TilJli AM.±!iJKlUAiN HtLHi dUUitJNAlj. 



Ill 



put to uie, in conclusion at the end 1 would 

 l>robably reply "yes"; for there seems to 

 he some truth in each statement. 1 think 

 many have come to the conclusion, after 

 perusing the various reports, that if we 

 keep our bees in future in a place where 

 the temperature will average forty to forty- 

 five degrees, and wliere the dampness will 

 not accumulate, and where the bees will 

 be kept dark and qui<'t, there is but little 

 danger of loosing them by dysentery. 



The loss of our bees, winter before last 

 was thc^ cause T Inn'e no doubt of loo cold 

 winter quarters. We kept our bees last 

 winter in a clamp made similar to one de- 

 scribed in the Amkkk an Bep: Joitrnai., 

 Vol. ix, No. 3, page :!8, by Chas. D. Ilib- 

 bard. We, however, made some improve- 

 ments by packmg one foot of straw against 

 the ground walls, and also on the bottom. 

 We turned the bottom boards of hives up- 

 side down and set the hives on the four 

 inch cleats that are nailed on the bottom of 

 the bottom boards, thus giving them four 

 inches open space on two sides for ventila- 

 tion. We put them two deep and covered 

 them with tAvo feet of straw. The cover- 

 ing of the clamp consisted of one foot of 

 straw upon which we threw about one 

 foot of dirt. !Ne.\t time however, we will 

 put on even more to make sure. 



We put in sixty-one colonies, in a room 

 eleven by si.xteen feet, centre of roof ten 

 feet from 'bottom. Could put in about 

 twice as many. 



In this nest of straw as it w-ere, they kept 

 up a temperature ranging from thirty-five 

 to fifty degrees — forty-fiAc being about 

 the average. They came out etiected a 

 little with dysentery ; those that set in the 

 uitper tier were generally less efi'ected than 

 those on the bottom ; and as some of the 

 frames were a little mouldy, we came to the 

 conclusion that there was too much damp- 

 ness. Three were found dead, four have 

 since died. The death of a couple might 

 be laid to the fact that they were but few 

 in numbers, and these were mostly old bees. 

 If there be any truth in the young bee 

 theory, the more we know about it, the bet- 

 ter. Another fact came to my notice that 

 might assist in verifying the young bee 

 theory, it is this ; — I made three stands in 

 August, two were supplied with capped 

 queen cells, the other had an old queen, 

 these are all living though they were weak 

 in numbers in the fall, but as I fed them 

 well with sugar syrup, they kept on breed- 

 ing longer than others not fed, neither were 

 they badly effected with dysentery. 



Make it then a rule to give bees the con- 

 ditions above named, viz: warmtli, dryness, 

 plenty of ventilation, feed them nil in the 

 fall, keep them in perfect darkness, disturb 

 them as little as possible, and I think dysen- 

 tery, or " that bee disease," will be extinct. 



Berlin, Wis. J, D, Ki'.usciikk. 



For the AnnTifan lU'O Journal. 



Apiculture in Kansas. 



Mr. PjDitor : — This winter has not been 

 a very favorable one on bees in this State. 

 Ithas been a winter, like all its predecessors, 

 jH'culiar in many respects. The thermome- 

 ter in this vicinity has never once been 

 beloAv 7,ero during the winter months just 

 past. There has been a vast amount of 

 freezing and thawing, with protracted spells 

 of weather during which the air was in a 

 very humid condition. In noticing my bees 

 lately, I saw more signs of mouldy combs 

 than any preceding winter. Such is es- 

 l)ecially the case Avith those wintered on 

 their summer stands. Why combs become 

 so very mouldy in some hives while in 

 others the combs are perfectly bright, 

 where all probabilities would lead one 

 to suspect a like result, has always been 

 to me a little mysterious ; but the ventila- 

 tion, quantity and age of bees, and quantity 

 of comb in the hive, are conditions which 

 if properly understood would solve the 

 problem to a great extent, no doubt. 



The Legislature of this State passed an 

 act approved March Gth, 1873, relating to 

 the collection of statistics of the industries 

 of the State by assessors. Apicultural 

 statistics w^ere collected under the following 

 heads, viz.: "Number of stands of bees, 

 native and Italian, to be stated separately, 

 kind of hives used, number of pounds of 

 honey produced, and the source from 

 wiiich the greatest yield of honey is gath- 

 ered." The secretary of our State Board of 

 Agriculture in his report for the year 1873 

 — which was laid before the Legislature a 

 short time before its adjournment — gives the 

 following, which is the aggregate synopsis 

 taken from the statistics relating to bee 

 culture, and which were taken for the first 

 day of March, 1873 :— 



Number of stands of native bees, 13,345 

 " Italian " 1,640 

 " "pounds" honey, 135,384 

 " wax, 3,686 

 The secretary also reports the following : 

 " According to the census returns of 1860, 

 the number of pounds of wax returned was 

 1,181 ; in 1870, 2,208 ; in 1873, 3,686. 

 The number of pounds of honey returned 

 in 1860 was 16,944 ; in 1870, 110,827 ; in 

 1873, 135,384. In 1873, 14,885 colonies of 

 bees are reported, 13,345 of which are na- 

 tive Allen County reports ' sun- 

 flowers and Aveeds and flow^ers generally ' to 

 be the best source of honey in that county. 

 Tw^elve counties report buckwheat ; three 

 counties report linden. Linden, sumac, 

 white elder and smart-weed, appear in most 



of the reports Buckwheat, clover 



and basswood, are reported as giving the 

 gi'eatest yield of honey." 



Perhaps the report by counties as given 



