282 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



have watched our groceries for box or 

 extracted honey and have talked with 

 man J' of the bee-lieepers of this county, 

 and I don't believe it will average one 

 pound of surplus honey to the stand, take 

 the county through — the bee business cer- 

 tainly has not been encouraging to begin- 

 ners, here." O. B. Barrows. 



Newburg,. N. Y.— Nov. 17, 1875.— 

 " One year ago last Spring I commenced 

 to keep bees. Bought two box hives with 

 black bees; one a good one, in an old 

 rickety box hive, having plenty of bees 

 and white comb, the other almost worth- 

 less: they both swarmed. One made 25 

 lbs of box honey, the other about 12 lbs. 

 During the summer I received 18 hives 

 on shares, in all kinds of hives. Seven 

 were Italians, the rest hybrids and blacks. 

 I put them all in celler but two, on Decem- 

 ber 1st. Took them out April 1st. All 

 wintered first-rate and it seemed as though 

 they had not consumi^d 10 lbs each. I 

 cleaned out each hive as I set them out, 

 before they got warmed up, and had no 

 trouble in doing it. I fed some rye flour, 

 but they would not take much of it; I did 

 not feed any honey or syrup. I lost five 

 hives during April and May. 



" The two wintered out-of-doors was so 

 large I could not get them into the cellar; 

 one of these the mice destroyed, the other 

 came out first-rate though it has not 

 swarmed or made a pound of surplus 

 honey. They were well prepared for win- 

 ter, by opening the holes on top and put- 

 ting a stick across; over these I put a 

 thick carpet, on the carpet was six inches 

 or more of waste hair that I got from the 

 Brush Factory, and over all, thick paper 

 well pressed down. Hair is a much better 

 thing than husks or bran, as it is always 

 dry and retains the heat. Those that wish 

 to winter out-of-doors should try it; they 

 would never use anything that retains 

 moisture again. 



" My bees commenced to swarm Jime 

 14th, not one-half of them have swarmed. 

 I have now 24 good, large swarms in good 

 shape for winter; made one artificial 

 swarm and one nucleus. One of black 

 bees, in my new kind of hive, has made 

 about 70 ibs of box honey; one Italian, 

 in Langstroth hive, about 60 lbs, and one 

 40 lbs, and so on down to nothing; some 

 neither swarmed or made a pound of 

 honey. I had, on June 1st, 17 hives and 

 one of them queenless ; I gave them brood 

 twice and saved them. I have about 320 

 lbs from all together in four lb boxes, 

 which I sell at 30 cents per lb, and all is 

 sold but 28 lbs, and that will soon be. 

 I liave a Novice Extractor, but have not 

 used it yet and do not tliink I will much, 

 as box honey sells much the best. 



"The i)rincipal source of lioney in this 

 section, is apple blossoms, locust and 

 white clover. We have no bass-wood and 

 only a few tulip trees, about one mile off. 



" Last winter killed oS about all in 

 this section. One man had 40 hives, win- 

 tered on their summer stands, and lost 

 every one; and others lost nearly all. 

 These people usually get a few pounds of 

 mussed honey, as I call it, by killing tlieir 

 bees in the fall, and they hardly believe 

 it when I tell them I got 70 lbs iij boxes 

 from one hive, in as poor a season as this. 



"I think you have struck the key note, 

 when you requested bee-keepers to report 

 the honey-producing plants, etc. It is a 

 great pleasure to read how others have 

 done, even if we cannot do as well our- 

 selves." M. D. DuBois. 



Henderson Co., N. C— Nov. 9, 1875.— 

 "Bees commenced to gather pollen Feb. 

 26th, from the alder; the fruit trees 

 bloomed out early, but were all killed. 

 We had a late, cold, backward spring 

 and large numbers of hives that went safe 

 through the winter, died before they 

 could get honey to save them. My first 

 swarm was on the 22ud of April, which 

 swarm, gave me 64 lbs of surplus honey 

 in the comb and filled a Quinby hive. I 

 furnished them three sheets of comb; the 

 hive they came out of gave me four natu- 

 ral swarms, and they are all in a good 

 condition to go through the winter. That 

 hive and its increase gave me 90 lbs of 

 honey, and four good hives. I had under 

 my charge 25 hives of bees, most of them 

 weak, some of them (four hives) had just 

 built up strong enough to go through the 

 winter. Six I had to unite with others. 

 Seven swarms went to the woods ; six of 

 them were two miles from me; I now 

 have 40 hives in good condition to go 

 through the winter. We had a killing 

 frost on the 18th of May that killed most 

 of the tulip blooms, black gum and wild 

 cherry. 



" The three best honey-producing trees 

 are the tulip tree, red sumac and sour- 

 wood. Tiie tulip commences to bloom 

 about May 18th, and continues thiee 

 weeks; the red sumac commences the 

 last days of June or first of July, and 

 about the time it is in full bloom the sour- 

 wood commences; the sumac is in bloom 

 about 10 days and the honey is so plenty 

 on them that it looks like a small swarm 

 of bees settled on it. 



" The sourwood commenced to bloom 

 this year July 3d, and lasted 26 days, from 

 which we always get most of our surplus 

 lioney. These trees grow readily from 

 seed, or by transplanting ; the golden 

 rods and asters have done better this tail 

 than I ever knew them to do before. On 

 the 23d of September, the bees for one 

 hour and a half brought in honey far 

 ahead of anything I ever saw before, it 

 was like a swarm returning. We had a 

 killing frost on the 25ih of Sept.; bees 

 carried in the last pollen on Oct. 23d." 

 Robert T. Jones. 



