196 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[March, 



Mr. Mitchell and Di'. Claypool spoke on the 

 same subject. 



The Chairman, the Rev. Mr. Van Slyke, said 

 he had uijon one occasion wintered a hive out of 

 doors on nine povmds of honey. 



Mr. Hamlin, of Tennessee, gave his experience 

 in outdoor wintering. He equalized his stock 

 and regulated the ventilation to the strength of 

 the swarms. He had used for a covering of the 

 honey boards, straw, corncobs or hay. Year 

 before last he had a hundred and fifty-six swarms, 

 and lost none of them. 



Adjourned to 9 o'clock next morning. 



SECOND DAY— FORENOON SESSION. 



Third Topic. 



How far is it wise to prevent swarming ? was 

 the third topic. 



Resuming the programme of yesterday, Dr. 

 Bohrer, of Indiana, said the answer to this 

 question depended upon whether the object was 

 to produce the largest amount of surplus honey 

 or the multiplication of colonies. If the former 

 was the object, swarming should be entirely pre- 

 vented. 



Fourth Topic. 



Are hybrids better than pure Italians ? 



Dr. Bohrer said that if the bee keeper wanted 

 to get up a fight early in the spring, the hybrids 

 were the bees to have. 



Mr. Hoot said the hybrids were good workers 

 on white clover. The pure Italians made honey 

 from flowers that other bees would not touch. 



]\Ir. C. F. Muth, of Cincinnati, said he had 

 liybrids, and had never had any difficulty with 

 them about stinging. 



General Adair said that he believed we had 

 two varieties of native bees in the United States. 

 The large gray bee, a distinct species from the 

 black bee of the South, was, he believed, better 

 than the Italian bee, and was not as vicious. 



Mr. Stevens, of Glendale, said he had the gray 

 bee, and had always had it, and preferred it to 

 the Italian bee. 



Mr. Peck said a black queen fertilized by 

 Italian drones brought forth gentle hybrids, but 

 an Italian queen fertilized by black drones 

 brought forth a vicious brood. 



Mr. G. W. Zimmerman had his black queens 

 mated with Italian drones, and found the result- 

 ing stock much more energetic than others. 



Mrs. Tupper, of Iowa, would get pure impor- 

 tations from Italy frequently — that is, of queens 

 — and put them in hives if she wanted the best 

 work of her bees. 



Fifth Topic. 



The cause of bee swarming constituted the 

 fifth topic. 



Mr. Otis said his opinion was that swanning 

 of bees was owing to the storing instinct, together 

 with the antipathy of one queen against any 

 otlier queen in the same colony. A hive became 

 stocked with honey and supplied with two 

 queens, and it was found necessary to divide. 



Dr. Claypool said he had last year one stand 

 of bees that became overstocked, laid outside the 

 hive, but did not swarm. 



Mr, Root said that in a half dozen instances, 

 he had taken every drop of honey from a hive 

 and cut out every queen cell, and the bees 

 swarmed. 



Mr. Barger said he had seen the queen drop in 

 front of the hive and the swarm leave. He had 

 also seen ten queens go out with one swarm. 



Mrs. Tupper believed, also, at one time in her 

 life, that bees never swarmt^d without a queen 

 cell, but last summer slie found the contrary. 

 She did not have an Italian colony swarm, last 

 season, that had a queen cell. 



Gen. Adair said that last year he had a large 

 number of swarms in whh;h no preparation for 

 swarming was made. 



Mr. Moon had put bees in a hogshead and had 

 them swarm. He had put them in a salt barrel, 

 and found they would swarm when the barrel 

 was only one-third full. 



Mr. Langstroth said that if there were no dis- 

 position on the part of bees to swarm we should 

 soon have an end of bees. He said no invariable 

 rule could be laid down in regard to swarming. 



Sixth Topic. 



What are the troubles to be met with in bee 

 keeping? Tliis broad, endless question formed 

 the sixth topic. 



Mr. Moon enumerated the chief difficulties as 

 swarming and going to the woods, the moth, 

 robbing and wintering. 



Mr. Porter, of Minnesota, said he had had his 

 share of trouble with them. He would rather 

 undertake to find ten Italian queens than one 

 black queen. A feather or bristle brush were 

 either of them very irritating to bees. A willow 

 broom was better in handling them. He detailed 

 his experience in introducing a fine Italian queen 

 into a hive of black bees. He killed the queens 

 of the black colonies and put his Italian queen 

 in, then next day looked and saw her dead. He 

 watched the liive closely, and at one time saw a 

 small bee laying. He often found six or eight 

 eggs in a cu|). He came to the conclusion they 

 needed food under these circumstances. He 

 gave them food, and all was right after that. 

 He was satisfied that where the bees had not 

 honey the queen would lay a great many eggs in 

 the same cell. 



Mr. Langstroth said he had known fooli.sh 

 queens to put a multitude of eggs in the same 

 cell. He had known queens to deposit eggs out- 

 side the cell, and that queen fertilized. 



Gen. Adair had also known queens to deposit 

 eggs outside the cells. He liad found this in the 

 case of queens fertilized in confinement, and had 

 known the same queen to act properly when she 

 had been permitted to leave the hive for fertiliza- 

 tion. 



Mr. Clark, of Canada, said that a great trouble 

 in bee keeping was the lack of determination to 

 succeed. Lack of attention to details was the 

 cause of much failure. 



Mr. Hart told of a visit to a friend of his in 

 the Western part of Ohio, where he met a lot of 

 bee keepers. None of them had a book on the 

 subject of bee keeping, and none of them took a 

 paper on the subject. He advised them to form 



