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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Nov., 



they commeuced -working in the surplus boxes about 

 the middle of last week, and some of them have now 

 as much as fifteen pounds in the boxes. 



I would like Novice to tell us bow he gets his 

 board and frame into the top of his hive, if his hives 

 are all of one size, f have a few of the two-story 

 hives made by the National Bee-hive Company at St. 

 Charles, Illinois, and I cannot get a frame into the 

 top story in any other way than perpendicular, as the 

 top bar of the frame is longer than the inside of the 

 hive. I have tried one to see how it would work. — 

 C. T. Smith. 



DowAGiAC, Mich., Sept. 12— We have had just half 

 a surplus honey harvest, here, this season. Since I 

 have been in the bee business, I have learned that the 

 surplus harvest depends entirely upon the clover and 

 basswood blossoms, in this vicinity ; which is proba- 

 bly the case all over the State. When we have a wet 

 season clover fails, but basswood produces well ; and 

 when a dry season, vice versa. Reverses from 

 abundance to starvation take place within a few miles 

 of each other. I am located now in the midst of 

 clover and basswood, together with the best spring 

 and fall pasturage I have ever seen. After losing 

 seven- eighths of my bees last winter, you can easily 

 guess the condition of the remaining six colonics. 

 Four of them were merely skeletons, and the other 

 two very inferior stocks. Yet, with the aid of a 

 three cent feeder of my own invention, (which works 

 to perfection,) and one and a fourth dollar's worth 

 of sugar, I have succeeded in marketing five hundred 

 and twenty-three (523) pounds of box honey ; and 

 with the aid of old combs have increased my stock 

 to twenty-two (22) colonies, all strong and heavy — 

 too heavy I fear, for their own good ; and I have as 

 yet no emptying machine. This, I think, is doing 

 very well (see Langstroth's "Hive and Honey Bee," 

 page ITT) for a bee-keeper of only two years' experi- 

 ence. — 1 came near forgetting to mention that I have 

 Italianized all my new stocks. I use top-bar hives 

 mostly. Am using four or five frame hives on the 

 sly ! — J. Heddon. 



Winchester, Iowa, Sept. 13. — The season of 18T0 

 has not been any of the best here, nor of the poorest 

 either, as swarming and honey gathering has been 

 moderately good. The American Bee Journal well 

 deserves the support of bee-keepers. — I. N. Waltek. 



Rochelle, Ills., Sept. 17. — This has been the 

 poorest season that we have had here for some years. 

 I got only five new swarms from forty stands, and 

 merely one hundred pounds of honey. Since the buck- 

 wheat came into blossom the bees have done well. They 

 will average about fifty pounds to the stand ; and that 

 is doing very well, iu such a year as this has been. 

 Alsikeclover is now iu blossom, and the bees are 

 working very busily on it. — R. Miller. 



Breespokt, N. Y., Sept. 20.— My bees have done 

 well in gathering honey, this season ; but gave me 

 no swarms during swarming time. — J. H. Hadsell. 



Oskaloosa, Iowa, Sept. 28. — I have one hundred 

 and ninety colonies of bees that have done well this 

 year, and are in fine condition for winter. I stored 

 away one hnndred and twenty-nine colonies in my 

 cellar last fall, and the same number came out in 

 good order in the spring. I sold them ofi" to about 

 one hundred, from which I came one to winter with 

 the above number (190), principdly Italians. 



Enclosed please find specimen of a bee plant. 

 What is it ? It blooms from first of July to last of 

 August profusely and is visited by bees thrice as much 

 as buckwheat. I have tried borage, mclilot, alsike, 



mustard, and find nothing to equal it. I calculate to 

 cultivate it, in order to give it a fair and full trial. 

 I have secured about a peek of seed. The great 

 advantage is that it blooms at a time when most 

 needed in this country. I grew it this year alongside 

 of buckwheat that bloomed at the same time. — S. 

 Ingels. 



[Tlie plant enclosed is the Cassia chamcccrista or 

 Partridge Pea. It is an annual, growing in most 

 sandy soil, and is common in the south. It grows 

 here on the eastern branch of the Potomac (the Ana- 

 costia), and bees derive plentiful supplies of forage 

 from it during eight or ten weeks in summer, and 

 it is then almost their only resource. They gather 

 poUeu from the blossoms, but the honey is secreted 

 by a small cupshaped gland situated below the lowest 

 pair of leafiets, and is sujiplied abundantly for a long 

 period. — Some of the farmer's here-abouts alfect to 

 consider it a pernicious and ineradicable weed ; but 

 as it is an annual and known to be an excellent ferti- 

 lizer when plowed under, it would seem to indicate 

 slovenly management not to be able to subdue it 

 readily where not wanted. — Ed.] 



Vervilla, Tenn., Sept. 24. — I consider the Journal 

 cheap at any price for the bee-keeper, and wish it 

 could be published oftener. — Dr. J, M. Bell. 



Warsaw, Minn., Oct. 3. — This has been a poor 

 season for bees here, except in basswood time. — L. B. 

 Aldrich. 



Cedarville, Ills., Oct. 5. — My bees have done 

 well this season. — Robert Jones. 



Meredith, Pa., Oct. 4. — Bees did very well on 

 white clover in this section this season, but very 

 poorly on buckwheat. My sixty stocks did not give 

 me sixty pounds of buckwheat honey surplus, all 

 told ; although they are all in good condition for 

 wintering. 



I do not think that alsike clover has been over- 

 estimated for bee pasturage. I had three-quarters of 

 an acre of it this season, and I never saw a piece of 

 land so covered with bees as that was while it was in 

 bloom, and they gathered honey from it very fast. — 

 M. Wilson. 



Orchard, Iowa, Oct. 6. — It is raining heavily to- 

 day, yet the weather is warm and we have not had a 

 particle of frost yet. Bees have done storing surplus 

 honey for the season. — I shall give the result of the 

 season's operations as soon as I can get the time. At 

 present I am up 4 A. M., and do not get home till 8 

 and sometimes 9 o'clock P. M. I must have a little 

 relaxation from such excessive hard labor, before I 

 can confine or control my thoughts sufliciently to 

 write for publication. From the past season's opera- 

 tions witli the honey extractor, I can endorse all that 

 Novice claims over and above the old mode of getting 

 surplus in the comb — E. Gallup. 



New Bedford, Mass., Oct. 6. — The season for bees 

 has been remarl^able. Commencing well, the dry 

 weather soon made forage very scarce during the 

 blooming of clover and basswood, so that by the first 

 of September there little or no surplus stored, and all 

 the colonies were very light. But during that month, 

 mostly after the fifteenth, the bees gathered honey as 

 fast or faster than they ever do in this locality in 

 June. It was obtained from the wild aster ; and the 

 stocks are now heavy and in fine condition for winter. 

 Even now there seems to be no cessation of their 

 labors. This is true of all the neighboring towns ; 

 nearly every hive iu them having been examined by 

 me during my professional drives. — E. P. Abbe. 



