113 



TIIE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Nov., 



bees under ground, on the Scholtz plan, men- 

 tioned by Langstroth, in the concluding pages 

 of his work ? 1 think I will try it. I have made 

 my pit twenty-four feet long, and covered it with 

 boards, ready to put on straw and dirt, and fix 

 my ventilating tubes, one 3 inches and one 2 

 inches, and dug a trench the whole length. 

 Would you advise me to risk all my bees in such 

 a receptacle ? I tried the cellar last winter, and 

 found it too warm. 



Chas. D. Hibbard. 

 Auburn, 2?. Y., Oct. 9, 1872. 



Our winter was very hard on bees here, and the 

 number of stocks is much reduced, as swarms this 

 summer have been very scarce ; but thanks to 

 Messrs. Root, Gallup, Grimm, Alley and many 

 others, I have succeeded in getting about 900 

 pounds with the extractor. I find, as Mr. Root 

 describes, that the queens lay rather too freely 

 in my upper hive. With best wishes for the 

 success of the American Bee Journal, I remain 

 yours respectfully, 



Fred. Geo. Nash. 



Niagara, Ontario, Sept. 16, 1872. 



Nearly half of the stocks of bees in this sec- 

 tion of country perished with that bee disease. I 

 lost two out of ten, and a neighbor in box hives 

 twenty-six out of twenty-nine. And most stocks 

 that survived were so weak that they were not 

 in condition to gather the first half of the crop 

 of white clover honey, and as the drouth made 

 a short season, our honey yield is small. Mine 

 averaged about 35 pounds for the eight swarms, 

 but two have failed to do anything for me. 

 Average for the six that done the storing in 

 boxes, about 4G| pounds, one of them, 75 pounds. 

 In hope of doing 100 per cent, better next season, 

 and a big hurrah for the American Bee Journal 

 and progressive beekeeping, 1 am truly yours, 



A. W. Davis. 



Walworth, Wahcorth Co., Wis., Sept. 18, 1^72. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The October Journal. 



Although the October number has come to 

 hand unusually late, we will try and send a few 

 "remarks'' thereon, as many of our readers 

 have encouraged us in these efforts, by their 

 many kind and complimentary letters, for which 

 they will please accept our grateful thanks. It 

 is our desire to add our mite to the general fund 

 of apiarian knowledge, if, by so doing, we can be 

 of service to the bee-keeping public. Had 

 we as much leisure time as some writers seem 

 to have, we are sure that these articles would be 

 more entertaining, and far more than they now 

 are. As it now is, we have so much to do that 

 the "wee small hours of the moruing" often- 

 times find our tasks uncompleted. 



This time, friend Novice, with his smiling 

 countenance, stands at the head of the list, a 

 place he fills with becoming propriety. It seems 

 that his wholesale bee-feeder does not "work to 

 a charm." However, we think Novice equal to 

 the "situation," and trust he may yet succeed. 



His experience with the sugar and wax in comb- 

 building is very much like our own. Has any 

 one succeeded with any device for getting arti- 

 ficial comb of practical value? We know of 

 none except Mr. Quinby's tin combs, but they 

 are very expensive, and their practical utility 

 has not been fully established, we believe. At 

 one time we had strong hopes of the value of 

 the patent comb foundations ; but they have 

 utterly failed with us. Instead of going to work 

 and lengthening out the cells, as obedient ser- 

 vants should, the foolish creatures will persist 

 in tearing down the "foundation," and rearing 

 one of their own. 



But we pass on to see Gallup prepare his hives 

 for out-door wintering. We know by sorry past 

 experience that he is correct, and that bees do 

 need upward ventilation in winter, some of the 

 rest of mankind to the contrary, notwithstand- 

 ing. Nor did we get our knowledge and opinions 

 from book theories, as a certain party whom we 

 might name has intimated. We had the same 

 opinions in regard to upward ventilation before 

 we ever read a book or paper devoted to bee- 

 culture. We, in common with very mauy 

 others, would like to know why ono of the chief 

 supporters of the no-ventilation theory did not 

 answer Mrs. Tupper's questions addressed to 

 him in the Bee keepers' Journal, if it could 

 be satisfactorily done. 



We must say that our experience is greatly at 

 variance with Novice's theory, in regard to win- 

 tering bees in double wall hives upon their sum- 

 mer stands. If Mr. Anderson will follow Gal- 

 lup's directions, we think he will have no trouble 

 in wintering his bees out of doors. 



Mr. Dadant's letters were read with much 

 interest. We were sorry that he had so much 

 difficulty in procuring queens. But imagine, if 

 you can, Mr. Editor, our surprise and disap- 

 pointment upon learning by private advices, 

 that out of about 350 queens that he brought 

 home, only 69 were living upon arrival. Thus 

 it seems that success has not yet been attained 

 in importing queens. Cannot some Yankee, of 

 an inventive turn of mind, contrive some plan 

 by which we can succeed. 



We fully agree with Mr. Lunderer as to the 

 utility of the cloth honey boards, or "honey 

 quilts," rather, as we term them, but we have 

 no such trouble with them as he describes. This 

 is owinj to the style of frame we use. Instead 

 of the oid style of top bar, which is flat on the 

 top, we use a square piece (five-eighths of an 

 inch square), put in diamond shape. This gives 

 us a bevel edge, above as well as below, and not 

 a single bee is crushed or imprisoned when the 

 quilt is put on, even though the tops of the 

 frames are covered with bees. We make ours 

 a couple of inches larger each way than the top 

 of the frames. For summer use we prefer to 

 leave out the cotton batting entirely. Mr. C. C. 

 Miller wishes some one to tell him how to intro- 

 duce queens successfully. Perhaps we can. 

 We tried the methods most successfully usedby 

 others, but failure was often the result. We 

 found, at times, when honey was abundant, and 

 the weather favorable, that almost any good 

 method would succeed, while at other and less 



