AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



821 



killed the queens, and doubled up the four 

 with the other colonies, which left me 59 

 good colonies from the cave. Others that 

 wintered their bees in repositories, as far as 

 I can learn, wintered with small loss. This 

 does not include those colonies cased with 

 a 10-bushel box stuffed with straw and chaff 

 to absorb the moisture and keep away the 

 frost. 



Reading Sam Wilson's predictions re- 

 minds me of an occurrence away back in 

 the '60's, when about 40 miles southeast of 

 Knoxville, Tenn. We were marching along 

 one day, and passed a farm-house where 

 the family were out viewing us. I was 

 lurking behind the regiment, and passed a 

 boy astride the fence. He turned to his 

 mother and said, " Mam, them there Yan- 

 kees ain't got any horns." " Hush, Sam- 

 my," his mother replied, "there is another 

 Yankee coming there." " I don't care if 

 there is." retorted Sammy, "he's no 



Erophet like I is." I would like to know if 

 e is the same Sam, of Cosby, Tenn. 



Thos. Johnson. 

 Coon Rapids, Iowa, June 5, 1893. 



White Clover Blossoming Scantily. 



Judging by the indications at present, 

 here in Central Illinois, our apicultural 

 " cake " is dough again for this year. 

 White clover, our standard source of supply, 

 is blossoming very scantily, while there is 

 a copious honey-dew. The upper side of 

 the oak leaves is plastered with the sticky 

 stuff, while the under side fairly breathes 

 with aphides. All that is needed to enable 

 the bees to carry immense quantities of it 

 is damp weather. 



The rains, last year, started a magnifi- 

 cent crop of clover, and I looked forward to 

 a good honey harvest this year. A great 

 deal of the clover was heaved out by the 

 frost last winter, especially where it was 

 not well protected by blue-grass. 



We had a better bloom of white clover in 

 July than in June last year. I hope it will 

 be so this year. Geo. P. Robbins. 



Mechanicsburg, Els., June 9, 1893. 



A Few Bee-Notes from Utah. 



Reports and bee-notes from Utah have 

 of late been conspicuous by their seeming 

 absence; possibly the exceeding heavy 

 winter losses have something to do with 

 the spirits of the bee-men ; the fact is that 

 we are in the position that friend Root 

 would call " blasted hopes," as we have lost 

 from 3^ to %^ of what bees were put into 

 winter quarters, notwithstanding the fact 

 that one of the correspondents in the " Bee- 

 Keepers' Guide," during last season, made 

 the statement that the wintering of bees 

 was no problem here in this region. 



Wintering is a subject that I, for one, 

 would be pleased to have more light on. If 

 any of the correspondents of the Bee Jour- 

 NAX, can furnish suggestions, that come 

 from experience, on the cheapest and most 

 successful way of wintering bees on the 

 summer stands, in my Opinion they will . 

 thus confer a favor on hundreds of bee-men I 



who have been unsuccessful in wintering, 

 because such is a very serious matter with 

 numbers of us. 



Our new foul brood law was tried in dif- 

 ferent sections last season, with varied suc- 

 cess. The law itself is one that can be made 

 to prove effective, providing inspectors are 

 careful in performing their duties, but I 

 notice that some are a little too careless, if 

 I may use the term, in the way they go 

 from apiary to apiary, and in my opinion 

 at least, there is considerable danger of 

 doing more harm than good in spreading 

 the contagion. My point is that most of 

 them in inspecting a diseased apiary are 

 too liable to go to one not diseased without 

 taking any, or but very little, precaution in 

 dismfecting tools, etc.. used in handling. 



What bees we have left are beginning to 

 breed up very well, considering the back- 

 ward spring we have had, and prospects 

 are favorable. Jno. C. Swaner. 



Lehi, Utah, May 30, 1893. 



Not Much Fruit-Bloom. 



Almost everybody around here lost all 

 the bees they had the past winter. I put 

 12 colonies into the cellar, and they came 

 out all right, but it has been a long, cold, 

 wet spring, and I lost one colony from 

 spring dwindling. I have had no increase 

 yet, but it looks as if they would swarm in 

 a few days. There has not been much 

 fruit-bloom here, and when fruit was in 

 bloom, it was so cold the bees could not 

 gather anything. Henry Bushbaum. 



Aredale, Iowa, June 12, 1893. 



Bee-Keeping in New Hampshire,Etc. 



Bee-keepers find that bees of late years 

 don't begin to collect the honey they did 30 

 and 40 years ago. I think it is due in a 

 measure, to a lack of white clover. I sow 

 buckwheat, but I find but few bees on it. 

 I asked a man who kept bees, why my bees 

 did not feed on the buckwheat, and he said 

 it was too near their hives. If it was a mile 

 off, they would be there in great numbers. 



Now, the question is, How far will bees 

 go for their food ? Mine have been baited 

 by bee-hunters six miles off. Six years 

 ago mine fought with a man's who kept 

 several colonies of Italian bees. It was 

 three miles to his place, and yet my old- 

 fashioned black bees captured one of his 

 colonies, and in two years my bees were 

 many of them Italians, but now they are 

 all blacks again. You ask if they were 

 better than my old bees ? No ; only they 

 were awfully ugly. 



How far will a swarm of bees go to get 

 into a tree ? Mine have gone five miles, 

 two miles of the way across the waters of 

 Lake Winnipissaukee to an island. I ob- 

 serve that bees generally find a home near 

 the water — low land — and why is it ? 



Why do bees like hogs, but can't bear 

 sheep or horses ? And some persons they 

 will sting, while others can do anything 

 with them and not get stung. Will some 

 one please explain? J. L. Hersey. 



Centre Tuftonborough, N. H., June 5,1893. 



