THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Oct., 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice. 



Deak Bee Journal :— Just hear tlie good 

 Dcws, — our bees arc ayain at work ! Not, in- 

 deed, at tlie rate often or fifteen pounds per day, 

 as in June last ; but tliey are really at work at 

 this date, September !)th. 



We liad been building some more "air cas- 

 tles," and had talked of another yield of honey 

 in August and September. After waiting some 

 time, and watehing and weighing a hive without 

 any increase, we at last began to perceive a gain 

 in weight, first of half a pound, then a whole 

 one, and yesterday a ttoek of fUdians gained two 

 pounds and a half, which was enough to make 

 us toss up our hat and almost embrace tiie little 

 3'ellow pets (with ju<licious gentleness, of course). 

 A neighbor says the way we follow the bees 

 across fields and through woods, and delve into 

 the subject and remove obstructions, it is no 

 wonder tliey get honey if it be on the face of 

 the earlli — and perhaps that is so. 



But, look here, my dear reader, did you under- 

 stand us to say that our bees were building combs? 

 Not at all; "nary" comb will they build, with 

 a few exceptions, and certainly none in those 

 old-fashioned traps called boxes. It is this way. 

 Where there are empty coml)S right above the 

 brood, tliey will fill them with honey ; as, for 

 instance, in tlie upper story of the Langstrolh 

 liive. But they seldom put any honey in 

 combs very far to one side ; and hives that are 

 full, or nearly so, do not increase in weight at 

 all. So you see it all depends on having plenty 

 of empty combs. We really think a few more 

 just now would be worth a dollar apiece ti) us. 

 A little feeding given just right will induce comb 

 building, but we think not so as to pay. 



The one stock that we weighed all through the 

 season has now given us three hundred and 

 thirty (330) pounds ; and had it not been for 

 replacing their queen, they would have done 

 much belter. Their new queen is nearly a black 

 one, and so, also, are iier workers ; and, by the 

 way, Mr. Editor, here lies a trouble. In slicing 

 the heads off of all our drone brood this summer, 

 we increased our yield of honey, which was all 

 right. But we increased the yield also of new 

 queens tliat produce black workers, or at least so 

 nearly black that we have resolved to purchase 

 twenty-five pure queens, to replace all that are 

 not fully up to our ideas. It is true we might 

 raise thein, but at the prices at which they are 

 now offered, we begin to think we had rather 

 raise honey, and let some one who has more 

 time or likes the bother better, raise queens. In 

 making new swarms we have no trouble ; but in 

 raising surplus queens to replace others, etc., we 

 have not made it go to suit us. We have made 

 some experiments in artificial feililization this 

 fall, but have not succeeded. Queen nurseries 

 and hatching (pieens in cages have also been an 

 " unsuccessful bother" to us. We know we are 

 but a poor novice, and should not expect to suc- 

 ceed always, but it dots seem as if queens that 

 do not lay, are rather a risky property to meddle 

 with. 



But there is one thing we do like, and find it 



a real jdeasure, namt ly, to keep a rec'rd. Thus, 

 we found sixty five stocks loo many to rememljer 

 all about, so we got a lilaiik book with 150 pages 

 (bear in mind it is a good idea to have a tew 

 extra pages, even if you are sure you )'iever will 

 want to use them). No. 1 hive is on page 1, No. 

 2 on page 2, and so on to Ihe end of the chapter. 

 Each page tells when the queen of the hive it 

 refers to was hatched, whether pure or not, pro- 

 lific or not ; if weighed, how much honey pro- 

 duced ; if queen to be replaced, how and when ; 

 and, in short, all about the hive. 



Our hives, bees, and combs weigli about thirty 

 pounds each, and before putting them into the 

 liouse in November, we are going to make every 

 one weigh over filty pounds, and not more than 

 filty-five. Some might call twenty five pounds 

 sealed honey (or nearly all sealed) not as well as 

 more ; but, as we winter them, we think more 

 would be detrimental, and with us all the re^t 

 goes into the melextractor. Were it not for that 

 same melextractor, we fear, or rather feel sure. 

 we should not get any surplus honey at all now, 



In our last article it read that we had sold all 

 our honey at thirty cents a pound, which was a 

 mistake that crept in somewhere. The honey 

 was sold for thirty cents per pound retail ; but 

 the commission, freight, leakage, cost of boxes, 

 labor, etc., made quite a hole in the thirty cents. 

 In regard to salciibleness, we have just shipped 

 the last of our three tons, aud think that we 

 could sell almost any quantity. 



As respects the source of the honey we get 

 now, it is mainly from the same white-flowering 

 plants sent you "last fall, which are even thicker 

 here this season than they were then. And, Mr. 

 Editor, we really think that the more bees there 

 are kept, the more lioney plants will grow ; for 

 every blossom is most surely fertilized, and the 

 result must be more and better seed. 



For the first tour years that we kept bees, we 

 never found the hives to gain in weight after the 

 first of August ; and then we had only from four 

 or five to tw<-nty stocks. Sixty-five colonies is 

 certainly nothing like overstocking, and we have 

 no fear "that one hundred would be in any danger 

 if icell taken care of. 



We have found our bees also working so 

 briskly, on what we call fireweed and common 

 golden rod, that we have labelled the honey from 



AUTUMN AVILD FLOWERS. 



It is dark and thick, but has a very pleasant 

 fiavor, something like humble-bee honey, as wc 

 mentioned last fiill, and very different from either 

 clover or basswood honey. 



We have had no buckwheat nearer than two 

 and a half miles, and v/e followed the bees one 

 morning all the way there, as our wild flowers 

 were not then in blossom. We think we can 

 afford, next year, to give farmers within one 

 and a half miles of us, a dollar per acre to raise 

 buckwheat. It is true it might prove a failure, 

 but we are used to failures occasionally. 



Many thanks to Mr. Tillinghast, on page 6B, 

 and also to y -urself, Mr. Editor. When we com- 

 menced here with bees, our locality certainly 

 was called poor. Bees had ceased to pay, and 

 were dying out ; and had we not been so much 



