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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 29, 



The Honey Yield.— Our honey crop is 

 being cut short by reason of the unfav- 

 orable weather — cold and stormy. The 

 first swarming occurred here on the 

 10th and 11th inst., which is earlier than 

 usual. During the last 2 weeks it has 

 rained much of the time, with some 

 hail, cold nights, and no warm days. 

 The locust is going out of bloom, and 

 the yield from that source has been very 

 scant. The yield of honey from the 

 berry bloom was very limited. The 

 white clover has been in bloom 2 weeks, 

 but it does not yield much nectar; con- 

 sequently the honey season will be of 

 short duration. We can now only de- 

 pend on the clover, while yet it contin- 

 ues, and basswood and buckwheat. At 

 present the outlook bodes a short sup- 

 ply of honey. I have justreceivedfrom 

 Mr. C. H. Lake photographs of his bee 

 hive in working order. The hive is de- 

 signed to prove a life-saving tenement 

 for bees wintered on the summer stands. 

 It is a Langstroth hive, having dead-air 

 chambers on all sides and bottom. 

 Dead-air chambers are away ahead of 

 any sort of packing as a protection 

 against the vicissitudes of irregular 

 temperature. C. J. Robinson. 



Richford, N. Y., June 18, 1881. 



Sour Honey not good for Winter Food. 



— Out of 45 colonies of black bees last 

 November I had but 15 very weak ones 

 on May 1, which are now getting in 

 working order. My hives are one foot 

 square inside, and 22 inches long ; I use 

 division boards, and winter on the sum- 

 mer stands without protection, except 

 blankets. I attribute the loss to a poor 

 season last year, when they gathered 

 some sour, unhealthy honey ; there was 

 some uncapped honey in the lower part 

 of the frames last fall, and some of it is 

 there this spring ; the capped honey is 

 all gone. F. Baker. 



Holly, Mich., June 20, 1881. 



Fertile Workers. — Is there such a 

 thing as a fertile worker — a bee with 

 the lire-requisites to lay eggs, carry 

 pollen and store honey V Please answer 

 in the Bee Journal. A. S. 



Shellrock, Iowa, June 20, 1881. 



[Y'es, there are fertile workers. We 

 have had two sent us which were cap- 

 tured in the act of depositing eggs. 

 They were dead when received, but 

 from their physical structure we would 

 imagine they were possessed of all the 

 instincts and attributes of the ordinary 

 worker bees. — Ed.]' 



. Bees building up now.— About 75 per 

 cent, of the bees in Jersey county died 

 last winter. Those that lived through 

 are doing well, building up, and gath- 

 ering honey very fast. I have been 

 considerably interested in reading the 

 Journal, to see in what hive bees 

 have wintered on the summer stands 

 best, as that is the hive we want in this 

 latitude. Armstsong's Centennial hive 

 has been the best here, some losing all 

 their bees in the other hives and saving 

 most of them in the Armstrong. The 

 Weekly Bee Journal is just what we 

 want ; I do not see how we could have 

 done without it so long. Monthlies are 

 in style no longer. H. D. Edwards. 

 Delhi, Ills., June 21, 1881. 



Wintered Well.— Bees in this section 

 wintered well ; they are generally kept 

 in cellars. I put 4:'. colonies in the cel- 

 lar, one died in the cellar and 3 after I 

 put them out ; 3 were queenless and 

 one was robbed. One man put 70 in a 

 cellar and set them all out alive ; and 

 another put 38 in a cellar and all came 

 out alive. I have had 17 swarms ; my 

 bees have not commenced to work in 

 boxes yet. It has been too cold and 

 dry for honey here. I cannot do with- 

 out the Bee Journal as long as I keep 

 bees. E. F. Taylor. 



Canton, N. Y., June 20, 1881. 



Good Honey Yield. — Our bees are stor- 

 ing honey very fast. It has been a poor 

 year for swarms, but, so far, the bees 

 have stored 60 lbs. of box honey per 

 hive, which we consider good. 



Bray & Seacord. 



Warthau,-Cal., June 11, 1881. 



Good Yield of Honey Expected.— The 

 loss of bees is great in this county, as 

 well as elsewhere; a few have wintered 

 without loss, on the summer stands, 

 packed with chaff. I have 30 weak col- 

 onies out of 50 last fall. They are filling 

 up fast now, and the season bids fair to 

 be a good one. We have had plenty of 

 rain lately. W. H. S. Grout. 



Kennedy, N. Y., June 10, 1881. 



Bees in Muskoka, Canada.— I com- 

 menced last spring with one colony of 

 bees, very weak, and increased to 2. by 

 natural swarming in August. The 

 swarm did not gather quite enough for 

 wintering, so I fed granulated sugar 

 syrup, as directed by Mr. D. A. Jones ; 

 I packed them in chaff and straw about 

 the 1st of Nov., on the summer stands, 

 18 inches all around the hives, with the 

 upper story filled with chaff ; they had 

 no flight from Nov. 5 till March 15 ; it 

 was very cold at times, twice it was 

 down to 40° below zero ; the old colony 

 showed signs of dysentery, I think, 

 from having an excess of pollen ; the 

 swarm fed with sugar syrup showed 

 very little dysentery, in fact, it came 

 out as strong as the parent colony. 

 About 30 per cent, of the bees have died 

 in this district ; % in bee-houses and % 

 on summer stands. Can a weak colony 

 of Italians be safely united with' hy- 

 brids for wintering ? The frame I use 

 measures 11 J^ inches wide by 13J 2 inches 

 deep, 10 frames to a hive, with a half 

 story for surplus. The Weekly Bee 

 Journal has become a necessity with 

 us. Robert H. Smitii. 



Falkenburg. Ont., June 15. 1881. 



IYes ; you can safely unite hybrids 

 and Italians for wintering. — Ed.] 



Wintered on Summer Stands. — I" win- 

 tered 16 colonies on the summer stands 

 with a loss of one up to April 7 ; after 

 that I lost 3 more which had queens but 

 no brood and one had no honev until I 

 supplied it with some reserved frames 

 of capped honey. My bees have not 

 done very well this spring on account 

 of the cold wet weather, but now they 

 are working nicely. Since reading in 

 the Bee Journal for June 15 of the 

 proposed change of size of the pages 

 for next year, I, for one, will say that I 

 shall be much better pleased with it, 

 and you may consider me a subscriber 

 for 1882. F. H. Seares. 



Girard, Pa., June 19, 1881. 



Bees in the Highway, etc., a Nuisance. 



— A man kept a colony of bees by the 

 fence of a public highway ; mischiev- 

 ous and ugly boys stoned the bees until 

 they caught the malady and immedi- 

 ately took possession of the highway, 

 and warned people very quietly for sev- 

 eral days not to pass that way. My 

 brother, not knowing of the blockade, 

 undertook to return home that way 

 from town ; the insulted bees halted 

 him and stung him and his horse ; the 

 horse upset the carriage and demolished 

 things generally. The overseer of high- 

 ways ordered the bees removed, and 

 was coolly told to do it himself. That 

 night a load of straw was seen approach- 

 ing the innocents ; a bonfire lit up the 

 firmament ; in the morning a black and 

 charred spot told where a "black and 

 cruel deed" had been done by one that 

 believed that bees in the highway were 

 a nuisance. Neighbor S., living in an 

 old house, had a large swarm of little, 

 black, sharp-pointed bees move in and 

 locate in about the center of the house, 

 between the floor and ceiling ; the floor 

 being open and the ceiling cracked, the 

 bees left the clusters in all directions ; 

 the 2 families quarreled. Mr. S. de- 

 clared a war of extermination ; the 

 bees accepted the challenge. Mr. S. 

 murdered them by the thousands with- 

 out mercy, with fire and sword, brim- 

 stone and smoke. The bees used their 

 spear and bag of poison until they 

 blackened and closed the eyes of Mr. S. 

 and drove him and his wife and chil- 

 dren into a little corner bed-room that 

 happened to be bee-proof. After 2 or 3 

 days of fearful carnage, they sent for 

 the bee tamer. I found about 2 quarts 

 of bees clustered on 2 small pieces of 

 comb, ready and willing for war. I 

 treated them kindly, gave them all the 

 honey they wanted, invited them into a 

 nice house with as many hexagon rooms 



as they could occupy, but the slaughter 

 had been too great ; before they could 

 rear their brood (21 days) they dwin- 

 dled to a mere handful and perished, 

 and neighbor S., after a week's confine- 

 ment, declared bees to be a nuisance. 

 I have 29 colonies of bees, doing well. 

 I lost 7 colonies last winter out of 35 ; 2 

 or 3 were queenless ; the mice killed 1. 

 and 2 or 3 died of dysentery ; 5 or 6 

 were sick and weak after 6 month's 

 confinement, and one had a drone-lay- 

 ing queen. I had a nice swarm come to 

 me aoout a week ago. Bees are swarm- 

 ing earlier than usual ; nearly all my 

 bees are storing in section boxes. 



Alvah Reynolds. 

 Oneida, 111., June 11, 1881. 



OldQueens.— Old combs can be nicely 

 cleaned by pouring water over them 

 and throwing it out with the extractor ; 

 pare off the moldy part with a knife. 

 I have hived 5 swarms this week on old 

 combs treated thus, and bees go to work 

 immediately, carrying out the soured 

 pollen in bulk, and dragging out the 

 dried dead bees in a hurry. Of the 5 

 swarms, only 1 queen could fly ; is it a 

 sign of old queens, or what is the cause 1 

 Peter James. 



Waveland, Ind., June 18, 1881. 



[Frequently queens that have been 

 pushed to their utmost ability in breed- 

 ing, become too enfeebled to fly at the 

 first attempt, Yours may, however, 

 have been incapacitated from old age 

 or defective wings.— Ed.] 



Swarming.— My bees commenced to 

 swarm on May 20, and by June 1 I had 

 20 swarms ; by June 19 1 had 26 more, 

 and have only lost 3 of them ; one hung 

 out all night and went off in the morn- 

 ing ; another did not cluster and went 

 off before all left the hive, and nearly 

 half of them returned to the hive (an 

 unusual occurrence) ; the other became 

 mixed up with another swarm, and 

 when hived they could not all get in 

 and that swarm left. We have a fair 

 crop of honey from the basswood, but 

 have had too much rain. I had 40 colo- 

 nies of bees to commence with ; I have 

 sold 5 and have 85 left. There is a good 

 prospect for honey. 



John Boerstler. 



Gilead, 111., June 22, 1881. 



A Chapter of Experience.— I bought 

 my first colony of Italian bees of Mr. 

 Heddon in 1879. They were of the 

 dark, leather-colored variety. Since 

 then I have bought queens and bees of 

 Roop, Valentine, and others, but the 

 finest queen I ever saw I got from D. 

 A. Pike. I reared queens from her 

 and they were as handsome and light 

 colored as their mother ; the drones 

 were large and almost as yellow as the 

 workers, and the queens are very pro- 

 lific. I bought 5 colonies of Italian 

 bees of H. A. Burch & Co., in 1880; 

 they arrived about a month later than 

 they were to have been sent ; 2 were 

 hybrids and 3 black. I have since Ital- 

 ianized them, as I want nothing but 

 pure stock in my apiary. With the 

 Weekly Bee Journal 1 am well 

 pleased. D. P. Campbell. 



Park Hill, Ont. 



Upper Ventilation.— Out of my 50 col- 

 onies last fall only 7 lived through ; 8 

 that were packed all died. Those that 

 lived and were in the best condition had 

 upper and lower ventilation and were 

 all on the summer stands. M. had 16. 

 in box and cottage hives ; all died. T. 

 II. had 13, in box hives; all living; a 

 strong one had a hole in the top, with 

 an empty hive on for surplus. II. has 

 7 alive ; he only had a few last fall (I 

 do not know how many). His hives 

 stand on nails or blocks and have holes 

 in the head (with caps) for passages. 

 None of these bees were packed — all 

 remained on the summer stands except 

 the 8 I packed which died. I believe 

 in upper ventilation ; bees cannot get 

 enough air through packing, only for a 

 time. Moisture, I think, causes uneas- 

 iness, and the bees fill themselves and 

 dysentery is the result. I bought a box 

 hive this spring which was on the 

 ground without bottom-board ; the 

 front-board was about 4 inches short. 



with room enough for a full grown 

 rabbit to enter with ease ; the top was 

 an old barrelhead, laid on in two pieces, 

 lacking nearly an inch of meeting, with 

 a rough board over the space. Besides 

 this, between the head and hive, for }4 

 of the way around, was nearly % inches 

 space between. The mercury last win- 

 ter was 12 3 below zero here, and the 

 above is what I call upper and lower 

 ventilation. I transferred the bees 

 from the box hive (which was about 3 

 feet high and 11 inches square) about 

 swarming time. I had only 2 frames of 

 brood 12 inches square and was a me- 

 dium colony .showing thatthe queen was 

 not worth much. There was no appear- 

 ance of dysentery and but little honey. 

 S. G. Haile. 

 Big River Mills, Mo., June 13, 1881. 



Good, for a Beginner.— In April, 1879, 

 I bought one colony of Italians from G. 

 M. Hawley, and increased to 2; in 1880 

 I increased to 4 ; wintered on the sum- 

 mer stands, packed all with straw, ex- 

 cept in front, where. I hung a piece of 

 rag carpet. They all came out good 

 and strong in the spring. I have in- 

 creased to 8 this summer. Prosperity 

 to the Weekly Bee Journal. 



G. W. Gorum. 



Bennet, Neb., June 19, 1881. 



The Enlargement of the Bee Journal. 



—Dear Editor : I am exceedingly 

 glad that you will make the improve- 

 ments and enlarge the Bee Journal 

 next year. It is very gratifying to know 

 that this year's experiment of publish- 

 ing a Weekly Bee Journal has been 

 sufficiently encouraging to you to give 

 us so long in advance the promise of 

 doubling the number of pages and im- 

 proving the size of the leaves, so as to 

 be more convenient for binding and 

 preserving. Though I have been very 

 much pleased with its weekly visits, I 

 must say that I have not quite liked the 

 inconvenient size of the pages; but as 

 I felt sure you would improve that as 

 fast as you felt warranted in doing so, 

 I have not said anything about the in- 

 convenient shape, and hail with joy the 

 promise of the improved Bee Journal 

 for lss2. You can count on me for a 

 subscriber, for I must have it as long as 

 I keep bees. Joshua Hills. 



Granby, Minn., June 20, 1881. 



Cellar Ventilation, etc.— My loss in 

 wintering was 1 out of 7. They were 

 packed in tiers 2 hives deep and about 

 6 inches apart, with straw between them 

 and about 3 feet of straw at the back. 

 They were facing the south. There is 

 a good prospect for a fine linden harvest 

 in this locality. 1. What is the best 

 plan for ventilating a cellar, size 12x20 

 feet ? 2. The little black ants are 

 crawling all through my hives ; how can 

 I keep them out ? J. E. Pryor. 



Arbor Hill, Iowa, June 14, 1881. 



[Run a 6-inch drain-pipe from the the 

 outside into the cellar. This should, if 

 possible, run through the earth outside 

 and make the connection with the cellar 

 near the bottom. Another pipe should 

 connect the cellar with a chimey-flueor 

 stove-pipe. These pipes should both be 

 arranged with dampers, so the tempera- 

 ture of the cellar can be regulated. 



2. Various methods have been sug- 

 gested, but we know of nothing more 

 effectual than to put the hives on stands 

 having legs, and let these rest in vessels 

 (fruit cans with the covers trimmed off 

 will answer) partly filled with crude pe- 

 troleum or diluted sulphuric acid.— Ed.] 



The Clover, etc.— There is very little 

 honey from white clover as yet, although 

 the bloom is magnificent ; it is too cool 

 and wet. Basswood is in bloom ; nearly 

 half of the buds are. open. Although 

 there were hardly enough bees left for 

 seed, in this locality, we have heard of 

 several runaway swarms. One clustered 

 on the lamp-post at the corner of one of 

 the principal streets. Bee-hunters that 

 had marked colonies in trees last fall, 

 and did not take them up because they 

 had so little honey, report them dead 

 this spring. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Peoria, 111., June 22, 1881. 



