1881. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



83 



cleansing flight, ami I remembered my 

 non-laying queen and proceeded to look 

 her combs over, and to my surprise, Oil 

 one of the center combs 1 found a little 

 patch of brood about half as large as a 

 postal card, some of which was sealed 

 over. It was genuine worker brood, 

 and DO mistake. Since which time she 

 has been laving nicely, and now lias a 

 nice lot of brood for the time of year. 



My bees. 30 colonies with selected 

 queens, have come safely through the 

 winter to the 1st of March, and there is 

 really but little danger of losing bees 

 in this climate after the 1st of this 

 month, unless thev are short of stores 

 and shamefully neglected. The bee- 

 man is aware, above all others, that 

 there is " many a slip betwixt the cup 

 and the lip," however closely he may 

 watch his business. On the 30th of Jan. 

 last, when my bees were flying lively, I 

 noticed that one large colony with a 

 tested Cyprian queen, were not stiring 

 like the others. I proceeded to open 

 the hive and found the bees so nearly 

 starved that they could only show signs 

 of life by a feeble motion of their wings, 

 which produced no sound whatever. 

 Not a bee seemed able to change its po- 

 sition; the fore-runner of death was 

 already present in the form of a cold, 

 damp atmosphere in the brood chamber. 

 I prepared some rich sweetened water, 

 separated the frames gently, and sprin- 

 kled the bees thoroughly with the 

 sweetened water, and poured some of it 

 into the empty cells. The frames were 

 then readjusted and a dry woolen quilt 

 spread over the bees and the sun per- 

 mitted to shine into the hive. In about 

 an hour I raised the quilt and the in- 

 mates of the hive were stiring briskly, 

 handing around the good cheer, while 

 some of them showed fight in a most 

 patriotic style. They were provided 

 with stores, and are now a No. 1 colony. 

 So much for bee-science. 



What a lesson this teaches V Here was 

 a large colony of bees perishing with 

 famine, as one single individual; so un- 

 selfishly had they divided their family 

 stores amongst themselves that when 

 relief did come, though not till their 

 dire extremity, there was no practical 

 loss of life. Before I close I cannot re- 

 sist the temptation to tell how my bees 

 have been carrying in meal, and pranc- 

 ing gaily on the alighting boards with 

 their white pellets exposed to the best 

 advantage. 



Christiansburg, Ky. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Honey-Producing in California. 



w. A. PRYAL. 



them through the mild winter safely. 

 The bee flora having had ample rains 

 to insure a most thrifty growth, will 

 bloom for a longer period than it has 

 heretofore, and, of course, will insure 

 an enormous yield of honey. 



On account of the long 'continuance 

 of the rain, but few flowers have com- 

 menced to bloom. Still the plants are 

 growing, and when they do commence, 

 they will be able to do so in a vigorous 

 manner. A few of those now blooming 

 are the willows in variety. Eucalyptus 

 globulus, and it is unusually covered 

 with flowers ; wild currant, a pretty fair 

 honey plant, but scarce ; wild gooseber- 

 ry ; wild blackberry, just beginning ; 

 raspberry, ditto ; almond ; pear and 

 peach; mignonette; horehound, and a 

 few others. All of which give the bees 

 more than they can do to gather the 

 nectar and pollen. 



North Temescal, Cal., Feb. 17, 1881. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bee-Men to the Front. 



A. W. FISK. 



No doubt but by this time many of 

 the Eastern bee-keepers are looking 

 to this far-off " land of milk and honey," 

 as of late years it has been called. Per- 

 haps the reason is partly because here 

 abundant warm rains have fallen all 

 over the State, and the world-renowned 

 honey region has received its comple- 

 ment of the down-pour ; in fact, the in- 

 habitants hardly ever saw so much rain 

 visit that section at the right time. 



There are now signs, however, that 

 indicate the sun will shine with its usual 

 brightness ; that those delightful spring 

 days, which are so peculiar to this fail- 

 land, are about to favor us. Let this be 

 the case and the bees will soon be flying 

 out by thousands, and the willow blos- 

 soms will each and all receive a welcome 

 visit from those industrious insects. 

 Their journeyings will not be confined 

 to the banks of the creeks where the 

 willows grow, but the woodland, where 

 the Australian blue-gum (Eucalyptus 

 globulus) has been planted by the hand 

 of man, and which holds out its boun- 

 teous chalice for the busy bee to come 

 and sip of nectar deep and sweet. 



While the loss in bees will in all prob- 

 ability be great in the States east of the 

 Bocky Mountains, here the loss, if any, 

 will not be quite as bad as it has been 

 other years. Thus it will be seen that 

 our eastern brethren will have to com- 

 mence the season with greatly reduced 

 forces, while the apiarists in this State 

 will commence operations with more 

 colonies, and, consequently, with more 

 bees. Last season was a good one, and 

 the bees went into winter quarters with 

 abundant stores, which have carried 



The present may be called " trying 

 times"to bee-keepers of America. Poor 

 honey seasons, hard winters, and the 

 nefarious warfare against the honey 

 producers of this country in the vile 

 adulteration of honey, is indeed trying, 

 discouraging and diabolical. It ap- 

 pears, by the papers, that these glucose 

 scoundrels are not satisfied with adul- 

 terating extracted honey, but accord- 

 ing to this article that I clip from one 

 of our papers. The Bushnell Becord, they 

 are manufacturing comb honey. It 

 reads as follows : 



Many singular discoveries have been made among 

 manufacturers by the census enumerators in the 

 course of their investigations. For instance, it has 

 long been known that dealers are in the habit of 

 adulterating honey with glucose on the plea of thus 

 Improving its keeping qualities. In Boston, however 

 there is a firm d< ting a large business in making honey 

 entirely from glucose much in the same way as man- 

 ufacturers elsewhere make butter from suine and 

 oleo-margarine. The comb is molded out of paraf- 

 flne in excellent imitation of the work of bees; then 

 the cells are filled witli clear glucose and sealed by 

 passing a hot iron over them, and the product is sent 

 to Europe as our best honey. The busiest Italian 

 bees couldn't compete with this Arm in turning out 

 honey, any more than could a Eurotas-like Jersey 

 breed compete in butter-making with our deft ma- 

 nipulators of lard and tallow. 



Now. brother bee-men, I believe the 

 time has arrived when this honey coun- 

 terfeiting should be stopped; I therefore 

 suggest that the bee-men of this coun- 

 try come up in solid phalanx "to the 

 front," and with Pres. N. P. Allen and 

 the bee-paper editors as leaders, let us 

 agitate the question, educate the peo- 

 ple, stir up the press, wake up the 

 country, and vote or petition to Con- 

 gress until we secure the passage of a 

 law by Congress against the adultera- 

 tion of honey, sugar, syrup, or food of 

 any kind. Many of the leading jour- 

 nals of our land are battling for the 

 right in this matter. The Burlinyton 

 (Iowa) Haivkeye last week expressed 

 itself as follows : 



It is time that stringent legislative enactments are 

 passed, making the adulteration of so many articles 

 of food a criminal offense, punishable by severe pen- 

 alties. If these things must be done to gratify the 

 inordinate greed of some men. let it be made obliga- 

 tory on them that the packages containing spurious 

 products so proclaim them, under penalty or confis- 

 cation when detected, and the fraud further punish- 

 able by heavy penalty. No man has any right to sell 

 a compound of honey and glucose as pure honey, 

 nor has he any light, either moral or legal, to place a 

 compound of butter and lard, still further "doctored" 

 with drugs, upon the market as pure butter. If adul- 

 terations of food are allowed to go on in this way, 

 unrebuked. there is not an article of food known 

 that will not be counterfeited, and oftentimes with 

 substances very hurtful in character. 



I am thankful so many are lending 

 their aid and influence in the cause of 

 justice and humanity, but we want the 

 united efforts of honest bee-keepers, 

 and consumers, and fair dealers, to 

 make a bold front against every adul- 

 terator, and to expose him to the world. 

 In this way I believe the problem can 

 be solved and the evil remedied. 



Bushnell, 111. 



[So far as it refers to the adulteration 

 of comb honey, it is a false alarm ; all 

 bosh ! We alluded to this subject more 

 at length on page 44 of the Bee Jour- 

 nal for Feb. 9th. We are glad, how- 

 ever, to see the interest being awakened 

 on the subject of food adulterations, 

 and bee-keepers as well as all other hon- 

 est producers, cannot be too out-spoken 

 in denouncing it.— Ed.] 



For the Amorlcan Boo Journal. 



The In-and-in Breeding of Bees. 



M.S. SNOW. 



Mr. C. Thielmann, in the Bee Jour- 

 nal says he has bees which are mostly 

 hybrids; and he does not know where 

 they came from, but there arc Italians 

 5 miles from him. Another says lie has 

 no black bees, and his queens must be 

 purely mated.&c; another that a neigh- 

 bor has had some 10 or 15 colonies so 

 many years, breeding in-and-in, put 

 states he manages to keep his number 

 about the same. Breeding m-and-iii 

 with bees, I am fully convinced, is not 

 much done. Bees are free rovers and 

 it seems to be their nature or instinct 

 to mate at some distance from the 

 parent hive. . , 



This question was discussed by one 

 of the speakers at a bee convention in 

 N. Y. some years ago. He claimed that 

 in-and-in breeding had a great deal to 

 do with the failures in bee-keeping, &c. 

 He compared an apiary to a yard ot 

 fowls, in this respect, and that they 

 could be bred in-and-in until entirely 

 worthless. This may be done for- 

 fowls are confined to a particular local 

 ity, but how is it with prairie chickens! 1 

 what is the reason they do not degener- 

 ate and run out? Because they are 

 rovers, like the bee, and are mated by 

 others from some remote part. 



I claim that bees will mix from 5 to 7 

 miles, and if there are 50 or 100 colonies 

 within that distance the progeny ot a 

 certain queen will stand a poor show ot 

 mating with drones from its own hive. 



To illustrate: While living mN. Y. 

 I obtained one of Mr. Langstroth s $20 

 tested Italian queens; I reared some 70 

 queens and introduced them into as 

 many colonies. The next season I had 

 Italian drones by the thousand. My 

 stock of Italian drones were the only 

 ones in the locality, so I had a good 

 chance to test breeding in-and-in. The 

 next season, and even that fall, there 

 were hybrid colonies all over the coun- 

 try, even at the distance of 7 miles, one 

 man had one colony. One man, 5 miles 

 from me, wished me to introduce an 

 Italian queen into one of his colonies. 

 I think he had G and I was surprised to 

 see 4 of them hybrids, how they came 

 there he did not know. Others said to 

 me, "I have your kind of bees, but 

 where they came from I cannot tell." 



All breeders of Italian queens find it 

 very difficult to keep their stock up to 

 the standard of purity. I obtained 5 

 dollar-queens (Italians) from a breeder 

 in N. Y., which when tested proved to 

 be hybrids, showing conclusively that 

 there were black bees in that section. 



Osakis, Minn. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



How to Prevent Robbing. 



J. D. ENAS. 



peared to be quiet and minding their 

 own business and placed a single stone 

 on the cover, then on those that were 

 getting robbed the worst, I placed 2 

 stones. Then when so dark that no bees 

 were (lying, I exchanged plans and 

 put a strong colony on the Stand of a 

 weak one. Sometimes I had to repeat 

 this, but not always. Some of those 

 weak ones filled their hives witli golden 

 rod honey and robbing was stopped for 

 that season. It was amusing to see the 

 robbers when those strong colonies hail 

 fairly awakened, to know that they had 

 callers; they mustered out at the en- 

 trance solid and were ready for busi- 

 ness. The robber seemed to think he 

 had made a mistake. The strong col- 

 ony had not got discouraged; the rob- 

 bers could not force the entrance and 

 the weak colony not in a lighting hu- 

 mor, received the recruits from the 

 strong one, which were a little too sur- 

 prised at the change to interfere with 

 the queen and inmates. Most of the 

 old bees would go to their own stand 

 but in the confusion of things they 

 would gradually be at home in their 

 own hive. I found the plan very suc- 

 cessful, when closing the entrance did 

 not do. I extracted as late as June 10 

 to keep down swarming. 



Last spring my Italians took the 

 grafting wax from my peach grafts. I 

 also observed them gathering the worm 

 dust from decayed oak wood, and filling 

 their pockets instead of pollen, about 

 Christmas. In the valley 2 miles from 

 here, frost was quite severe, but here 

 the mercury got below 32° only twice; 

 the lowest was 28°. Natural bloom was 

 2 months behind, owing to early frosts 

 which appeared to drive the sap down 

 to the roots. 



Napa, Cal. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bees Killed by Kindness. 



My location for surplus honey is not 

 as good as some other sections of the 

 State, and from the middle of June to 

 the last of July, from 4 to 6 weeks, there 

 appears to be no honey flow, and the 

 weather being hot and dry, scorches 

 what bloom is left,soon after June comes 

 in. Our last rain is in April, or some- 

 times late in May, and no more, gener- 

 ally, before October or November. All 

 kinds of stock depending on pasture, 

 especially in the hills, suffer at that 

 time. When bees can gather no honey, 

 Italians especially go about visiting for 

 the purpose of plunder, and woe to the 

 colony that is not stroug enough to de- 

 fend its stores. I have reduced the en- 

 trance, covered the entrance with cow- 

 chips, wet hay, brush, and, in fact, tried 

 all remedies that ever I saw in print or 

 heard of, without success. While the 

 robbers were helping themselves, the 

 colony robbed was not discouraged, but 

 appeared to be robbing some other, and 

 the queen was laying eggs, to be starved 

 as they advanced to brood; no bees ap- 

 peared to be killed at the entrance, as 

 no blacks were about; they were all 

 Italians, and they can rob when they 

 get started. 



I exchanged the places of the hives 

 without success, until I thought of 

 changing after dark; so while they were 

 robbing I went to all colonies that ap- 



b. f. whiteaker. 



I commenced the year 1875 with 12 

 box hives and engaged my brother to 

 hive the colonies in movable frame 

 hives on shares, but the bees swarmed 

 faster than he had the hives ready— one 

 swarmed 5 times in one week. In the 

 fall I had 16 colonies in movable frame 

 and 20 in box hives. I prepared them 

 for winter by cutting up a light bed- 

 quilt to cover the frames; drove stakes 

 about a foot from the hives all around 

 except in the front, (which faced the 

 south) and packed straw in the spaces 

 and filled the cap with chaff and straw, 

 and covered the hives with straw. In 

 the spring but one colony was living 

 and that was in a box hive. The quilts 

 were laid down fiat on the frames, leav- 

 ing no ventilation. When it became 

 cold the bees died and fell on the bot- 

 tom board, filling up the spaces between 

 the frames, the moisture fell on the 

 bees and froze solid, closing the en- 

 trance so that I could not open it even 

 with an iron rod. In the corners of 

 each hive was a chunk of ice, running 

 half way up the frames. The bees cut 

 holes through the quilts and when they 

 could, had crawled into the straw and 

 died. This was murder, but such was 

 my experience in 1875-6. 



Florid, 111., Mar. 1, 1881. 



[We have no doubt your first disasters 

 were attributable altogether to a too 

 rapid incrfise — Fr> ] 



ls®° The North Western Wisconsin 

 Bee-keepers Association will meet at 

 Germania Hall, LaCrosse, Wis., on 

 Tuesdav, May -10, at 10 a. m. All inter- 

 ested in bee-keeping are requested to be 

 present. L. H. Pammel, Jr., Sec. 



(@T The next meeting of the N. W. 

 Illinois and S. W. Wisconsin Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association, will be held at II. W. 

 Lee's, 2 miles n.w. of Pecatonica, Win- 

 nebago county, Ills., on the 17th of May, 

 1881. J. Stewart, Sec. 



__ account of unfavorable weath- 

 er the convention at Monroe Centre, 

 111., met on Feb. 8, and there being but 

 few present, adjourned to the same 

 place on March 29, 1881. 



A. Rice, Pres. 



