American Bee Journal 



DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEE CULTURE. 



Vol. X. 



CHICAGO, JULY, 1874. 



No. 7. 



4<rm$jj<jndttw4, 



For the Amerieaii Bee Journal. 



Wintering, etc. 



I felt very much encouraged as the win- 

 ter months passed away, to find all my bees 

 alive, as well those left in my charge for 

 the winter by the firm of Nunn Bros., of 

 Oberliu, amounting in all to 133 stocks — 30 

 of my own and 103 being one of Nunn 

 Bros.' apiaries. But the spring months 

 bi'ought very different results. On Feb. 

 5th all were alive, and apparently in good 

 condition. A few lacked stores, and had 

 to be fed accordingly. On the 7tli of Feb. 

 I found 8 of my own dead, and 4 or 5 of 

 Nunn Bros.' and every warm day in which 

 the bees could fly showed that another one 

 or more had run its allotted time — but the 

 worst had not yet come. It was certainly 

 hard to see 50 or GO stocks die, and apjJa- 

 reatly no cause, but to see the remaining 

 ones dwindle down to small, weak stocks 

 and have to unite them and notice them in 

 a few days still diminishing, and that in 

 April, and uniting as many as 3 or 4 to- 

 gether, and in May still be weak I felt 

 blue as I had never liefore. I united and 

 united, until I reduced my own to 3 stocks 

 and Nunn Bros.' to 26, leading them with 

 the choicest queens. Then some of them 

 seemed very undecided whether lift^was 

 worth the living or not, but others proAred 

 remarkably well. " 



Before I ask the cause of such mortality, I 

 must give the circumstances somewhat in 

 detail. Plives, Standard liangstroth; some 

 well packed with straw; nearly all had 

 blankets; about 20 with honey-boards, all 

 of which died; straw packed in upper 

 stories. Last time of exti-acting, iu Septem- 

 ber. The week following each liive had an 

 average of 351bs. of honey, and 8 or 10 

 frames of brood, (some even 10) and many 

 of tliem younu' (jueens. There were very 



Correspondents should write only on one side of 

 the sheet. Their best th()ni,'hts and practical ideas are 

 always welcome ; no matter how rough, we will cheer- 

 fully '"fix them up." 



few older than 3 years — that is queens of 

 the fall of 1871, mostly the production of 

 1872. 



The strangest part is the manner in 

 which the bees acted. In the month of 

 Maj' I opened a weak stock and discovered 

 that the bees were not clustered, but spread 

 all over the hive; brood scattered around 

 in all stages; bees paying little attention to 

 it, and the queen trying to be where most 

 of the bees were. On opening one hive, 

 the queen appeared to be disgusted Avith the 

 ungallantry of her attendants, and flew out 

 without a follower. They all left honey in 

 abundance with the exception of about 0, 

 which left little or none. 



If Adair's theory is correct, that a queen 

 can lay all her eggs in a season, then it is 

 possible that the queens being unable to 

 keep up the colony, was the cause, as some 

 of them had kept from 15 to 20 frames full 

 of brood all the summer. But on the other 

 hand there has been a number of stocks die 

 around here, or rather iu a certain direction, 

 and I am inclined to think that Prof. J. P. 

 Kirtland is correct in attributing it to an 

 epidemic; for when travelling 18 or 20 miles 

 from here, I found a section of country 

 where all the bees had died, whether in 

 movable frame or box hives. On either 

 side of it, very rarely one had died. 



Perhaps some one will account for it a 

 little more satisfactorily than I can. I 

 would like to know tlie opinion of others 

 about it. 



I spoke of Nunn Bros, leaving their bees 

 in my charge for the winter. Their object 

 was to take a trip to Europe; and while in 

 Italy they purcliased 30 queens, and arrived 

 at their destination (Oberlin, O.) witli 27 

 living, which I think is rather remarkiible 



I see an Advertisement in every Journal 

 of "Winder's New Extractor," working 

 from the bottom, r.vTKNTED. If your read 

 ers will refer to the ApriUor May No. of the 

 American Bee .louJtNAi, for 1873, they 

 will find an article headed "A new con- 

 tributor." They will see that I used one 

 then, (before Mr. Winder's was patented) 

 and I have had it for 3 years. I do not 

 claim to be the inventer. It was suggested 

 to me by Nunn Bros., and I carried out 

 their principle, and as they did not wish to 



