Mr. Jones expects to return in the 

 spring while I shall probably remain to 

 rear and ship queens to hiin. We go 

 over there to sift the whole matter 

 thoroughly, and if the excellent things 

 our German cousins have said of the 

 Cyprians do not hold out, we will let the 

 whole matter drop. We have taken no 

 orders for queens, nor have we promised 

 them to any one, and we do not propose 

 to do so, until by our personal experi- 

 ence and observation we have learned 

 what are the peculiarities of this race. 

 Frank Benton. 



Bay City, Mich. Dec. 21, 1879. 

 I have 16 colonies of bees on their 

 summer stands, in Langstroth hives, 

 packed in sawdust and straw. They 

 appear to be doing nicely. I lost 15 

 colonies of bees last winter, and also 

 all I had the winter before last, but am 

 bound to succeed, if I have to buy every 

 year. J. M. Parshall. 



Williamsville, Mich., Dec. 16, 1879. 



Last year our bees averaged 3 swarms 

 and 90 lbs. of honey, while this year 

 they have averaged but 2 swarms and 

 30 lbs. of honey, per colony. The bees 

 kept breeding until late in October. I 

 sold 5, united 4, fed a few, then prepared 

 48 for winter. 1 contracted the hive to 

 a cubic foot, packed straw in the vacant 

 ends and over them in the cap ; put the 

 weakest and lightest in the cellar ; will 

 move the in out if they get uneasy. 



C. F. Smith, Jr. 



Minister, 111., Dec. 10, 1879. 

 Eight years ago when but 13 years of 

 age, I found a swarm of black bees in 

 an old linden stump on the banks of the 

 Vermillion river. I took them out and 

 put them in a box-hive, and from that 

 one I have increased to 50, which are 

 mostly in movable-frame hives, and 

 nearly all Italians. I have lost several 

 colonies in winter, and had a few rob- 

 bed out. I know that I have not hand- 

 led my bees as I should, to be profitable, 

 and I have not received any profit from 

 them ; in fact they are debtors to me 

 for not less than $50, in cash, besides my 

 labor, but I have a few hives and other 

 supplies on hand that are worth some- 

 thing. I have my bees all packed in 

 chaff, on their summer stands, as if I 

 expected them to come out all right in 

 the spring. The honey crop in this 

 locality, last season, was an entire fail- 

 ure ; I only received a few swarms and 

 no honey. I had to feed the young 

 swarms to prevent them from starving 

 and the young bees died in the comb 

 with something like foul-brood in some 

 respects, but not in all. The appear- 



ance of the cells that contained the dead 

 bees was like foul-brood ; some of the 

 cells were entirely uncapped, and others 

 partly so, while still others had small 

 holes, like pin holes, in them. There 

 was no offensive smell in the hive as is 

 the case with foul-brood, and instead of 

 the young bees turning into a yellow, 

 tough, bad smelling mass (as mentioned 

 by Mr. Muth), they remain white, unless 

 they are left in the combs a long time 

 and then they turned black and seem to 

 dry up in their natural shape ; the bees 

 always remove them. I put a comb of 

 this brood in a strong colony, where 

 honey was plenty and they removed 

 them in one hour and it left no bad re- 

 sults. I found a few cells of this in 

 several strong colonies but it disap- 

 peared without harm. Is this a kind of 

 foul-brood, or was it caused by lack of 

 honey ? W. T. Hohenshell. 



[It is not foul-brood. Have you not 

 opened the hives and stood the frames 

 around when it was cool enough to chill 

 the brood? It has that appearance. 

 Or they may have starved.— Ed.] 



Denver City, Col., Dec. 9, 1879. 

 The queen you sent me went to lay- 

 ing the next day after I received her, 

 and the colony 'was very strong when 

 packed for winter. The bees looked as 

 line as any I have. I started last spring 

 with 6 coionies, 4 being very weak. I 

 increased to 19, and have obtained 600 

 lbs. of honey, mostly extracted. Our 

 honey season is only about 6 weeks in 

 June and July. David Wolpert. 



Limerick, 111., Dec. 9, 1879. 

 In the spring of 1878 I sowed the 

 Bocky Mountain bee plant seed, and 

 waited patiently for it to come up. As 

 it did not, I thought it would not do so, 

 so I dug it up and planted cucumbers 

 and tomatoes. But the next spring, to 

 my surprise, the bee plant came up very 

 nicely. The fall of 1878 was good for 

 honey. I asked bee-men what the bees 

 got honey from but they could not tell. 

 I thought it was from what we call 

 black heart ; I asked if it would be good 

 for bees to winter on and they did not 

 know. That year bees went into win- 

 ter quarters unusually early, plenty of 

 bees and heavy in honey. Continuous 

 cold set in about Thanksgiving day ; in 

 this condition they formed more damp- 

 ness and ice in the hives than common. 

 The result was a heavy loss in winter- 

 ing, and " spring dwindling." The long 

 and severe cold caused them to eat so 

 much poor honey without a fly, and that, 

 I think, in part, caused the loss. The 



