THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



233 



Editor American Bee Journal : — As 



you request, and say you mean me, I 

 write. And if I say too much, please at- 

 tribute it to the fact that I am but a nov- 

 ice in apiculture. My success has been 

 as enormous this year as my failures have 

 been in years gone by. I commenced 

 with three stands, last spring. I have 

 fourteen now, with enough bees for five 

 more. One early swarm went to the 

 woods, and I put two swarms back in the 

 hive they came out of, as I want surplus 

 honey instead of so many bees. But I 

 shall make about two more swarms 

 yet this fall. I presume you can 

 guess I have not got much surplus 

 honey, probably 100 lbs., and if we 

 have a late fall, for which we 

 have a prospect, I will get 400 tbs. more. 

 I have not used the extractor much, owing 

 to my bees breeding so profusely. Here, 

 we almost invariably get our surplus 

 honey late in the season. 



I think golden rod is the best honey 

 plant here. When we have a wet 

 year, smart-weed is probably the best. 

 Where buckwheat is sown it generally 

 furnishes a fair yield of honey. White 

 clover is getting plenty, but does not 

 amount to much as a honey plant. We 

 have rather plenty of linn that once in a 

 while does splendid. This year its bloom 

 only lasted for a day or two. The corn 

 tassel formed a fair supply of honey and 

 pollen. But smart- weed is ahead, this year, 

 of everything in this locality. 



My bees are hybrids ; some stands toler- 

 ably good Italians, some nearly black. 

 This has been the best year for profitable 

 bee-keeping we have had for several years. 

 But observation and experience has 

 taught me to make haste slowly, in this 

 locality, as our seasons are too variable to 

 make apiculture a sure and successful 

 avocation. Isaac S. Bryant. 



'Harrison Co., Mo., Sept. 6, 1875. 



In accordance with your request, I send 

 you my experience and prospects for the 

 present year. I came out of the winter 

 with but one stand, but I resolved to make 

 the most of it. It had honey enough to 

 carry it into the working season, but I 

 fed it daily about a gill of sugar syrup 

 until fruit blossoms came, and for some 

 time afterwards, on days that they could 

 not work out-doors. On the 15th of June 

 . it swarmed, and I gave the new swarm a 

 frame of brood from the parent stock. 

 This gave me No. 2. June 24 it swarmed 

 again, giving me No. 3. On the 28th it 

 swarmed again. On the same day I di- 

 vided No. 2, and gave one part a card 

 containing a sealed queen cell from No. 1. 

 Thinking it about time to stop any fur- 

 ther swarming, I resolved to destroy all 

 the surplus queen cells in No. 1 ; but on 

 opening it I found them still strong in 

 numbers. I changed my mind, and after 



taking the above mentioned card, I closed 

 it up. But before I got through, the 

 swarm last came out came back. This 

 left me with fear. On another occasion 

 a swarm came out and went back. On 

 the 26th of August No. 4 swarmed, and 

 September 3, No. 3 swarmed, which gave 

 me No. 6 from the one original stock, and 

 all arc strong in numbers and are gather- 

 ing pollen vigorously. All except the 

 last two, judging from the weight of 

 them, will keep themselves over winter. 

 I think I can well afford to feed the last 

 two, but if frost stays off till the 1st of Oc- 

 tober, I think, they will make enough to 

 keep them. I have had no box honey, but 

 the old stock are beginning to work in 

 one box. If I get no surplus, I think, I am 

 doing well enough. The general cry here 

 is. " I never saw so poor a year for honey," 

 but I do not think so. If honey had been 

 more plenty they would perhaps have 

 filled their combs with honey to 

 tiie exclusion of brood raising. Had 

 there been less we would have had 

 but little honey or increase. I at- 

 tribute my success to spring feeding. 

 And now for my plan of feeding: 

 I bored an inch and a half hole 

 through a block of soft maple wood, 

 lengthwise ; planed it down to two inches 

 square ; made a hole in the honej^ board 

 to fit it; placed a piece of muslin over 

 one end and inserted it, and poured the 

 syrup in the other end. Am I infringing 

 on anybody's patent? Have never seen 

 any of the patent feeders. 



The three best honey producing plants 

 here are the white clover, alsike and moth- 

 erwort, though the latter is not very 

 plenty. The only one that I know of get- 

 ting any surplus honey, is one living in 

 the vicinity of the motherwort and the 

 dreaded milk-weed. I tried a patch of 

 rape, but it did not meet my expectations. 

 The alsike clover is excellent while it 

 lasts, but it will not produce a fall bloom 

 unless cut very early. Next year I shall 

 cut part of mine about the middle of June, 

 as an experiment. J. C. Armstrong. 



Marshall Co., Iowa, Sept. 5, 1875. 



The last winter and spring was the hard- 

 est winter and spring on bees I have ex- 

 perienced. In twenty years' practice 

 with the moveable-comb hive, fifteen years 

 queen raising, I never met with such a 

 fall, winter and spring as the past one. 

 Bees stopped breeding early in the fall; I 

 went into winter quarters with old bees; 

 I then supposed we would have weak col- 

 onies in the spring, which was the case. 

 On my return from the convention at 

 Pittsburgh, I got a fall which crippled me 

 so that I could not give my bees the care 

 they needed for two months. In the win- 

 ter they had to care for themselves; out of 

 seventy-six colonies I had but forty-two 

 left in the spring, and they commenced 



