Journal for 1880, W. A. Horton 

 agreed with my article on page .541, 

 although he says he does not. 



He says a few of his very weak colonies 

 commenced soiling their combs after a 

 month's confinement, thus claiming 

 that long confinement is not the cause 

 of the so-called dysentery. If he will 

 recall page 541 again he will there find 

 that but few bees in a hive tend toward 

 a failure in wintering because they 

 cannot keep up the desired warmth 

 without consuming an undue quan- 

 tity of food. It was not the length 

 of time, as regards weeks or months, 

 that I was trying to get at entirely, but 

 it was that if all the conditions given 

 in the last part of my article were care- 

 fully looked after, that our bees could 

 be be kept in confinement with com- 

 parative safety for a much longer pe- 

 riod than could be possibly done if we 

 were heedless of those conditions. 



On page 121 of Gleanings for 1880, 

 our friend, H. lioop, does not stop to 

 round off the corners of his words a bit, 

 but says j ust what he thinks. Farther on 

 he says : " I supposed that nature de- 

 signed the honey bee, as well as nearly 

 all the insect creation, to go into a par- 

 tially dormant state on the approach of 

 cold weather and remain so for several 

 months without any injury to them- 

 selves, etc.' 1 Now I do not know but I 

 am wrong, but I had always supposed 

 bees were a native of a warm climate, 

 and hence nature did not design them 

 to go into a dormant state, as we find 

 flies, wasps, ants, etc., during cold 

 weather. If friend Roop will go to a 

 colony on some zero morning and 

 quickly draw a frame from the center 

 of a large cluster of bees, he will find 

 that the bees inside of those forming 

 the crust, or outside of the cluster, are 

 just as lively as in July; that brood 

 rearing to a certain extent is going on 

 after the middle of January, and that 

 at all times food is consumed, which is 

 not the case with ants and wasps. Per- 

 haps I was a little fast in using human 

 beings or the animal kingdom to illus- 

 trate what I desired to, but I think not 

 more so than friend Roop is in classing 

 bees with insects which do not move or 

 stir during the cold months of winter. 

 What I wished to have understood in 

 my article on page 541 was this : that 

 bees of a necessity must consume food 

 during confinement; that if this con- 

 finement was continued longer than 

 they could contain said food in their 

 bodies they would have the so-called 

 dysentery ; that the so-called dysentery 

 was no disease at all, but simply the 

 effect caused by a too long confinement, 

 that poor honey, or being disturbed so as 



to cause more honey to be taken than 

 was required, uneasiness or disquietude 

 of whatever nature which tended to- 

 ward an undue consumption of honey. 

 that confinement in warm weather, too 

 few bees, dampness, or draft of air 

 through the hive, all helped t<> produce 

 the effect sooner or later ; while perfect 

 quietude under favorable circumstan- 

 ces, in a well ventilated cellar or a prop- 

 erly constructed chaff hive, would tend 

 to successful wintering. Also, that if 

 we could have weather the year round 

 so that bees could fly every day, no 

 amount of honey dew. poor food, damp- 

 ness or zero cold during the night would 

 cause the so-called dysentery. The 

 cause of confinement, of course, is our 

 cold weather. 

 Borodino. N. V.. May, 1880. 



Indiana as a Bee-Keeping State. 



F. L. DOUGHERTY. 



The following is a portion of a com- 

 munication presented to the last meet- 

 ing of the State Board of Agriculture 

 by me, as Secretary of the Indiana Bee- 

 Keepers' Association. The purpose of 

 the address was to influence the Board 

 to recognize the bee-keeping interest in 

 their premium list: 



There is no reason why Indiana 

 should not be in the front rank with 

 the products from the apiary. She has 

 growing upon her soil almost as large a 

 variety of honey-producing plants as 

 any State in the Union. We have honey- 

 producing trees in vast numbers, such 

 as basswood, poplar, elm. willow and 

 the various fruit trees. We haveamong 

 the countless multitude of (lowering 

 shrubs and plants, white, alsikeandred 

 clover; buckwheat, golden rod, the 

 manyastersand mints, and small fruits, 

 currants, gooseberries, raspberries, 

 blackberries, etc. In fact, from the first 

 blossoms of early spring to the coming 

 of host the flora of Indiana is suf- 

 ficiently productive in the secretion of 

 honey to afford our little pets plenty of 

 forage on which to work. It is esti- 

 mated that we have iii our State as 

 many as 30,000 colonies of bees, produc- 

 ing annually an average of 15 lbs. per 

 colony, or a total of 450,000 Lbs. of honey, 

 which. at 123 .•'' I"' 1 ' lb., would bring$54- 

 225, and I believe the average none too 

 high. We have no reliable statistics 

 from which to glean information on this 

 subject. But through the efforts of T. 

 (r. Newman, President of the National 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, arrange- 

 ments have been made to have complete 

 statistics gathered by the Government, 

 while taking the next census. Arrange- 



