1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



181 



but very little, consequently honey is scarce here. 

 Impaired health prevented me from putting my 

 bees in the cellar last fall, my stocks, however, were 

 strong, and all in the common Gallup hives, stand- 

 ing near the ground without any protection what- 

 ever. The tri-sectional honey boards allowed some 

 upward ventilation, the entrance was contracted to 

 five inches by three-sixteenths, and passages cut in 

 the honey. Their food, thirty pounds per stock, was 

 fully one-half syrup of coffee sugar, a large propor- 

 tion of the remainder was honey dew. Thus they 

 stood in a very open location, exposed to the sun, 

 rain, snow, strong, piercing winds, and the general 

 severities of a very cold winter. They enjoyed, 

 however, a good cleansing flight about every five 

 weeks. On these days I opened the whole entrance, 

 eighteen inches long and one-half inch deep, and 

 cleaned the bottom boards. Last spring they all 

 came out strong and healthy, a strong nucleus with 

 seven combs among the rest. The average con- 

 sumption per stock was twenty pounds from Oct. 

 1st to April 1st. The nucleus consumed sixteen 

 pounds, thus leaving an average of ten pounds 

 per stock. Spring opened unfavorable. Three of 

 my queens failed in May. One of these stocks I 

 put in with the nucleus, this made a good stock. 

 The other two stocks I united, this was measurably 

 a failure, though strong in numbers it lacked 

 young bees to build comb. Instead of uniting 

 these two stocks, I should have built them up sepa- 

 rately with brood from other stocks and furnished 

 queens. By stimulating and equalizing, and finally 

 starting nuclei, I had all my other stocks at the 

 swarming point by the time white clover com- 

 menced to yield honey, which was June 11th. I 

 then put on my surplus honey frames, (A No. 1 

 arrangement,) of these the bees took possession 

 instantly, and worked in them as readily as in the 

 body of the hive, and most of them more so. The 

 clover continued to yield honey till June 29th, in 

 all nineteen days, seven days of which were almost 

 entirely lost by rainy weather, leaving twelve good 

 honey days. White clover is the only source of 

 surplus honey on location. I increased the num- 

 ber of my stocks twenty-five per cent. The young 

 3tocks yielded no surplus. The parent stocks 

 yielded an average of fully fifty pounds sealed 

 honey each. The best stock (a choice Italian) 

 made seventy-six pounds. I sold my honey at 

 thirty cents per pound. In re-queening my stocks 

 in the fall 1 had three queens fertilized as late as 

 the 15th of October, having had drone6 reserS-ed in 

 a queenless stock. 



Dr. H. Chaffee, of Tolono, Illinois, writes : Bees 

 have not done very well here this season. I 

 wintered my own on the summer stand, except four 

 of the weakest ; those I put in my cellar. They 

 went through the winter nicely, I fed last fall 100 

 pounds of sugar to 11 of the lightest, as last year 

 was very dry, and but little honey made. I lost 

 10 out of 60; few for want of honey, but mostly 

 after the flowers came, by loss of queen, and some 

 from worms. Bees made no surplus honey until 

 after August ; if they did they put none in the 

 boxes. I do not use the honey extractor. I have 

 had no trouble in regard to filling the boxes when 

 there is any honey. There was very little honey 



in white clover, but most of the honey was gath- 

 ered from smart weed and Spanish needles. There 

 was but little honey in buckwheat. A few of my 

 swarms I lost had the dysentery, but I do not think 

 it killed them. T hear a great deal said in the Bee 

 Journal about it ; some say one thing, some 

 another. I do not believe anyone knows the cause 

 of so many bees dying last winter. We are five 

 miles from timber. I think to succeed well in 

 keeping bees they should have both timber and 

 prairie. My bees are nearly all in movable frame 

 hives, with four glass boxes on the top, holding 10 

 pounds each. Nearly all are Italians. My bees 

 are well protected by buildings and trees. I shall 

 leave them on their summer stands the coming 

 winter, except a few of the lightest; those I will 

 put in my cellar. 1 leave my boxes on, so they 

 have moderate upward ventilation. I let them fly 

 out warm days, but when snow is on the ground, 

 shade the front of the hive. 



NOT DISCOURAGED. 



I am not so despondent as some of the "breth- 

 ren" seem to be, if my pets did many of them die 

 last winter. A goodly number of men lost all they 

 had in Grafton county. The past summer has been 

 more rain than sunshine, but I am hoping for 

 better times. I hope the bee-loving family will let 

 brotherly love continue among them, and greatly 

 oblige the lady readers of the good old Journal 



Mrs. Laura Page. 

 Littleton, Grafton Co., N. //., Dec. 12th, 1872. 



Henr.y A. Holcomb, of New Bedford, Mass.. 

 writes : I bought two swarms of black bees last 

 winter. Tried to transfer them last January, and 

 lost one swarm by freezing. 1 introduced Italian 

 queens in the spring, artificially swarmed them 

 twice in May y and have done first rate since, and 

 now have three good strong swarms and plenty of 

 honey to winter on, with frames all full of comb. 



Wm. Dyer of Hastings, Minnesota, writes : My 

 bees have done very well this season, taking 

 into account their real condition last spring. I win- 

 tered in cellars last winter, putting in seventy-eight 

 swarms and losing twenty, a number of them after 

 I took them out in the spring. The most of my hives 

 were much reduced in bees but had plenty of honey 

 so that I have not had much of an increase, only 

 twenty-three swarms. From these I have taken in 

 boxes and supers sixteen hundred and fifty (1,650) 

 pounds of honey. 



I have kept bees for the last seven years (in this 

 state) and have wintered some every winter in the 

 old box or tall hive, and have always found that the 

 bees wintered with less loss and came out in better 

 condition in the spring. Three years ago I com- 

 menced to build a new hive from a suggestion of 

 Solon Robinson's, in his Facts for Farmers, which 

 was to hang the frame so that they would open like 

 the leaves of a book. My object was to get a greater 

 depth of frame believing it to be a fact that when 

 bees make their own selection, they never select a 

 hollow that runs horizontal, but one that stands per- 

 pendicular and one that has more height than 

 breadth. Taking that as a basis, I constructed a hive 

 with frames fifteen inches deep. The front of the hive 



