Ai\iERiCAN Bee Journal 



DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEE CULTURE. 



Vol. XI. 



CHICAGO, AUGUST, 1875. 



No. 8. 



Seasonable Hints. 



In August, colonies of bees thut have 

 been kept strong through the season of 

 white clover and linn blooming may safe- 

 ly be divided. In our experience, large 

 colonies with fifteen or sixteen combs do 

 not winter as well as those containing 

 eight or nine. If you want more bees, 

 divide your colonies judiciously, by 

 any of the ways so often given in the 

 Journal, and you may depend on having 

 them build up into good strong colonies, 

 in any location where buciiwheat is raised, 

 or where smart weed and golden rod are 

 found. 



For most parts of the West, honey, in 

 the fall, is abundant, nine years out of ten, 

 and if an increase of bees is preferred to 

 surplus houej^ there is no better time to 

 divide than now, I need not say that all 

 who have a surplus of queens on hand will 

 make a great gain by giving every new 

 colony a queen. 



One correspondent writes: " Last year 

 I had eighteen colonies, in large hives, of 

 eighteen frames each. I had them full of 

 bees when linn came into bloom, and it 

 was wonderful to see how fast the honey 

 was stored . I extracted it twice a week (I 

 have no doubt I might have done it oft- 

 ener), and secured an average of two hun- 

 dred pounds to a hive ; yet, when the linn 

 went out, the hives were all full of bees 

 and honey. I divided ten of them, the 8th 

 of August, giving each hive nine frames 

 each, full of comb and some brood, but 

 very little honey. They all did well and 

 by last of September I extracted an aver- 

 age of sixty-two pounds each of golden 

 rod honey, with some buckwheat. All of 

 these twenty colonies (nine frames each) 

 wintered perfectly, but not one of the eight 

 large ones that I did not divide came 

 through the winter well. I am not able to 

 tell why; but after this give me large 



colonies to get great yields of honey from, 

 early in the season — but smaller ones to 

 winter well." 



We agree with our correspondent in 

 this matter. 



Be sure, in this month, that you have a 

 fertile queen in every hive, and also that 

 she has room to deposit eggs. In this 

 month she may be so crowded for room 

 as to almost cease laying, and the result of 

 this will be that your colonies have too 

 few young bees for safe wintering. 



This is a goo(i time to introduce Italian 

 queens to black bees. Colonies to which 

 such queens are given now will be mostly 

 Italians by winter, and from these queens 

 you can rear others in October. 



Bees are, as a rule, too much neglected 

 in the latter part of the season ; it never 

 pays better to be sure they are in good 

 order than in the latter part of the Sum- 

 mer. It is now that the foundation must 

 be laid for successful wintering. Much 

 honey is often stored by bees in this and 

 the next two months, and this year we 

 look for a good honej' yield in the fall. 

 The rains have made weedy corn fields 

 inevitable — and from them we get good 

 quantities of fair honey. 



Do not take it for granted that the bees 

 will do little more and leave them with 

 their hives full to hang about idle. 



A man complained to me last August 

 that his bees were doing nothing, and on 

 examination we found every cell full of 

 honey^— not an inch of room where the 

 bees could store anything. We used the 

 extracts on a few combs and gave more 

 room in supers and he then obtained more 

 honey than he had done all the season 

 before. 



Don't expect your bees to do the man- 

 aging. They have no power to put on 

 boxes or to empty the comb. Give them 

 every facility for their work and if there 

 is any honey tliey will find it and store it. 



