182 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



tirely, if you work for comb honey ex- 

 clusively. 



THR ANT TROUBLE AMONG BEES. 



I have received several communica- 

 tions from sympathetic bee-keepers on 

 the ant question, for which I wish to 

 return thanks. It seems that I created 

 a small breeze on the ant question 

 lately. I find that they are trouble- 

 some in many parts of the country, as 

 well as in Utah. I have out-generaled 

 those pests at last. I will tell of it some- 

 time. I am very sorry if I have alarmed 

 Dr. Miller so that he will not come to 

 Utah. The Doctor has many admirers 

 here, and I hope he will change his 

 mind and conclude to pay us a visit. I 

 can assure him that we have one of the 

 best and healthiest places in the United 

 States ; and who is there that has not 

 heard of Utah's famed honey and pota- 

 toes ? If the Doctor was here now to 

 enjoy our pure mountain air, and the 

 nights we have, he would not want to go 

 back to Illinois very soon. Hot nights, 

 such as occur in the East, never were 

 known here. Then, we have no terrific 

 cyclones or floods, but we have our re- 

 nowned Salt Lake— a ride out to it, and 

 a bath in its waters, will cause even the 

 invalids to rouse up and eat a square 

 meal. The truth is, all Salt Lake needs 

 is. to be seen and known to be appre- 

 ci^'ted. ^, ^„„„ 



Salt Lake City, Utah, July 24, lb9o. 



A Review of a Chapter by tlie 

 New Prophet Sanmel. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BV THOS. JOHNSON. 



On page 690 appears a chapter writ- 

 ten by the " Prophet Samuel," and I be- 

 lieve his last name is Wilson. In the 

 first verse he says that I first reported 

 that I had taken 40 pounds per colony 

 (oorrect prophet). Then he proceeds to 

 tell just how much honey I got— in his 

 mind. Now, in order to stop the prophet 

 from going back and repeating it the 

 third time, as this makes the second 

 time for him, I will say that on June 

 1st I had 60 colonies of bees, 40 colo- 

 nies I run for comb and extracted honey, 

 and 20 I cut up into nuclei for queen- 

 rearing. On Aug. 1, 1892, I cleaned 

 up and took all the honey that was 

 marketable from the bees, and my scales 

 indicated 2,800 pounds of comb honey 

 and 1,100 pounds of extracted. 



About Sept. 20, 1892, I cleaned up 



again, and took from them 300 pounds 

 of comb honey, and 600 pounds of ex- 

 tracted, all in marketable shape. All 

 sections that were not three-fourths or 

 more capped were kept for family use, 

 or returned to the bees last spring, and 

 are not estimated in the above figures. 

 Since Aug. 1, 1892, to the present date, 

 I have sold 3,100 pounds of comb and 

 1,600 pounds of extracted honey, and 

 have a little honey left. 



The reason I had taken the 40 pounds 

 per colony, on an average, up to July 

 18, 1892, was that I had to do it to get 

 empty supers to make room for more 

 honey. 



In the second paragraph of his article 

 the prophet says that Frank Coverdale 

 did that well. Yes, sir; Frank Cover- 

 cale did well, as he had a splendid fall 

 flow in his neighborhood. In the same 

 paragraph he says that Oliver Foster 

 said Mr. Staininger's 170 colonies gath- 

 ered 12,700 pounds of honey, and 

 quotes a great deal, and tells about his 

 foot-power saw and a pyramid of honey 

 as high as the tower of Babel— all in 

 glass-houses surrounded by mountains 

 of snow. It was so long and flourishing 

 that I cannot say whether he mentioned 

 in it that Mr. Staininger was a jeweler 

 by profession, or not. He " winds up" 

 by looking out of the window, and there 

 were 230 colonies of bees, and it must 

 not be forgotten it was one of the off 

 years, for the balance of his apiary, as 

 bloom only came for the 170 colonies, 

 and the 230 colonies saw nary a blos- 

 som—all they had to do was to sit around 

 and sing the old familiar song, " Way 

 Down in Tennessee," where the Prophet 

 Samuel lives. 



The last verse of Samuel's chapter is 

 pretty hard to swallow, and keep it 

 down, but here goes. "Johnson warns 

 me," etc. Turn back and read again. 

 It was the otner fellow, and I just made 

 mention of it, and says my bees gathered 

 the honey from " prairie grass," or 

 something to that effect, and says Mrs. 

 Atchley will want to go up to Iowa. 

 Should Mrs. Atchley take the prophet's 

 advice, and come to visit me, I will bet 

 an Iowa bumble-bee against a Texas 

 grasshopper that Mrs. A. will enjoy the 

 visit, as well as myself, and she will find 

 as free a heart in mo as in any man that 

 ever trod the Kentucky blue-grass, and 

 we may talk over the times when Mrs. 

 A. was a small girl and I a chunk of a 

 boy dressed in blue or gray. 



Well, after the prophet worked and 

 waxed hard to convert the Hawkeyes 

 (except Thomas, for he is a contrary 



