer may be improved indefinitely, why 

 may not the apiarian's stock be benefited by 

 following the same course? and what -vyould be 

 the easiest and safest course to adoi:)t to try ex- 

 periments to this end ? An answer from the 

 editor of the American Bee Journal, or of dis- 

 tinguished apiarians who are familiar with every 

 I'ope in the beekeepers' craft, would be very 

 gratifying to one who is too far advanced in life 

 to make many experiments in the business, and 

 too young in the apiculturists' business to know 

 much of their management. 



The colony is in a hive of my latest patent — 

 "Hazen's Eureka Hive," with bars instead of 

 frames. 



I know not but the thought is a visionary one, 

 and the object unattainable ; but if our business 

 may be greatly advanced and its profits increased 

 largely by the introduction of queens from a dis- 

 tant country, may we not improve our stock by 

 securing our new stocks by our best old stocks ? 

 The colony has had its breeding apartment in 

 use five seasons, and the comb is of course some- 

 what darkened and old. Would it answer to 

 confine the colony another season to the breed- 

 ing apartment and thus secure an eaiij' swarm, 

 and then remove the brood combs to as many 

 nucleus hives as there were queen cells in the 

 hive, giving one cell to each, and then remove 

 the whole to a distance from other bees, to secure, 

 at the issue of the queens, the service of the 

 drones for the queens, to secure the purity of all 

 the stocks, or will this be unnecessary? 



I have been interested and instructed in the 

 pursuit of my business by your Journal, and 

 through it have formed something of acquain- 

 tance with numbers of able men in the business, 

 of whom I shall have pleasing remembrance 

 what little time memory holds its seat. 



With best wishes for your success, and the 

 success of your useful Journal. 



I am yours respectfully, 



Jasper Hazen. 



Albany, N. T. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Letter from Lansas. 



Dear Reader :— It is not often that we will 

 occupy space in the Journal. Occasionally we 

 like to have our say. Suppose that we do hit 

 some of our '■ old bee writers, " what of it ? They 

 have been hitting others ; and to have a little 

 conceit knocked out of them, once in awhile, 



