58 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



tween each tree, and a covering made of five 

 clab boards ; that is all the protection I 

 have had. I dont tiiink it suffieient shade ; 

 my trees were small and headed back well 

 and will be suffieient the coming season. 

 My hives are arranged to face the southeast, 

 on an elevated ])oint. Our people are taking 

 some interest in bee-culture. We plant 

 nothing here for our bees, they depend on 

 natural supply, which is good some years, 

 in our bottom. We have the poplar, holly, 

 and ma]5le, and from these the gums give 

 us the most of our honey. 



I desire to plant something, did I know 

 what was best adapted to our climate. Will 

 buckwheat do with us, and what time should 

 it be sown ? will some one tell us through 

 the JouRNATv. T. A. Smith. 



Henderson Station, Madison Co., Tenn. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Notes on Bee-Keeping. 



Bee-keeping in these parts is far beliind 

 the times ; the general impression being 

 that it is a business that does not pay. Ask 

 a bee-keeper to subscribe for the Bee Joul- 

 NAi- and learn to keep bees right, and he 

 will tell you that he knows all about them, 

 that is necessary. Bather than pay two 

 dollars for the "Journal, wherel)y they 

 might form souie idea of what a patent hive 

 should consist, they will allow themselves 

 to be humbugged as some have been the 

 past season by paying three times as much " 

 for a patent hive, that is a disgrace to the 

 little workers and when their bees are in 

 they look no more to them until the time ar- 

 rives as they suppose to take the suri)lus, 

 but to their disiuay the moth trap has been 

 successful in hatching moths enough to eat 

 up both bees and honey ; such is the result 

 generally. 



I use a plain simple constructed hive with 

 loose bottom and honey boards with back 

 opening, franu\s set in from front to rear, 

 size of frame 11x18 inches, inside measure- 

 ment, and not less than eight frames to the 

 hive, (no patent.) I used last season two of 

 these hives one upon the othei\ making a 

 two-story hive with ten frames in each ; and 

 once in buckwheat time, I extracted 

 from this one hive four gallons of nice hon- 

 ey, with from three to five hives. I have 

 honey for the table the year round while my 

 neighbors with more swarms in box hives 

 get no surplus. 1 have the only extractor 

 that then' is in my neighborhood. 



There is another sul)ject that I wish to 

 notice; one which 1 luive been watching 

 with interest and which interests a great 

 many. Tiie(iu('stiou is asked by S. S. Elliot, 

 (l)age iJO.") Sept(Mnber number American^ 

 Bee .loiTKNAi.,) how to purify wax and pre- 

 vent its becoming of a dark color. I have 

 not seen any answer to that (lUi'stion yet, 

 and I will give your readers my plan. Here- 

 tofore the plan iias been to take it through 

 a process of boiling ; but I use no water ni 

 extracting wax. Last season in transfer- 

 ring a swarm from a box liive to moveable 

 frame, 1 had, as is always the case, some, 

 some surplus couib (it for nothing but to be 

 melted into wax ; and having left them in 

 the sun through the day, 1 discovered the 

 sun had melted them and I had an article of 

 ])ure wliiti^ wax from the darkest comb ; 

 and acting u])on that principle 1 procured a 



piece of sheet iron turned the edges up 

 around, leaving one corner open for the wax 

 to run out as it melted, placed it upon the 

 stove elevating one side, and as it melted 

 put in more being careful not to burn it- the 

 result was I had a wax of beautiful yellow 

 coloi'. 



In conclusion, I shall as ever press the 

 claims of the American Bee Journal, 



Adair, III. Wm. G. Wilkins. 



For the American Bee Journal, 



Posting Up the Accounts- 



We should now look over our last year's 

 experience, and take into consideration our 

 success and failures ; examine into and find 

 out the causes of both, so as to profit in the 

 future by our past experience, and avoid 

 failures hereafter. 



The amount of honey taken by me last 

 season, was about half as nnich ])er stock 

 as the season of 1873, being about 28 lbs per 

 stock : my increase was from 9 to 23. Our 

 honey crop from linden, here, was 

 splendid, and caused bees to swarm to too 

 great an extent, as it was so dry here that 

 there was no honey to be gathered from 

 that time until after the middle of Septem- 

 ber ; that being the first time that we had 

 any rain since the middle of January. We 

 had several days in July and August with 

 hot southwest winds that cooked vegetation 

 to some extent. The thermometer raising 

 as high as 114. 



I had two stocks out of the 23 that were 

 very strong. They stored honey all through 

 the season. My medium stocks about held 

 their own ; light stocks decreased in weight. 

 That makes it evident that in a poor season, 

 strong stocks are necessary. 1 fed about 300 

 lbs of sugar this fall, as an experiment to 

 see whether it would pay to feed to any 

 great extent here, in the fall, or not. 



Ed. Wellington. 



Iliverton, Iowa. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Proper Winter Temp3rature of the 

 Bee House. 



In tlie lleport of the U. S. Patent Office 

 18()(), Department Agriculture pp i)iW)l, is 

 given some account of observations on the 

 winter temiierature of the bee hive, made 

 by Prof. Newi)i)rt. His experinuuits show 

 that the temperatiu'e of the air in the bee 

 hive and right in the cluster of bees uuiy be 

 as low as :iO degrees or two degree's below 

 the freezing point. Upon one occasion the 

 thermouu'ter in the external atuu)sphere 

 stood at seventeen degrees, the one in the 

 bee hive stood at thirty degrees, but upon 

 rousing the bees by tapi)iiig on the hive it 

 rose ill sixteen minutes to seventy, or fifty- 

 three degrees above the external air. lie 

 states that tli(» Ixh's are torpid only at a mod- 

 erate tcTniierature, as it grows colder they 

 generate heat by m(»tion and (piick breath- 

 ing so as to considerably modify thetemper- 

 atun^ of the hive. 



Although it is (juite common for bee-keep- 

 ers to winter their colonies in the cellar, I 

 know of very few attempts to control the 

 tmiii)erature and to keep a n^cord of the 

 winter temiM'rature of bee houses and eel- 



