AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY W. F. CLARKE, CHICAGO, ILL. 

 AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. VIII. 



MAY, 1873. 



No. 11. 



Novice. 



Dear Bee Journal : — Do you really think your 

 old correspondent quarrelsome? We certainly had 

 an idea of endeavoring 10 make people better instead 

 of worse, and supposed when we advised bee-keep- 

 ers to make a hive that did not cost over $1.00, that 

 w« should only incur the displeasure and wrath of 

 those having " rights for sale," and perhaps such is 

 the case. Let us see: Adair "talked severe" to 

 us first, and he advertises rights even yet. Alley 

 came next and positively called names, and on page 

 234, April number, he seems to have been sorry he 

 " didn't more ;" see his article entitled "Something 

 about Hives." Really, Mr. Alley, our name ain't 

 "Hives," but we almost wished it was in reading 

 your communication, for we were so tired of hearing 

 so much the one at the head of this article. We did 

 think of mentioning that our friend Shaw has just 

 lost the bees that occupied that unlucky " Bay 

 State," but as it might make more trouble we won't. 

 King has just decided to give the rights to all the pur- 

 chasers of American and International Hives, and 

 if we are right Mr. Alley is going to follow, and 

 Jasper Hazen don't charge but five dollars now, (the 

 circular he sent us reads ten), and we presume Mr. 

 Burch will, after a while, advertise a hive that gives 

 rights free, and then Gallup too, will send a descrip- 

 tion to the A. B. J. of his "New Idea" hive. 

 (We'll pay the dollar, Mr. Editor, even if Gallup 

 didn't send us but twenty-five cents for our Maga- 

 zine, and we advertised his honey in it too for noth- 

 ing, so well that he sold it all in a hurry. ) 



We wondered why Mr. Moore, page 227, wrote so 

 unkindly, and what possible objection he could have 

 to our circular, until we saw his advertisement, and 

 "rights, $5.00," in Bee- Keepers' Magazine for April. 

 Our harmless little circular will spoil the sale of 

 rights and we meant it should. We can't think 

 what has given rise to the impression that we ad- 

 vise several hundred or a thousand colonies in one 

 apiary. Mr. Hazen' s quotation was only the an- 

 swer we gave some one who asked what we should 

 do if some bee-keeper located an apiary near our 

 basswood orchard. We certainly shall notget 1,000 

 colonies in this locality at the present rate for we 

 have lost thirteen out of our seventy-one now, and 

 we fear it will be a long time before we "know all 

 about wintering," to say nothing of knowing all 

 about bee-keeping. 



Mr. Hazen forgets that he himself mentions in the 

 Rural New Yorker having given colonies young bees 

 to strengthen them, so we need not mention other 

 sources of information. 



"The Coming Hive," from "Scientific," page 220, 

 is in the right spirit, and is glorious, and we hope 

 our honest, earnest bee-keepers will help him work 

 out the problem. Those who succeed in out-door 

 wintering, we should advise to adhere to that plan 

 by all means, and the same may be said of hives 

 with double walls. We sincerely hope we have no 

 prejudices that stand in the way of our progress. 

 So far as dysentery is concerned, we believe the 

 evidence now amply sufficient that sugar syrup is a 

 sure preventive, and until some one else shall show 

 in print where they advocated its use as better 

 than honey we claim the merit of the discovery, 

 as we gave it on the pages of this American Bee 

 Journal. 



We have lost thirteen colonies, of which two died 

 from dysentery, caused by natural stores One of 

 them we much regret as it was the Quinby hive. 

 It contained a large amount of stores gathered in 

 June, and an abundance of bees, but they died off 

 gradually until the middle of March, then they were 

 very weak, but as they had considerable brood, 

 mostly sealed, we decided to make them go through 

 on their natural stores, until the balance died all at 

 once, combs and bees damp and soiled. A part of 

 the remainder we feel sure died because they were 

 fed thin syrup too late in the fall for the bees to 

 seal it up, and the matter was worse because these 

 colonies were weak in numbers. Strong colonies 

 perhaps might be fed safely in October, or even 

 November, but not weak ones we think. The stocks 

 died without any apparent cause so far as we could 

 see, unless it was that they gathered considerable 

 stores from a cider mill near, after they had been 

 fed their rations. 



About a dozen colonies were given combs of sealed 

 syrup from our "barrel-feeder," their own combs 

 having been entirely removed ; and these are in 

 most excellent condition. Not more than one day 

 occurred in March on which bees could fly freely, 

 or we might perhaps have saved half of the thir- 

 teen ; besides a small hurricane twisted the vane off 

 our windmill and then blew the rest all to pieces, 

 and we were so afraid that "patent hive men" 

 might rejoice that we could make no more dollar 

 hives, that we neglected everything for a week or 

 more to put it in repair. 



