October, 1907. 



American Hee Journal 



put tlu-m in (he extractor; throw ihe pasuUne 

 out, and put the gasoline back itiio I lie can 

 for future use. I use the combs aK.'iin after 

 this treatment. I find them perfectly safe to 

 use. I would like every person to try this 

 that has foul brood in the apiary. 



W. 11. ir. Stewart. 

 Emerson, [11., Aug. ?S. 



Poor Season for Bees. 



This has been a very poor season for the 

 bees in this part of the country. The fore 

 part of the season was cold and wet so that 

 they have had a very poor chance to do any- 

 thing. JOSIAII SwiNEilART. 



West Salem, Ohio, Sept. lo. 



Good Fall Honey-Flow. 



The sumniir honey crop liere was only a 

 third of a croup, but we are now having a 

 wonderfully good fall flow. I shall get some 

 surplus from golden-rod and asters for the first 

 time for several years. Ai,i,en Latham. 



Norwich, Conn., Sept. 20. 



Very Little Honey. 



I have liad 2 swarms from 70 colonies, and 

 very liltic honey this- year. The bees are do- 

 ing very well now. We live in hopes that they 

 will be better next year. 



Palmyra, Mo., Sept 14. Joseph H. Baker. 



Backward Season — No Honey. 



This has been a very backward season, and 

 now it is very cool — 60 to 65 degrees- above 

 zero. The bees ought to be putting in their 

 best licks on Spanish-needle bloom, but there 

 is no honey to speak of so far. 



Milo, Mo., Sept. 11. Chas. M. D arrow. 



Poor Honey Season. 



This has been a very poor honey season with 

 me. One out-yard of 10 colonies produced 500 

 pounds of extracted honey, and the other out- 

 yard of 30 colonies, only 280 pounds of ex- 

 tracted honey. The home-yard of 20 colonies 

 will have no surplus honey. L. E. Altwein. 



St. Joseph, Mo., Sept. 10. 



Poor Prospects for Fall Flow. 



We are having very dry weather here, and 

 poor prospects for a fall honey-flow, but most 

 of the bees have plenty of good stores for win- 

 ter, also a good reserve in the honey-house for 

 feeding in case of need. Grant Anderson. 



Sabinal, Tex., Aug. 27. 



Bee-Culture Discouraging. 



Bee-culture here is very discouraging this 

 year. I have 25 colonies and will not get one 

 pound of surplus honey. The bees are hardly 

 making a living, as there is too much cold 

 and rainty weather in the Ohio Valley. 



Henry Lewedag. 



Wheeling, W. Va., Aug. 28. 



Honey for Local Demand. 



The early part of the season was poor for 

 honey, but the last month or so the bees have 

 done well, and there will be more than enough 

 to lupply the local demand. Comb honey sells 

 for 15 to 20 cents per pound. This county, 

 I believe, is the banner bee-county in Illinois, 



Warsaw, III., Sept. 24. ' Taul Heise. 



Fall Honey Crop Promised. 



I have 98 colonies of bees. The honey-yield 

 was light from clover. There promises to be 

 considerable fall honey at this time, as the 

 flow is about half over. We had a frost late 

 in May, which killed all of the early bloom. 



W. A. SWEARINGIN. 



Epworth, Ky., Sept. 23. 



Sunrac — Wormwood — Psoralea. 



I send you 3 different kinds of plants, as 

 I would like to 6nd out their names. I have 

 attached a number to each. 



If No. I in any way a poisonous plant? 

 The berries of this plant are the same as on 

 fiumacy but the leaves are different. It growi 

 to tbe height of about 6 feet and in bushes, 



la not No. 2 a good honey-plant? 



No. 3 grows to the height of about 2 feet, 

 has a smell somewhat like peppermint, has 



small blue blossoms, and yields quite a little 

 honey, and also grows in bushes. 



Stratton. Colo., Aug. 4. Peter Boiim. 



[Plant No. 1 is the fragrant sumac— /?/i«.f 

 aronuUica-^and is not poisonous. Several of 

 the sumacn are poisonous. The sumacs are 

 generally good honey -plants. 



No. 2 is the Kansas wormwood — Artcmcsia 

 Kansana — and is probably a good honey-plant 

 in common with the wormwoods in general. 



No. ^ is the black-dotted Psoralea — Psoralea 

 ohliisiloba — and as it bi lonps to the pea fam- 

 ily, wonUl naturally produce honey. — C. I«. 

 Walton. 1 



Light Crop of Honey. 



I have bad a very liybt crop of linney this 

 year: an<l never have T had so much swarm- 

 ing in tlie month of August in my 30 years' 

 keeping bees. Tliey arc breeding strong, and 

 consuming more honey than they arc hring- 

 inir in from the field. J. C. Creichton. 



Harrison, Ohio. Aug. 30. 



Hard Year for Bees. 



This has been a hard year on bees here. 

 Rut by close attention I have done very well 

 with them. T have taken as IukIi as too 

 pounds of surplus honey from some hives. 

 Most of the bees in this country are kept 

 by haphazard bce-kceprs, and hardly any of 

 them have secured any surplus at all. 



J. W. Ferguson. 



Pierce City, Mo., Sept. 2. 



Very Poor Season. 



This has been a very poor season here. It 

 was either too cold or too dry, or both. 



T started in the spring by purchasing a 

 .^-frame nucleus, which has built up, by feed- 

 ing, into a rousing-strong colony, but they 

 have gathered no surplus at all this year. 

 They just about made a living, and that is 

 all. I intend to try natural swarming for a 

 few years till I find out more about the busi- 

 ness, before making artificial increase. 



Curtis, Okla., Aug. 12. J. W. Jackson. 



Starting with Bees — Catnip. 



Only one year ago last spring I put my 

 attention to bee-culture, having been keeping 

 bees in what might be called a pot-luck, hap- 

 hazard way. To start with I had 14 old blacks 

 and bought 4, making 18. I then bought 2 

 nuclei of the so-called Red-Clover Italians, 

 and went to Italianizing my black bees by 

 the introduction of Italian queens, chaneing 

 10 of them. In the fall I had increased to 

 39 colonies, with a surplus of Soo pounds of 

 section honey. I then put 5 colonies in the 

 cellar for wintering, leaving the balance on 

 the summer stands with winter protection. 



My winter loss was 2 in the cellar, and one 

 colony out-doors, leaving me 36 to start with 

 last spring — 22 blacks and 14 Italians. Only 

 3 of the blacks gave me _ any surplus, and 

 none of them swarmed. I have since, for the 

 last 3 weeks, been giving them Italian nueens, 

 reducing the blacks to 13, which I will also 

 renueen. 



The t4 Italians gave me, up to this date, 

 ? natural swarms and 2100 po.unds of ejec- 

 tion honey. One swarm that came off Mav 

 20 has stored 146 pounds of honey, and will 

 likely fill another 28-section super. The 14 

 will average over St; rounds apiece, and are 

 just boiling over with bees. I am now taking 

 off supers and dividing each of a part of 

 them into 2. As to any difference in the 

 different breeds of Italians. I much prefer 

 the 3-band or all-yellow small bees to the long- 

 tongued Red-Clover strain, for work and hus- 

 tle. The small yellow ones are hustlers, and 

 seemingly more hardy and prolific. 



I have hit upon a shade or protection from 

 the hot sun by planting a hop-root at the 

 sun-side of each hive, which runs up on 

 poles about a foot above the top of the tiive, 

 and as the shoots come out, I twine them in 

 and soon have a perfect shade from early in 

 July. And they are now full of hops, making 

 a fine show. 



Last summer, just after harvest, I set out 

 tooo catnip plants in rows, 3 feet apart, and 

 have cultivated until too large to get throush 

 this season. On July 15 it began to bloom 

 and h;is been in continual bloom ever since. 

 and will be till frost takes it. There are new 

 shoots coming out all the time, till now it has 

 as high as 300 or 400 heads on one plant, 

 and is just swarming with bees from as earlv 

 as «; MO in the morning till dark in the 

 evening, which is not the case with anv other 



honcy-plant I know of, some yielding nectar 

 only in the forenoon. And the plants will 

 last at least two seasons if not three, and 

 still longer. I have ni>w set out for the next 

 season over another thousand. Some one said 

 (hat it would not [>ay lo cultivate pasture for 

 bees alone, hut I think he is mistaken. 



As to other honey -plants and nectar yielding 

 sources, we have bassw(»od, sonic white clover, 

 smart weed, and a large amount of sumac, 

 which is a large part of our bee-supply. There 

 is plenty of golden- rod. hut the bees seldom 

 wfirk on it. There will also be quite a crop 

 of the fall asters— blue and white. Our buck- 

 wheat doesn't seem to yield much nectar. 

 There were only about 3 or 4 forenoons of 

 the bloom. W. S. Williams. 



Martha, Pa., April 23. 



Subscpiption Price Now 50e a Year 



On July 1, 1907, when we decided to 

 change the American Bee Journal from 

 a 16-page weekly to a 32-page monthly 

 publication, we reduced the price from 

 $1.00 a year to 25 cents. We have since 

 discovered that the 25-cent rate was en- 

 tirely too low, in view of the kind of a 

 bee-paper we are making every month. 

 We do not wish to lower the standard 

 now, and as labor, materials of all kinds 

 including white paper, etc., have ad- 

 vanced in cost, we feel that the best 

 thing we can do— in fact, the only thing 

 to do — is to put the subscription price 

 at 50 cents a year ; in Chicago, 75 cents ; 

 in Canada, 60 cents; and in all other 

 countries in the Postal Union, 25 cents a 

 year extra for postage, or 75 cents. 

 These new rates began with Septem- 

 ber, 1907. 



We are sure that our hosts of readers 

 and friends will feel we are doing the 

 right thing in this, as they certainly 

 would not want us to continue at too 

 Iowa subscription price. At 50 cents a 

 year, this 32-page copy would cost the 

 subscriber only about 4 cents — two 2- 

 cent stamps — surely cheap enough, 

 when its valuable contents are consid- 

 ered. Why, " Dr. Miller's Question- 

 Box'' alone is worth many times the 

 subscription price, to say nothing of all 

 the other valuable departments. 



It is our intention to keep the old 

 American Bee Journal at the head of 

 the procession, where it has been for so 

 many years. An-d to do this we will 

 need the hearty co-operation of all our 

 readers. There are yet thousands of 

 bee-keepers who have never heard of 

 the American Bee Journal. Many of 

 them are your neighbors ; can you not 

 show them what they are losing by not 

 having it every month ? 



On another page weofifer many useful 

 things as premiums for getting fietc sub- 

 scriptions. We will be pleased to mail 

 sample copies to any names and ad- 

 dresses of bee-keepers that may be sent 

 to this office. If every present sub- 

 scriber would send in just one new sub- 

 scription during this month, by Nov. 

 1st our list would be doubled. Why not 

 do at least that much to help along a 

 good cause— your own cause ? We are 

 ready to do our part — will you, dear 

 reader, not join with us in putting the 

 monthly circulation of the old American 

 Bee Journal up to where it ought to be ? 



Pennsylvania Convention 



The 4th annual meeting of the Penn- 

 svlvania State Bee-Keepers' Association 

 will be held at Harrisburg, Oct. 29, 1907 

 — the dav before the National — in the 



