274 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



dered unconscious and narrowly es- 

 caped wrecking his machine. Hana- 

 walt was eating figs and did not no- 

 tice a bee on a piece of fruit he put 

 into his mouth. The business end of 

 the bee connected with the very tip 

 of his tongue. His first sensation 

 was a sharp pain, followed by weak- 

 ness as his senses began to leave him. 

 He barely escaped striking a tele- 

 graph pole as he halted his machine.— 

 Harrisburg, Pa., News. 

 Excitement 

 Two large swarms of bees set.tled 

 on the front end of a buggy standing 

 south of the Rochester National bank 

 on Third street SE, following a sen- 

 sational flight down Broadway yes- 

 terday afternoon. One queen led her 

 hosts to the thills. The other chose 

 the right front wheel for her capitol. 

 All went well for about three sec- 

 onds, until Dobbin, who was hitched 

 between the aforesaid thills, began to 

 feel nervous. He switched his tail 

 tentatively. About that time a whole 

 regiment of bee shock troops shoved 

 their bayonets into Dobbin's flanks. 

 A bombardment with heavy artillery 

 was the only recourse for the horse. 

 The buggy had already begun to 

 travel the road to the family wood 

 pile when a passerby unhitched the 

 horse and led him away. — Faribault, 

 Minn., Daily News. 



Bee Handler Dead 

 Franklin L. Burson, 83, a well- 

 known beeman, is dead at his home 

 here as a result of being repeatedly 

 stung a few days ago when he was 

 handling several hives of bees. — Ma- 

 rion, O., Star. 



brood ; if not, give some eggs and 

 young larvje from some good colony, 

 so they may raise a queen, and when 

 settled warm weather comes I re- 

 move the packing, storing the boxes 

 around the fence of the beeyard, 

 sometimes saving part of the leaves 

 in them. These shelters, though 

 made of old scraps of lumber, last for 

 years, the covers being the first to 

 fail. 



Payson, 111. 



sections to attend a Texas convention 

 and get pointers from the live wires 

 of the Lone Star State. 



BEEKEEPING IN ARKANSAS 



We are in receipt of a bulletin re- 

 cently issued by the Experiment sta- 

 tion of Arkansas with the title, "Bee- 

 keeping in Arkansas." It is written 

 by Prof. W. J. Baerg, and contains 32 

 pages. It covers the fundamentals of 

 beekeeping very nicely and should be 

 in the hands of every Arkansas bee- 

 keeper. Those interested should 

 write to Prof. W. J. Baerg, Fayette- 

 ville, Ark. 



SUMMER MEETING 



The summer outing of the New 

 York State Association of Beekeep- 

 ers' Societies will be held at A. L. 

 Goggshell's apiary, Groton, N. Y., on 

 Friday, August 6. There will be 

 many prominent speakers on the pro- 

 gram. Mr. Geo. H. Rea, Extension 

 Specialist, Ithaca, N. Y. ; Mr. Ernest 

 Root, of the A. I. Root Co., Medina, 

 Ohio; Dr. Geo. G. Atwood, Director 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, Albany, N. 

 Y., and we hope to have with us Mr. 

 K. Hawkins, of the G. B. Lewis Co., 

 Watertown, Wis. Also addresses 

 from others attending. Let us do our 

 best, take a day off and make the at- 

 tendance better than the four hun- 

 dred and fifty of last year. 



J. W. Cunningham, Sec. 



TEXAS CONVENTION 



The Texas beekeepers will meet in 

 annual convention for the 28th time 

 at College Station, on August 9, 10 

 and 11. An extended program of live 

 topics is announced and visiting bee- 

 keepers will find three days packed 

 full of interest. Texas is a big State 

 and boasts of a number of men who 

 may be called big beekeepers. It is 

 worth the while of those of other 



BEES IN A BELL 



"For many years the tower of 

 North Benfleet Church was so 

 cracked that the largest bell of four 

 could not be used. When the tower 

 was rebuilt, about 20 years ago, the 

 large bell was found to be full of 

 very good honey. The combs were 

 all dark — but not the honey. I could 

 not see it myself, but the gardener 

 at the rectory told me about it." — C. 

 Reed, in British Bee Journal. 



WINTERING 



By Daniel E. Robbins 



I will outline a plan of wintering 

 that has given me very satisfactory 

 results for 35 years. 



First, a fair-sized colony with a 

 good proportion of young bees, with 

 plenty of honey and a good queen. I 

 use 10-frame Langstroth hives and 

 leave the brood-chamber without 

 change except to take out poorly 

 filled frames and put in enough filled 

 ones to make 7 or 8 frames of honey. 



I leave the hive on the summer 

 stand, one story, with oil cloth quilt 

 over frames and the regular cover. 

 I restrict the entrance to about 4 to 

 8 inches length by M inch. I protect 

 by a box without bottom, 28x32 in. 

 square. .% inches deep on the south 

 and 36 inches on the north. I pack 

 with forest leaves or something 

 equivalent; make the leaves firm at 

 the ground to keep wind from blow- 

 ing under. I provide a tunnel from 

 the entrance so bees can fly. 



The cover is 3 feet square, 2x2 in. 

 cleats, inch boards fitted close to- 

 gether; the slope runs water off, and 

 if the packing does not touch the 

 cover it will stay dry, though 1 al- 

 ways clean off heavy snows. 



In February I examine to be sure 

 all have honey, by taking off the top 

 of the packing of first hive and put- 

 ting in a box to allow examination; 

 the second hive's packing is put in 

 the first, and so on till the last one, 

 which receives that from the first. 

 In March I see that, every hive has 



BEEKEEPERS BY THE WAY 



A Fried Mush Convert 



Some years ago James E. Starkey, 

 now of Bunker Hill, Ind., was teach- 

 ing school near Peru. He boarded in 

 the home of George S. Demuth and 

 the lady of the household frequently 

 served fried mush and honey. By the 

 time his term of school was ended he 

 had formed the habit to such an ex- 

 tent that he felt that he must have 

 bees of his own. Like most other be- 

 ginners, he bought bees wherever he 

 could find them and soon found him- 

 self with hives of every kind which 

 had ever been popular in that region. 

 The variety of kinds and sizes of 

 hives did very well until he chanced 

 to hive a stray swarm on drawn 

 combs. The bees brought American 

 foulbrood, with the usual result. 

 When Starkey discovered what he 

 had, the entire outfit was well sea- 

 soned with it and he decided that a 

 bonfire would provide the best dispo- 

 sition of his miscellaneous collection 

 of hives. By shaking the bees into 

 new Langstroth hives and destroying 

 the others, he in time overcame the 

 trouble. By the time he had mastered 

 the disease in his own yard he had 

 become a real lieckeepcr and graduat- 

 ed from the beginners' class, although 

 he still liked honey on fried mush for 

 breakfast, 



As lime went on the State Ento- 

 mologist was looking for a beekeeper 

 who could drive disease out of his own 

 yard, to help drive it out of the State 



of Indiana. Starkey is now helping 

 Johnson and Yost in their effort to 

 clean up the State. Success to them. 



James E. Starkey 



