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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Sept. 



McGaw, Monmouth, 111., and have now increased 

 them to 25 and have them about all Italianized 

 In this part of Bee-dom the season has been 

 very unfavorable for bees, we have had but 

 little rain and few flowers for bees to work on 

 since July fourth. Long live the American 

 Bbe Journal, and may they who give it life 

 prosper." 



Thos. Pierce, Gansevoort, N. Y., writes Aug. 

 11, 1873: 



Bees have wintered very poorly for the past 

 three winters, especially the last winter, many 

 losing all. I started with twenty good strong 

 stocks, lost all but four. The season has been 

 cool and very dry, and bees stored but little box 

 honey. I have replenished my stock buying 

 and have no reason to give up, as the dear little 

 bees are always willing to work and they have 

 been very prosperous in the past and trust they 

 will again. So send on the American Bee 

 Journal and let us read, study and practice 

 and that will make perfect. 



Greenhorn, middle Virginia, writes July 13, 

 1873: 



Bees wintered well with us in almost all sorts 

 of hives, without any sickness or bee houses. 

 They started to work finely, both breeding and 

 gathering pollen and honey in March and April, 

 but in April and May received a severe check 

 by the cold and long continued rainy weather, 

 which continued so long as to produce much 

 starvation. The latter part of May the weather 

 became clear and warm; and then the bees set 

 swarming to such an extent as to seriously in- 

 jure the stocks, and so far to destroy all pros- 

 pects of the honey crop in boxes. Honey season 

 mostly over with us. 



E. Brown, Point Bowan, Ont., writes July 23, 

 1873: 



As I have seen no report in your valuable 

 journal from this section of the country, I will 

 write you a few lines and tell you how my bees 

 have wintered. In 1871 I wintered forty stocks 

 without losing any. In 1872 I commenced to 

 winter sixty-four and lost two. In 1873 I com- 

 menced to winter seventy-nine and lost one. I 

 sold three stocks this spring which left me 

 seventy-five, and they have increased to one 

 hundred and two. Other bee keej^ers are com- 

 plaining on account of losing nearly all their 

 bees last winter, which was a very severe win- 

 ter. I have made twenty-four of Novice's Sim- 

 plicity hives and like them well. 



J. Jones, Philipsburgh, Pa., writes August 12, 

 1873: 



Last winter was very severe on bees in this 

 section of country, a great many died. I lost 

 sixteen out of twenty-four, after the first of 

 March, with plenty of honey in their hives, but 

 the weather kept so cold through March and 

 April that they could not get to their stores 

 and therefore starved to death with plenty of 

 honey in their hives. 



The eight I had left were very weak, but they 

 have done well. I have been trying to increase 

 them by artificial swarming, and could raise 

 plenty of Italian queens, but no Italian drones, 

 there being no drone comb in the hives, there- 

 fore I am afraid the young stocks will turn out 

 hybrids. But I have ordered six queens from 

 E. M. Johnson, Mentor, Ohio, which I think will 

 help me out of the difficulty, and at the end of 

 the season will report my success. 



Coggshall Bros., West Groton, N. T., writes 

 Aug. 9, 1873: 



Bees have done well this season, what few 

 there was left. We saved our bees by having 

 a bee house. We had 140 swarms last fall, 78 

 in the bee house and the rest outside. We lost 

 nearly all that were left out doors. There was 

 hardly a black bee left alive here last winter. 

 We have got over 4000 pounds of honey from 

 our seventy swarms this spring. We had one 

 swarm that gathered sixty pounds of basswood 

 honey in six days, in two days it gathered 

 twenty-two pounds, or eleven pounds per day. 

 We have increased our bees to 155 swarms. 



When we use two-story hives we find that the 

 bees will build worker comb in an empty frame 

 placed between two sheets of drone comb. We 

 have two apiaries and shall build another bee 

 house this fall. It will pay for wintering the 

 bees in one winter. Our buckwheat honey season 

 has just commenced, but basswood beats the 

 world. 



Samuel Luethi, from Gnadenhutten, Ohio, 

 writes July 29, 1873 : 



Our story about bees is the same you get 

 from other jjarts of the country ; a hard winter, 

 and many bees lost, and the few colonies that are 

 left are not much disposed to swarm. In my 

 own apiary I made artificial swarms and suc- 

 ceeded well by giving the new swarms a full set 

 of frames with brood and honey in them, taken 

 from other hives and replacing said frames with 

 frames filled with empty combs and letting the 

 new swarms raise their own queens. 



On the 14th of this month I made an artificial 

 swarm into which I intended to introduce an 

 Italian queen the next day, but did not receive 

 the queen until the swarm had some queen cells 

 sealed. The cells were destroyed and the queen 

 caged five days. On the fifth day the hive was 

 set over a bottom board with a wire cloth venti- 

 lator in and a pan with rotton wood burning in 

 it set under the ventilator, and the bees and 

 queen smoked for about fifteen minutes, after 

 that the queen was liberated and well received. 

 But a neighboring colony soon discovered the 

 helpless condition of the stupified bees and com- 

 menced robbing in great earnest, but the pan 

 with the smoke in soon dispersed the robbers, 

 but it had to be kept in front of the new swarm 

 all day for the protection of the bees. 



