filter ZUv'iixocx. 



Honey for Winter.— The season has 

 been unusually poor, my bees not aver- 

 aging over 25 lbs. of comb honey. Each 

 •colony has about 30 lbs. to winter on ; 

 they are in 10-frame Langstroth hives, 

 and are very strong ; is that enough to 

 winter on ? There are very few bees in 

 this county. What hive would you ad- 

 vise a beginner to use V 



Chas. M. Gaylord. 



Clyde, Kansas, Sept. 21, 1880. 



[Unless the winter should be a very 

 severe one, 30 lbs. of honey will answer. 

 We think the Langstroth hive good as 

 Any. — Ed.] 



Italian Bees, etc. — This has not been 

 a very good honey season in AVestern 

 Pennsylvania; too cold and dry I think 

 was the cause of the failure; the flow- 

 ers yielded honey only a part of the 

 time, and I noticed when they did it was 

 during a few days of warm weather, 

 when the bees gathered honey very fast. 

 I have heard so much about the supe- 

 riority of the Italian bee, that I will 

 have to give my experience with them 

 this season. I had 4 colonies of Italian 

 bees in the spring, in good condition. 

 From one of them I received about 22 

 lbs. of comb honey, from another about 

 5lbs., and from the other two not one lb., 

 while some of the black bees gave over 

 20 lbs. to the colony, and a colony of hy- 

 brids won the prize, by producing 

 about 50 lbs. of surplus. My Italians 

 appeared to be as strong as any I had. 

 I was much disappointed, as I expected 

 my Italians to do much the best. But 

 I shall not condemn them yet, and w r ill 

 give them another trial. I cannot ig- 

 nore the testimony of so many good 

 men vet. Osman McCarty. 



Zollarsville. Pa., Oct. 6, 1880. 



Egg-Bound Queens, etc.— The Jour- 

 nal regularly appears with its budget 

 of reports of conventions and apiaries 

 in every country in the world. These, I 

 need not say, I read with interest. In 

 Bruce we have any amount of white 

 •clover during the whole summer, also 

 basswood and goldenrods in their sea- 

 son ; so in this county bee pasturage is 

 never a complete failure, although the 

 last season was not so favorable as the 

 previous one ; yet the intelligent bee- 

 keepers have had a good quantity of the 

 very best honey, which they can easily 

 dispose of at a good price. I was inter- 

 ested in the remarks made by some of 

 your correspondents in the last number 



of the Journal regarding egg-bound 

 queens. I have had the misfortune of 

 meeting one this season, exactly the 

 same as Mr. Jeffrey describes. She was 

 a young queen and a great beauty— yel- 

 low as gold — and was laying eggs for 2 

 or 3 weeks before her abdomen became 

 diseased. As I knew of no remedy, I 

 removed her to a nucleus, where I think 

 she died. J. Anderson. 



Tiverton, Canada, Oct. 9, 1880. 



Mitchell's Hive. — I have been keeping 

 bees for 20 years or more. I have 40 

 colonies ; I had 20 natural swarms this 

 season ; a large one on the 1st inst., 

 which I put in the Mitchell adjustable 

 hive, giving them 5 frames of honey and 

 young bees, and they are now doing 

 well. Bees done well the early part of 

 the season, gathering plenty of honey. 

 I like Mitchell's hive on account of its 

 cheapness. II. White.' 



Woodbury, Ky., Sept. 20, 1880. 



Aster. — Please give name of enclosed 

 plant; it grows about 2% feet high; 

 blooms from Sept. 1st till quite late, and 

 bees seem fond of it. What is its value 

 for honey ? Bees in this section have 

 produced very little surplus, owing to 

 dry weather in June, July and August; 

 increase moderate. J. C. Griffith. 



College Mound, Mo., Oct. 4, 1880. 



[The plant is an aster, and is good for 

 fall honey.— Ed.] 



Cheap Bee-House.— Our bees done very 

 well about 10 days the past season, while 

 linden was in bloom. Strong colonies 

 stored 2 to 4 lbs. per day during that 

 time, having empty comb to store it in. 

 Since then they have stored no surplus. 

 Buckwheat did not seem to furnish 

 much honey, though there was consid- 

 erable of l. I extracted 610 lbs. of lin- 

 den honey, and sold it in 2-lb. jars at 30 

 cents perjar. I had 35 colonies in the 

 spring, and now have 50. I use a cheap 

 bee-house, both in winter and summer, 

 made as follows : feet high , 5 wide, and 

 as long as desired ; side it up with rough 

 barn siding, leaving 8 inches space at 

 the bottom for the bees to pass out of 

 the hive ; also leave 8 inches space at 

 the top of the hive for a window. Put 

 in two rows of hives, one on each side, 

 leaving room to pass between them. 

 When you wish to operate on one row, 

 you have (if not too high) the other for 

 a seat. On the approach of winter till 

 up the spaces between the rows, and all 

 around the hives, with dry straw ; also 

 put 6 inches of straw on the top, leav- 

 ing the entrances to the hives open, and 

 the bees will come out well in the 



