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Thi; oirictMs of llu- United States Bee-keep- 

 ers' I'nion have gotten -^ir.t a very neat and 

 elaborate program for the Ijuffalo convention, 

 to take placeAug. '24-2(\. This j^rograni con- 

 tains, besides, nine special songs, the nuisic 

 and words of which were gotten np by bee- 

 keepers. These programs are to be sent free 

 to all members of the Union; to all others a 

 nominal price of o cents will be charged. Ad- 

 dress the secretary. Dr. A. B. Mason, Station 

 B, Toledo. The nuisic is simply delightful. 

 Send for a program, and try the music in your 

 home. 



FREE HONEV-LEAKLKTS. 

 Ix order to help bee-keepers sell their big 

 crop of hone^-we have decided to furnish, dur- 

 ing the month of August, honey-kaflets free, 

 in quantities not to exceed 500 to any one per- 

 son asking for them. But to be eligible to 

 this offer the person must be a subscriber or 

 have ordered goods of us at some time during 

 the season. He must also pay express or post- 

 age. If the leaflets go with other goods, there 

 will be no charge to pay. I am so finnh' con- 

 vinced that they will do good work where dis- 

 tributed among grocers and consumers that 

 we are constrained to make this offer. L,et 

 the orders come in — the more the merrier. 

 Postage on 500 leaflets will be 50c ; on 100, 15c. 



THE ADVANTAGE OF BIG COLONIES. 



I HAVE said a good deal regarding the ad- 

 vantage of large colonies being non-swarmers, 

 and the kind that produce honey. Experience 

 this season, as well as last, has pounded the 

 fact into my head more firmly than ever be- 

 fore. The Dadants have long been exponents 

 of big hives and big colonies ; and while I 

 believe thej- are exactly right in urging the 

 importance of having powerful stocks of decs, 

 I am not yet prepared to believe that a large 

 hive all in one l)rood-nest is essential. During 

 the past season we have secured largely the 

 same result as do the Dadants, with our two- 

 story eight-framers ; namely, no swarms and 

 100 lbs. of extracted honey on the average, 

 per colony, and 50 lbs. of comb honey. The 

 single-story eight-framers swarmed, and in 

 some cases gave us 25 lbs. Hard facts and 

 figures like these are worth a bushel of theo- 

 ries. In addition to the two-story colonies we 

 have a few three-story and one four-story ; the 

 last named holds two ^(ir swarms. If they 

 had been at the out-yard instead of at the 

 home yard, that is greatly overstocked, we 

 should have secured some results. 



THE DADANTS ON BEES HANGING OUT DURING 

 THE HONEY-FLOW. 



We are at present enjoying a visit at the 

 Home of the Honey-bees from Mr. Louis Da- 

 dant, son of C. P. Dadant. That is to say, he 

 is a son of the "son" of Charles Dadant & 



Son. Ik- ri'ijorts that tliey have had an excel- 

 lent foundation trade this s.a.son, as well as a 

 good honey-flow. One of th^' first questions I 

 asked young Dadant was whether they had 

 been having any swarms. 



"Not a swarm this season," was the reply, 

 although they had >S0 strong colonics at the 

 home yard. 



' ' Do your bees ever hang out ? ' ' 



"Yes, sometimes, if we do not keep ahead 

 of them and give them sufficient room. But 

 when they cluster out in Iront we raise the 

 hives off tiie bottoms, thus giving them ample 

 ventilation. This starts the bees to work." 



This is in line with what I said in our last 

 issue in regard to bees hanging out. It will be 

 remembered that the Dadants have few or no 

 swarms, and this fact speaks volumes for the 

 advantage of lia\nng large colonies. But I 

 shall have something more to say on this 

 question, in another column. 



MORE FISHBONE IN NATURAL DRONE COMB 

 THAN IN COMB BUILT FROM FOUNDATION. 



When the question of the new drawn foun- 

 dation came up, some opposed its introduc- 

 tion, on the ground that it would make more 

 fishbone in comb hone}', and even went so 

 far as to condemn the practice of using full 

 .sheets of foundation in place of narrow start- 

 ers, as they averred that the former made too 

 much ' ' fishbone. ' ' I never had a question 

 but that full sheets of foundation would result 

 in a heavier midrib than ordinary natural built 

 comb ; but if our experiments and observa- 

 tions, as reported in our last issue, mean any 

 thing, it would appear that there is actually 

 /ess of the objectionable article in comb honey 

 from the use of full sheets than where only 

 narrow starters are used. // the bees would 

 build worker comb in place of drone comb, af- 

 ter extending beyond the narrow starter, then 

 the results might be different. It would look as 

 if the talk, to the effect that the comb honey 

 of our fathers ( as a general rule drone comb ) 

 was better than the comb honey of the present 

 day, were leased more on theory than on expe- 

 rience or observation. 



EXTENT OF THE CLOVER HONEY-FLOW ; A BIG 

 YEAR FOR SUPPLY-DEALERS. 



Mr. W. A. vSelSER, the honey-man, of No. 

 10 Vine St., Philadelphia, callecl on us recent- 

 ly. He had been out west buying up honey ; 

 and he reports that the honey season, while 

 fair in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, was 

 not as hea\y as in other States in the North. 

 Basswood had been to a great extent a failure, 

 while clover did only fairly. Mr. M. G. Chase, 

 of Whittlesey, said last week he had a sort of 

 feeling that the honej^ season would not pan 

 out as well over the country as we had at first 

 expected. He urged that, //"the crop was not 

 to be a big one, the report that it would be 

 would demoralize commission men so that 

 they would not dare to make prices ; and so 

 if they quoted at all they would quote low. 

 This, he thought, set the ])ace for the rest of 

 us. There may be something in this. 



On the other hand, if we can judge the hon- 



