212 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



if ;:nv of us should attain to brighter ideas, we 

 may after all be indebted to them for many of 

 the seed thoughts which, under joint culture, 

 have only grown a little. 



As regards patents, I could wish, with 

 Quinby and Gallup, that a matter so simple as 

 bee hive improvements were left untrammelled 

 by conflicting claims. It may be justice to give 

 leaders in the exposition of an important prin- 

 ciple some such advantage; but for myself I can 

 say I am amply repaid in honey and pleasure 

 for any improvement which I can make, and 

 am quite willing to reciprocate with the public 

 lor advantages which I may in like manner re- 

 ceive in return. 



As a minister of the gospel, I magnify my of- 

 fice, but am quite an enthusiast in bee-culture. 

 And with good reason. For I know nothing 

 beside so well calculated innnocently and 

 profitably to rest a weary mind, as this. After 

 long and intense application to necessary study, 

 an hour's airing and excitement in the bee- 

 yard completely rejuvenates the jaded powers. 

 So my bee-yard serves me for more than cash 

 and pleasure ; and, like Novice, I am long- 

 ing with all bright anticipation for the summer 

 of 1.869 — while two to four feet of solid snow 

 upon the ground, makes it necessary to keep 

 bees housed as yet. But brighter skies an- 

 nounce the spring at hand. 

 "Come gentle spring, etherial mildness, come !" 

 J. W. Truesdell. 



Warwick, P. Q , Canada, April 6, I860. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice's Reverses. 



Now, please, Mr. Editor, do not let the 

 "knowing ones" say, after reading the above 

 heading, "its just what we expected !'■ We are 

 going to confess the whole, and then all can 

 jud^e if it was altogether our own fault. 



When we last wrote you, we were going to 

 winter our thirty-live stocks so "scientifically" 

 that we could'nt lose any. But, oh — well !— 

 the truth is that 



" Man proposes, and God disposes," 



in regard to bees as well as other events. 

 Owing to a rush of business about the holidays, 

 Ave really could not get our bees into that cellar 

 (which we were going to keep so carefully at 

 an even temperature of forty degrees), until 

 just before New Year; so that they had been 

 out during a severe cold spell. After getting 

 them in, in a satisfactory shape, we arranged the 

 ventilation and temperature so, that they were 

 as quiet and orderly as we could wish, for a 

 few days. Then tlie weather kept getting so 

 much vvarmer, that we were obliged to raise 

 the caps from the hives, and uive all possible 

 ventilation, as we mentioned in a former arti- 

 cle. In this way we managed until along 

 in February, when the weather became so de- 

 cidedly ''summery" that we thought we should 

 really be obliged to put them out, and were 

 only deterred Horn doing so by tliiaking that 

 it must certaialy "come colcV soon, according 

 to the prophecies of all the old farmers, that our 



winter had not come yet. So we waited for 

 even a cold night, to open the doors and win- 

 dows of the cellar ; but even that would not 

 come. 



About the last of February, one noo:->, we 

 made an examination and found the floor thick- 

 ly strewn with dead bees, and many of the 

 hives covered with a tarry excrement and emit- 

 ting a most unpleasant smell. This decided us 

 to set them ou r . the next day, at all events, and 

 we started away to business. But, while walk- 

 ing up street, we fell to musing how we had 

 many times put off until to-morrow some disa- 

 greeable piece of work and had afterwards re- 

 pented, until we ended by wheeling about to- 

 wards home, and immediately put every stock 

 on its summer stand. We determined to make 

 a thorough examination of every stock, regard- 

 less of clothing; which we should have done, 

 had not the weather turned so freezing cold 

 before we had finished, that we were obliged to 

 stop. We found many of the bees occupying 

 the centre of a filthy mass of dead bees and the 

 substance before mentioned, which covered the 

 combs and everything else— many of the bees 

 crawling out of their hives and dropping on 

 the ground. 



Mr. Editor, what could we do ? We thought 

 of the bee disease, cleaned out the hives as 

 well as we could, and tried to feed honey that 

 had been gathered in June ; but it did no good. 

 All we could do, was to wait for a return of 

 that unseasonable warm weather, which we 

 hava not seen yet, (and it is now the fifth of 

 April), unless we except a few days in March, 

 when we induced what were left to work on 

 rye and oat meal. Since that time they appear 

 all right. 



We have only thirteen stocks left out of thir- 

 ty-five ; and tlie dead include nearly all our 

 heaviest stocks. The one that produced the 

 two hundred and three pounds of honey last 

 year was most lamented of all. 



Nearly all left plenty of honey, although some 

 of them had consumed an immense amount by 

 the first of March. 



A neighbor near by lost bis only Italian 

 swarm, with the same symptoms, which re- 

 mained out all the winter. The hive contained 

 very few bees, (as in fact was the case with 

 most of ours), but was nearly half full of scaled 

 honey. 



We dislike to think all this the result of our 

 ignorance ; but caonot see the difficulty, unless 

 it was bad hone}', or because there was so litlle 

 brood raised in the fall that nearly all our bees 

 wore old. 



Now, Mr. Editor, instead of those jars of 

 houejr which we talked about, we arc going to 

 see how soon we can build up our number 

 again, with the aid of plenty of combs, honey, 

 and the knowledge gained by three years' ex- 

 perience, if we are only a Novice. 



The first fifteen days of the new establish- 

 ment of a swarm in a hive are employed in the 

 most active labo". There is sometimes as much 

 work dispatched in that little time, as in all the 

 rest of the season that is proper for working. — 



WlLDMAN. 



