654 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAl-. 



CONDUCTED BY 



Beeville. Texas. 



A Big Yield in California. 



Mrs. Atchley : — The season is now 

 about closed here. My crop of honey 

 was quite heavy, being 11 tons from 75 

 colonies, spring count. 



W. A. Webster. 



Bakersfield, Calif., Nov. 1, 1893. 



Friends, just think of such a yield — 

 nearly 300 pounds per colony, spring 

 count. Jennie Atchley. 



Birds Destroying' Bees, Etc. 



Mrs. Atchley: — Do you know of any 

 way to prevent the birds from eating 

 bees ? They are very bad here. It would 

 require a man with a gun all the time to 

 keep them off. I think I shall try wire- 

 cloth, such as we use for chicken coops, 

 only with smaller mesh. 



Also, do you protect your bees in win- 

 ter ? I have let mine take care of them- 

 selves for two winters, and have lost 

 none ; but our winters are very mild 

 here. I leave them plenty of honey, 

 and last winter they were flying out 

 nearly every day. 



How do you keep honey from candy- 

 ing? I have quite a lot of comb honey 

 on hand, and it is dull sale at present. I 

 will try and hold it until winter, when 

 there is more demand. 



El Paso, Tex. J. H. Comstock. 



Friend Comstock, I have never been 

 troubled by birds eating my bees, there- 

 fore I am unable to do you any good. I 

 would try running the birds off by shoot- 

 ing at them, and if unsuccessful I would 

 " try, try again;" and when you suc- 

 ceed, please tell us how you did it. If 

 any of our readers know a remedy to 

 keep birds from eating bees, let us 

 know. 



No, I do not protect my bees In winter. 



only see that they have food, and dry 

 quarters. Our bees usually gather 

 some honey all winter at this place. 



I do not know of a way to keep honey 

 from granulating, but I think when the 

 air is entirely excluded it seldom candies; 

 and I seldom find honey candied sealed 

 up in the combs. Jennie Atchley. 



Fine Queen-Cells. 



We have some old breeders that have 

 just begun to " give down," and I tell 

 you we are getting from 8 to 10 fine 

 cells about every ten days from each of 

 them ; and we also find they will accept 

 wax-cells right along where the queens 

 are "giving down ;" or when we have a 

 queen too old and feeble to tear down 

 cells, it is an easy matter to get them to 

 build cells right along, and with but 

 little trouble. Jennie Atchley. 



Robbing a Church in Texas. 



Friends, just think of such a thing — 

 robbing a church ! Well, we are going 

 out lo-morrow to rob a church. At Oak- 

 ville, 24 miles from Beeville, there is a 

 colony of bees in the walls of the Baptist 

 church, and has been there for years. 

 While Willie and Charlie were trans- 

 ferring bees near the church a few days 

 ago, they could see bees going directly 

 to the church from where they were at 

 work, working at the honey. On mak- 

 ing inquiry, they found that bees had 

 occupied the church for years, and there 

 may be more than one colony in it. 



The bees swarmed one Sabbath, dur- 

 ing church time, and the windows were 

 all up, and the bees made such a noise, 

 and came into the house so badly, that 

 the preacher had to dismiss his congre- 

 gation on the short order plan, by telling 

 them to get out quickly. The church is 

 now wholly given up to the bats and 

 bees, but we will try to relieve the 

 " pesky bees," as they call them. But 

 somebody else can have the bats. 



There are also two colonies of bees in 

 the court-house of the same town, that 

 we may get permission to secure ; if so, 

 I will tell more about it later on. 



We also have directions to a ranch on 

 the Nueces river, where there are 12 

 bee-trees in one live oak piece contain- 

 ing not less than one acre. There were 

 13 trees containing bees, but some 

 young sporting lads cut one, taking out 

 53 pounds of honey. Now this is what 

 we might term a wild, woodland apiary. 



