154 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAx-. 



have killed more of the " vartaints " than 

 Stinger ever saw. My plan is to take a 

 small lump of lard, about the size of a 

 filbert (if the nights are not too warm to 

 melt it; if so, take tallow); cut the piece 

 in halves, hollow out the center, and put 

 about the full of a gem cap of powdered 

 strychnine in the cavity. Press the halves 

 gently together, and place the " pill " on a 

 board in front of the hive. But keep the 

 dog, cat, and chickens housed up until you 

 can take up any that is left in the morning. 



A skunk will not go 50 yards until he goes 

 to rest, and you need not "press the but- 

 ton " either, nor yet need the atmosphere 

 purified. 



The above dose will kill a fox before he 

 goes 100 yards. 



For the past two weeks there have been 

 only a few days that the bees did not fly 

 more or less. I have one colony, appar- 

 ently in good condition, that has drones 

 flying — a thing I never heard of in this 

 county at this season. All appear to be 

 doing well. Bees are flying now. 



I heartily agree with Mr. McEvoy in re- 

 gard to his foul-brood theory on page 8, 

 and its increase is by carelessness. 



•' Should the farmer keep bees ?" I say 

 " No." My experience among the farmer's 

 bees leads me to this conclusion. For years 

 I have been called to 5 or 10 miles to attend 

 to a farmer's bees. I invariably find them 

 in the worst condition possible. A man 

 with an ordinary-sized farm usually has 

 enough to do in spring-time (the season 

 when bees need to be looked after) without 

 looking after the bees. I don't think there 

 is One farmer in fifty that would profit by 

 keeping bees. I do iiot know any of them, 

 at' least. T. C. Keia,t. 



Slippery Rock, Pa.. Jan. 8, 1894. 



Not Very Encouraging. 



I invested $.80 last spring for bees, hives, 

 etc., and never got a pound of comb honey 

 — the worst season in this part of Kansas 

 in eleven years. I had 26 colonies on July 

 1st, but the dry weather and hard winds 

 played havoc with fall resources, so I 

 doubled back to 16 colonies, 8 of which were 

 fair, and the remainder needed feeding 

 through the winter. W. Emmett Potts. 



Edna, Kans. 



The Season of 1893. 



I may say, as nearly as I can tell, the 

 average for the honey product has not 

 been over 25 pounds per colony, spring 

 count, the past season here. Our bees just 

 more than rolled the honey in the last of 

 the six months (or June), but near the mid- 

 dle of July nectar seemed to dry up, and 

 that was the end of the honey-flow for this 

 year. 



Last spring, in the last of three months. 1 

 lost a queen. I found her dead on the bot- 

 tom-board. I sent $5.00 to Texas for a 

 daughter of kn imported queen, and on 

 Aipril 22nd I received her. She came 

 through a snow storm in Michigan, with 



instructions how to introduce her. Aftfer 

 five days I opened the hive and found her 

 accepted and laying. On May 22nd she had 

 brood hatched, and lo, the golden bees ap- 

 peared ! I tell you she is a beauty, though 

 much smaller in size than the queens I rear. 



She had a fair colony of bees to com- 

 mence with. I concluded I would let her 

 alone and see what she would do. The lit- 

 tle thing filled a 10-frame Langstroth hive 

 full. Two combs on each side of the hive 

 were full of honey. I weighed a similar 

 comb, and it weighed 8 pounds. The other 

 six combs were nothing but bees, brood, 

 and honey. This was in September. They 

 had 10 pounds in sections, sealed and in 

 good condition. If we had had a fall flow, 

 I think I would have gotten 30 pounds of 

 section honey. This was doing pretty well, 

 I think. 



I am now closing up my sales of honey. I 

 have sold my crop at 15 cents per pound, 

 and 123^^ cents for extracted. I wish I had 

 a ton of my own pi-oducing— I could easily 

 dispose of it. People in this part of the 

 city are a little averse to granulated sugar 

 called " honey." Jacob Mooke. 



• Ionia, Mich., Dec. 15, 1894. 



A Little Bee-Experience. 



As I talked with several of my neighbor 

 bee-keepers, or so-called bee-keepers, as I 

 call them, I asked one the other day how 

 his bees did last summer, and in answer he 

 said: "Idon'tknow. I haven't looked yet 

 to see if they had any honey or not." Then 

 I asked him how he was going tO manage 

 them if they didn't have stores enough to 

 winter on. "Why," he said, "let them 

 starve, because it don't pay to feed them.'' 



I asked him why it wouldn't pay, to 

 which he replied, " Because bees and honey 

 are both too cheap." But that's just where 

 those fellows miss it ; and then in the fall, 

 when Jack Frost is on hand, they sneak 

 around their hives to see if there is any 

 honey or not, and if they do get a few 

 pounds, they rush it to market and sell it 

 for a few cents — and it really isn't worth 

 very much, because it's in all and every 

 shape except the proper way. Then they 

 ruin the market for something that is first- 

 class. 



As it is not paying to feed bees if they 

 haven't enough stores to winter on — why 

 don't these same folks turn their horses out 

 during the winter, and in the spring of the 

 year go and round them up, slap the har- 

 ness on, and go to work on their crops ? 

 But I suppose they wouldn't get along very 

 far in the world that way. It's just like 

 this: They don't read any bee-books or 

 papers, and consequently they don't know 

 any more than to keep bees in the old box- 

 hives or mouse-traps ; but if one talks with 

 them they know it all, and you can't con- 

 vince them, either. 



I asked some of them to subscribe for th* 

 American Bee Journal. I told them that 

 it costs only $1.00 a year for a weekly 

 paper ; but they said : ' You might jUSt as 



