AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



87 



CONVENTION DIRECTORY. 



Time and place of meeting. 



1893. 



AuR 15.— Northern Illinois, at Kookford, III. 

 B. Kennedy, Sec., New Millord, III. 



Oct. 11, i;i, l.'J.— North American (Interna- 

 tional), at Chlcag'o, Ills. 

 Frank Benton. Sec, WashinKton, D. C. 



J3?~ In order to have this table complete, 

 Becretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting. — Thb Editor. 



North American Bee-Keepers' Association 



PiiEsiDENT— Dr. C. C. Miller Marenjfo, Ills. 



Vice-Pres.— J. E. Crane Middlebury, Vt. 



Sechetahy— Frank Benton. Washinjrton, D. C. 

 Tkeasuheb— George W. York... Chicago, Ills. 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



Pkehident— Hon. R. L. Taylor. .Lapeer, Mich. 

 Gen'l Manager— T. G. Newman, Chicago, 111. 



^<#i^ 



lasy Do not write anything for publication 

 on the same sheet of paper with business 

 matters, unless it can be torn apart without 

 interfering with either part of the letter. 



Best in Eight Tears. 



Bees are doing the best with us now they 

 have done in eight years. 



H. D. BUKKELL. 



South Haven, Mich., July 10, 1893. 



Alsike Clover — Camphor and Ants. 



I have not seen any report from Cass 

 county this season. Seventy -five per cent, 

 of the bees died in this county the past 

 winter. We are having the best honey -flow 

 we have had for years; it is from Alsike 

 clover. White clover is immense, but bees 

 do not look at it. I put my bees into the 

 cellar, and they came out all right. 



I think that ants trouble some bee-keepers 

 quite a good deal. If they will use one 

 cent's worth of camphor gum to the colony, 

 where there are ants, that will be the end 

 of them. Try it, and be satisfied. 



A. S. Straw. 



Bdwardsburg, Mich., July 3, 1893. 



An Experience in Carrying Bees. 



In November. 1892, I put my bees into 

 the cellar, and I had quite a time of it. I 

 had raised all of the hives one inch from 

 the bottom-i)oard, and in carrying in a 

 heavy colony in some way the hive slipped 

 over sidewise a half inch or so, and it gave 

 the I>ees a chance to come out. I had the 

 grip the year before, and it reduced my 

 size so that my vest was about two inches 

 too large for me, and the consequence was, 

 when the Ijees stampeded out of the open- 

 ing in the open space at the bottom, they 

 run right up under my vest, and moved up 

 in a solid column, and by the time I got 

 into the house they were pouring up out at 

 my shirt collar. As near as I could tell by 

 their buzzing and kicking, they were 40,000 

 strong. I laid the hive down and skipped 

 outside, pulled off my hat, coat and vest. 

 My wife came out with the broom and 

 brushed as fast as she could for laughing at 

 the predicament I was in. My clothes were 

 full of bees down into my shoes, but as luck 

 would have it, I never got a sting ; but the 

 dead and missing bees were great. 



Osakis, Minn. Mark D. Judkins. 



Lots of White Clover Bloomed. 



Last fall 1 had 70 colonies of bees, and all 

 died but 4, and one was queenless, at that. 

 It made me feel a little blue, but I bought 

 10 new colonies for seed, and will be all 

 right again. The fields look almost as 

 white as they did last winter — so much 

 white clover. D. G. Webster. 



Blaine, Ills., July 10, 1893. 



Can Bees Puncture Fruit? 



If Geo. A. Stockwell, of Providence, R. 

 I. (see page 759), will examine his hard- 

 wood tooth-picks and ripe grapes with a 

 magnifying glass, he will find that they 

 are not of the same texture. Bees sting 

 through most kinds of cloth, yet Irish linen 

 baffles them when it is starched and ironed 

 smooth, the sting slides along over it, and 

 does not penetrate. 



The bees did not bite those tooth-picks — 

 they picked at them, raising a little fuzz 

 which they could pull at, and tear off, and 

 by constant picking wore it away. The 

 smooth skin of a grape has no fuzz or fine 

 fiber that a bee can grip. Feed bees in a 

 glass, China ware, or wooden receptacle, 

 and note the difference; while the former 

 will be a writhing mass of drowning bees, 

 the latter will have every drop of syrup re- 

 moved, the feeder clean and dry, and not a 

 bee drowned ; they could not grip glass or 

 china, but could grip wood. 



My brother bee-keeper, if you will ex- 

 amine into this matter carefully and hon- 

 estly. I think that you will find that the 

 bees of Rhode Island are not at all differ- 

 ent from those of Indiana, and that you 

 will unite with the Hoosiers in saying that 

 '• Bees do not puncture grapes or injure 

 them." Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Peoria, Ills. 



