182 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 8, 





Bees are Itoominjr. — Tlie ground is 



covered with while clover. We had 

 honey dew this morning. The bees 

 "sung'' gloriously, as soon as it was 

 light. Sumac, which exists here in 2 

 varieties, is coming on finely, and af- 

 fords the most of the surplus hcney in 

 this section ; it is rich and secretes 

 beautiful and delicious honey. I can 

 only repeat what hundreds have said 

 about the Weekly Bee JOURNAL. "I 

 like it.'' MARTIN Leidv. 



Carthage, Mo., May 27, 1881. 



Cannot wait for Monthlies. —When my 



term is out for the Weekly Bee Jour- 

 nal,. send it right along. I cannot do 

 without it. It is the paper for the apia- 

 rist. Once a month is too long to wait, 

 in these fast times, and, " don't you for- 

 get it." W.S.Buchanan. 

 Hartford, Ind., May 27, 1881. 



Pleased with the Cyprians.— My Cyp- 

 rian queen wintered well, and I am 

 pleased with her bees, so far. although 

 I do not find them so easy to handle as 

 the Italians; they shake from the combs 

 as reaady as the blacks. Out of 134 

 colonies I have but 30 left. Most bee- 

 Keepers in this locality have lost from 

 5-6 to all their bees. J. E. Moore. 



Byron. X. V., May 28, 1881. 



Determined to Achieve Victory.— My 



21 strong colonies of hybrid bees were 

 wintered on the summer stands, with- 

 out protection, and I have 5 strong col- 

 onies left ; the balance have gone to 

 " de oder side ob Jordan." I used the 

 following hives: 2 American. 4 farmer's 

 friend. 6 Langstroth, and 9 Armstrong's 

 Centennial. I now have 4 strong colo- 

 nies in Armstrong's Centennial, and 1 

 in Langstroth hives. I regard the for- 

 mer the "boss'' in every particular, 

 and I shall use no other, hereafter. I 

 export to Italianize most of my bees 

 this summer. I have purchased 3 tested 

 Italian queens from 3 of your distin- 

 guished advertisers, and expect to re- 

 reive them in a lew (lays. I am not yet 

 discouraged, but am going into the bat- 

 tle, this time. determined to achieve vic- 

 tory. The prospect for honey here this 

 season, is rather good. The way I like 

 the Weekly Bee Journal is "too nu- 

 merous to' mention.'' Long may it 

 live. Thomas J. Wargd, J. P. 



St. Man's, Ind.,May 26,1881. 



My First Winter. — I put 5 colonies 

 into' winter quarters, all in good condi- 

 tion, in double-walled, sawdust hives, 

 on summer stands, protected on the in- 

 side with cushions, etc.. on the outside 

 with leaves, banked on 3 sides, and 

 boards on the fourth, so arranged as to 

 keep the wind from blowing and the 

 sun from shining into the entrance, and 

 no upward ventilation : with some trou- 

 ble I gave them a flight in the middle 

 of February and they came through 

 beautifully. 1 noticed thefirst pollen 

 April 2; during this month I fed di- 

 luted maple syrup, out-of-doors, spar- 

 ingly, and they built up surprisingly, 

 on '.May l. I transferred I of them to 

 notch cornered Langstroth frames. On 

 May 5, I had my first swarm (a very 

 large one). The quel n's wing being 

 clipped, they went back, and 2 days ar- 

 tel wauls, came out again, my efforts to 

 tbei trary notwithstanding. So, very 



unwillingly, I divided; I wanted to 

 drive t hem into boxes, but 1 was a little 

 late, or rather they were very early, as 

 at thai time the leaves on the trees 

 were only in bud ; honey, however, was 

 verj plenty, as l had extracted from 3 

 colonies to give the queen room, and l 



colony was at that date. May 8, building 



comb in side boxes. Our fruit bloom 



has been largely spoiled by a long, cold 

 storm, so we shall have a set back. I 

 suppose. It in. iv In- worth mentioning 

 that the colony which was building in 

 sale boxes was wintered in a glass ob- 

 servation hive on Langstroth frames, 

 with division boards on each side, and 

 entire glass back. The only difficulty 

 1 have to encounter is that my business 



takes me into the city every day, from 

 S, a. m. till 5, p. m., so that I labor at a 

 disadvantage. On May 22, I had 2 

 swarms ; I shall have my first box 

 honey inside of a week. 



Fred C. Bowditch. 

 Brookline, Mass., May 20, 1881. 



The Relative Merits.— Will some 

 prominent breeder (Mr. Alley, for in- 

 stance) give in the Bee Journal his 

 views concerning the relative merits of 

 the 4 varieties lie is breeding? We, 

 who have only one kind, do not care to 

 introduce into our apiaries bees that we 

 know nothing about; while if we knew 

 a little more about them, we might get 

 them immediately. H. L. (J. 



Loss 2 out of 40 Colonies.— My bees 

 are doing splendidly now, I have al- 

 ready had 6 swarms. I lost 2 out of 40 

 colonies, wintered on the summer 

 stands, in the Mitchell hive. I would as 

 soon see a awarm fly to the woods as to 

 miss one copy of the Weekly Bee 

 Journal. H. White. 



Woodbury, Ky., May 28, 1881. 



Are Bees a Nuisance 1 — Will every 

 bee-keeper who can afford to donate the 

 time and a postal card, please send me 

 a postal card stating in brief what he 

 may kr.ow in regard to bees being a 

 nuisance ; where and under wdiat con- 

 ditions they are allowed to be kept, and 

 if there has been any actions on the 

 part of corporations or individuals to 

 move them, and the success of the 

 same. I hope to receive a personal re- 

 ply soon, through the mail, and to be 

 able to reciprocate the favor. 



James Heddon. 



Dowagiac, Mich., May 30, 1881. 



Losses of Bees in Minnesota.— As 



many are in favor of a general report 

 to be published in the Journal I will 

 give mine, with others in this vicinity, 

 as far as I am posted : I had 147 colo- 

 nies, in good condition, with plenty of 

 nice sealed honey last fall, packed them 

 with chaff 5 inches all around on the 

 outside, with entrance contracted, no 

 cushions on side or top, nor contraction 

 of frames, but left them as they were 

 through the summer, and 10 frames, 

 18 inches long by 11 deep, Langstroth 

 hive on summer stand. 1 have now 55 

 colonies alive, about a dozen are rather 

 weak, the rest are doing well; my whole 

 bees have wintered well until about the 

 15th of Feb., when they commeneed 

 getting the dysentery, which by fur- 

 ther confinement kept on until the 24th 

 of March, on which day they had their 

 first general cleansing flight and 05 

 were alive then ; quite a number of 

 them were weak and dwindled away, 

 and some swarmed out which had nice 

 and clean, combs, plenty of honey, and 

 quite a lot of brood and eggs, till they 

 were reduced to 55 colonies ; long con- 

 finement with too much pollen in then- 

 hives, I believe, was the cause of the 

 dysentery. The following is the loss of 

 others, unprotected : A. 25 colonies, 

 tree and box hives, lost 21 ; B. 6 colo- 

 nies, Langstroth hives, lost 6 ; C. 6 col- 

 onies, Langstroth hives, lost 6 ; D. 6 

 colonies, box hives, lost 6; E. 11 colo- 

 nies, Langstroth hives packed on 3 

 sides, lost 1 : F. 15, Langstroth hives in 

 cellar, lost 1 ; F. 40, Langstroth hives, 

 partly packed late, lost 39. They were 

 all on the summer stands except 'the 15 

 mentioned in cellar. Others of whom 

 I don't know particulars have lost nearly 



all. C. TlIElLMANN. 



Theilmanton, Minn., May 31,1881. 



The Best Hive for Winter.— In the 



fall of 1880 I had 75 colonies of bees. 

 About the middle of November I put 

 40 in a cellar and left 35 out-of-doors. 

 The latter 1 put in 4 rows, moved the 

 hives close together, packed straw all 

 around, leaned an 18-inch board on the 

 back side, and darkened the fly-hole 

 with a small board. Feb. 22. the fust 

 warm day. I moved all from the cellar ; 

 all were alive but 2. Since then I have 

 lost about a dozen ; I have 60 colonies 

 now. I use the Langstroth hive, and 

 one 10x12. All in the former were poor 

 in bees, compared with the latter. I 

 think the Langstroth hive very poor for 

 wintering in cold weather. In March, 

 when the weather was cold, I opened 



some Langstroth hives and found bees 

 in one end of the hive and the honey in 

 the other, and the bees dead and dying. 

 By a temperature of 20- above zero the 

 bees did not move towards the honey, 

 but stayed where they were till the 

 honey was all gone, and then died. I 

 saved many in this condition by putting 

 a frame with honey over the top. All 

 in my 10x12 hives wintered and bred up 

 better and to-day are far ahead of those 

 in the Langstroth hives ; I think that 

 hive calculated for business, without 

 reference to the nature of bees. Who 

 ever found a bee tree 17 inches in diam- 

 eter? Let a certain number of people 

 on a cold day stand in a cluster and 

 they will feel warm ; stretch them in 

 long lines and notice the difference ! I 

 have some hives made with frames 9 

 inches wide and 12inches up and down. 

 Such will not let them starve with 

 plenty of honey in the hive, will resist 

 the cold better, and assist breeding. 

 They have 12 frames and are 2-story. 

 I think broomcorn would make a good 

 hive, % of an inch thick, put in a 

 wooden frame. Plaster put on straw 

 destroys the good non-conducting qual- 

 ity of straw. The second story could 

 be make of wood. I think bees died 

 from cold and long confinement, not 

 from Mr. Heddon's bacterias. I think 

 the Weekly is a credit to its editor and 

 a sample of his enterprise. I never ex- 

 pected it would succeed half as well. 



T. IIULMAN, SR. 



Terre Haute, Ind., May 29, 1881. 



My Visit to Texas.— The Texas bee- 

 keepers' held their State Convention 

 under an apple tree planted by Judge 

 W. II. Andrews. The weather was de- 

 lightful, and the bees were swarming 

 as well as the bee-men ; 9 swarms issued 

 on the first day of our meeting, and 5 

 on the second day. A more pleasant 

 and enthusiastic convention I never at- 

 tended ; the members seemed to be very 

 anxious to promote the science of bee- 

 keeping. Texas is a splendid country 

 for bees. They winter well, without 

 the least protection. I have visited sev- 

 eral apiaries, and find that many bees 

 are kept in Texas. Mr. Collins, who 

 has traveled extensively over the State, 

 says that bees do well all over it, and 

 that they gather, large crops of honey. 

 I have visited a number of bee-keep- 

 ers' in different Counties — but all in 

 Northern Texas. I find bees in good 

 condition. Natural swarming is the 

 order here ; they complain of too much 

 swarming here. Black bees in box 

 hives can be bought from $2 to $3 per 

 colony, and in movable frame hives 

 from $3.50 to $5. I visited one bee- 

 keeper who has 90 colonies in Ameri- 

 can and simplicity hives for sale. He 

 says he sold 2,000 lbs. of box honey last 

 year at 15 cts. per lb. His bees are 

 mostly hybrids ; he has them in nice 

 condition. Bees do well here on the 

 water courses. The soil is very rich 

 and productive ; weeds grow to per- 

 fection ; bees gather honey from the 

 ratan, a climbing vine which is com- 

 mon here in the timber. Of the honey 

 producing plants that grow spontane- 

 ously on the prairies and water courses, 

 the mints of which there are several 

 varieties, (called here horse mints), 

 stand at the head of the list. They are 

 not like the horse mints of the Middle 

 and Northern States. The clovers do 

 not grow here. I saw melilot clover at 

 Judge Andrews' in Collin Co.; it is 

 being tested, and should it do well, will 

 be extensively cultivated. 



N. P. Allen. 



Wintering Bees in a Wet Cave. — I 



made a cave by digging 4 feet, as deep 

 as I could drain (our country being flat) 

 and built the rest on the top of the 

 ground, which was about 2 or 2 1 sj feet, 

 and walled with lumber. I put "heavy 

 timber across the top with a solid brace 

 under the center to support it. and 

 covered with plank. The entrance was 

 feet long on the south side, which I 

 put down as low as the bottom of the 

 cave-like cellar, with one door in 

 each end, and from the outer end of 

 this were steps, covered with an in- 

 clined door. When this was arranged, 

 with a team I scraped dirt on this untii 

 it was 3 or 4 feet thick. It has 2 venti- 

 lators, one on each side 60 feet long, 

 which turn up about 3 feet, to exclude 



mice (one with wire on the end froze 

 over for me), these were 4x0 inside, 

 made of fencing lumber ; one of these 

 was over the ditch, and had an escape 

 pipe with an elbow to exclude light in 

 the top. which was 2x1 inside. I put in 

 63 colonies, and 2 nuclei (and 4 for my 

 neighbor), being weak ones. and. on 

 April 13, took out 59, nearly till in fine 

 condition. I have since united down 

 to 53, which tire now all ready for clo- 

 ver, but about 8 are rapidly coming up. 

 I call a clover swarm, one from % to 

 4-5 full of brood, having 12 brood- 

 frames of about 96 square inches. 

 Those of my neighbor's came out all 

 right. I would like to call attention to 

 this fact, that this cellar had water in it 

 all the winter. In November, and a 

 part of December, I carried in water, 

 and then we had a rainy spell that 

 nearly thawed the ground ; this soaked 

 through the top, which was nothing 

 but fresh dirt, and dropped through 

 all over the hives, standing in great 

 drops on them for about 6 weeks. Wa- 

 ter about an inch deep stood on the bot- 

 tom, and from the time the rain came, 

 in February, the water was soaking in 

 and running through ; several times 

 surface water ran in at the ventilators, 

 besides the dropping and soaking in at 

 the sides. I was alarmed at times to 

 see the condition of things, but the bees 

 seemed to be all right. I thought the 

 combs would mold, more especially 

 those that were on the bottom, as the 

 water often touched the hives from the 

 bottom ; but there were not a dozen 

 moldy combs in all. I observed closely, 

 and the mercury was never below 38°, 

 nor higher than 45 , during the whole 

 time standing at 40 -', when the water 

 was pouring through, and the bees were 

 so quiet that you could not hear a stir 

 among them. That encouraged me. as 

 I thought they were all right when they 

 were so quiet. They also wintered on 

 fall honey, mostly smart-weed, and con- 

 sumed very little. My bees are Ital- 

 ians. Bartlett Z. Smith. 

 Tuscola, 111., May 29, 1881. 



An Early Swarm.— I had a very large 

 swarm to-day ; I do not think it can be 

 beaten north of the 40th parallel. The 

 losses in bees have been very heavy in 

 this county, and those left are weak. 

 All are black bees but mine. My bees 

 are very strong, and some are working 

 in the boxes. They were wintered on 

 the summer stands. 



L. A. Lowmaster. 



Belle Vernon, O., May 29, 1881. 



(^" The next meeting of the Cort- 

 land Union Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 will be held at Cortland, N. Y., Tues- 

 day, August 8, 1881. 



C. M. Bean, Sec. 



Honey and Beeswax Market. 



BUYEHS' QUOTATIONS. 



CHICAGO. 



HONEY-The market is plentifully supplied with 

 honey, and sales are slew at weak, easy prices. Quo- 

 table at l."i(«nsc. for strictly choice white comb in I 

 and 2 lb. boxes; at 101.1 12c. lor common dark-colored 

 and broken lots. Extracted, 7 o : .■. 



BEESWAX.-Choice yellow, 20@23c; dark, 15@1T. 



NEW YORK. 



HONEY. — Best white comb honey, small neat 

 packages, 14(". 17c; dark U@l2 ; hiri:e boxes 2c. less.— 

 White extracted. 9®10c; dark,7@8o. 



BEESWAX.-Prime quality, Single. 



CINCINNATI. 



Honey.— The market for extracted clover honey 

 isgood, at sii'.ioc. Comb honey Is of slow sale at 16c. 

 for the best. 



BEESWAX-lS<3)22c C. F. MtlTU. 



SAN FItANCISCO. 

 HONEY— Most of the honey now in market, both 

 In first and second hands, has been either withdrawn 

 or placed at a limit above current rates. This action 

 is confirmatory of the unfavorable prospects here- 

 tofore referred to. We onote white comb, L2@140.i 

 dark to so d, in. 'lie. Extracted, choice to extra 

 while. 5m®6mc.i dark and candled, 4®s&c 



BEESWAX— 21®22c., as to color. 



Steahns tV Smith, 4.':; Front Street. 

 San Francisco. Cal., May I'l. Issi. 



Local Convention Directory. 



1881. Time and Place ot Meeting. 



Sept. National, at Lexington, Ky. 



-Kentucky State, at Louisville, Ky. 

 t let. 11. rj - Northern M u'liicitn, :il Maple Itapids. 

 12 -Ky. State, in Exposition B'd'g. Louisville, Ky. 

 W. Williamson, Sec, Lexington, Ky. 



|y In order to have this Table complete, Secreta- 

 ries are requested to forward full particulars of time 

 and place of future meetings.— Ed. 



