788 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



work for half the money that he would 

 need if he were obliged to move to Lan- 

 sing and pay rent. The next question 

 was, "How much pay ought a man to 

 receive for conducting experiments in 

 his own apiary ?" I thought $500 a 

 year a fair compensation. 



To make a long story short, $500 a 

 year has been appropriated for paying 

 a man to conduct experiments in apicul- 

 ture, and the Hon. R. L. Taylor, of 

 Lapeer, has been appointed to do the 

 work. He has had experience, he is 

 careful, methodical and conscientious, 

 and it is no disparagement to other bee- 

 keepers to say that probably no better 

 man could have been chosen for the 

 work. 



Bee-keepers will be invited to say 

 what experiments they would like con- 

 ducted, or how they would like particu- 

 lar experiments conducted, to criticise, 

 commend and encourage. Mr. Taylor 

 would be thankful for suggestions of 

 any kind by letter at once, touching 

 work that can be done to advantage 

 only during the swarming season. 



I have been explicit as to the methods 

 employed in securing the appropriation, 

 because I thought it might help bee- 

 keepers in other States in their efforts 

 to secure recognition at the hands of the 

 State Board. Somebody has got to go 

 ahead and do some hard, earnest work, 

 and there will be some expenses for 

 printing, postage, car-fare and hotel 

 bills in going to visit the Board ; but 

 these expenses ought to be borne by the 

 bee-keepers of the State — perhaps be 

 paid out of the funds of the Association. 

 There is no use in trying to avoid this 

 expense ; for, as one of the board wrote 

 me after the meeting was over, "All of 

 the talk and writing would have 

 amounted to nothing, had not you and 

 Mr. Taylor come before us in the proper 

 spirit ; then the thing went through like 

 a charm, without a dissenting voice, and 

 with the most hearty good feeling." 



Flint, Mich. 



^Vlnter I^osse§ and Oilier Bce- 

 Keepiiig Matters. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY THOS. .TOHNSON. 



Spring rains are continuing, and if it 

 doesn't stop soon, we will have some 

 spring dwindling in these parts. Loss 

 of bees here is at least 50 per cent, more 

 than it was last year. As far as I can 

 learn, the loss will be about 60 to 75 



per cent, in and around Coon Rapids. S. 

 Parker has 2 left out of 30 colonies, 

 and J. Umbaugh, 4 left out of his 

 famous apiary. L. Scott and O. D. 

 Houghton wintered their bees in cellars, 

 and their loss is not more than 10 per 

 cent. 



Levering Bros., of Wiota, wrote me 

 that out-door wintering in their locality 

 would be almost a total loss. I was at 

 Guthrie Center a few weeks ago, and 

 they complained of the same result. 

 Four weeks ago I was at Manning, and 

 saw Mr. Lee, who said that he wintered 

 his bees in a repository, and his loss will 

 be small. He said that all bees left out 

 by his neighbors were almost a total loss. 



The snow preserved the white clover, 

 and the ground is well soaked with the 

 rains, and should we have fair weather 

 for bees to work in June and July, I 

 look for a heavy flow of nectar from 

 summer flowers. 



On page 536, Mr. A. Bartz, in mixing 

 the two nuclei together, excited the bees, 

 and the Italians went at it by sight, and 

 not be scent, and fought as long as they 

 saw a black bee. 



Some years ago I had a nucleus of 

 Italians, and went to a colony of blacks 

 where I had introduced a queen, and the 

 Italians just beginning to hatch I took 

 three combs from them and shook the 

 bees off. In doing so I left on a few 

 black bees. I put them in the nucleus, 

 and went on with my work, and in less 

 than an hour I passed the hive and saw 

 the ground covered with dead bees. 



On opening the hive I saw that the 

 Italians had cleaned out every black 

 bee. In their excitement they couldn't 

 have been looking for queens, but for 

 black bees, and by the time they had 

 finished their job they would naturally 

 settle down to peaceable business. Na- 

 ture teaches them that they cannot sub- 

 sist long without a mother, and they just 

 took her as they had no access to their 

 Italian mother, and likely as not they 

 kept up killing the black bees for sev- 

 eral days as soon as they were hatched. 



On page 370, Dr. Miller, on the 

 "sting-trowel theory," puts it at Mr. 

 Clarke in a pretty positive way. Some 

 years ago when Clarke was a boy, while 

 out duck-hunting, he heard a splashing 

 in the water. He crept up and dis- 

 covered a lot of beavers working, pre- 

 paring for the winter, cutting down 

 trees, placing them in the water, and 

 putting on the last finishing touches 

 with their tails. Since then Mr. Clarke 

 has been studying bee-ology, knowing 

 that bees had "tails," for he had felt 

 one stop against his ear once. All at 



