246 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Feeding Dry Sugar to Bees. 



I notice on page 180 a statement by 

 " Malta " that it is possible to feed dry 

 sugar to bees successfully to keep them 

 from starving, or for winter stores. I 

 wish "Malta" would tell how to feed it 

 in that way. Some of my bees need 

 feeding now, and the weather is so 

 warm. I abhor melting up sugar or 

 candied honey. Feeding dry sugar would 

 be a great boon, when necessary to feed. 

 Thos. A. Anderson. 



Montgomery City, Mo., Aug. 8, 1892. 



[Perhaps "Malta" will be kind 

 enough to describe his manner of feed- 

 ing dry sugar to bees, so that bee-keep- 

 ers may take advantage of that manner 

 of feeding whenever the bees are short 

 of stores. — Eds.] 



Small Loss in Wintering Bees. 



I winter my bees in the one-story chaff 

 hives, with a chaff cushion over the 

 brood-frames, on the summer stands. I 

 have quit feeding ; I unite and double 

 back until they will winter without feed- 

 ing. I have lost 5 colonies in the past 

 seven years, and that was caused by 

 neglect. I make my own hives. 



B. F. Beheler. 



Jumping Branch, W. Va., Aug. 8. 



Not Much to Gather Honey From. 



Bees have not done much this season 

 in western Connecticut. The spring 

 was backward, and there was no white 

 clover, and not much basswood. The 

 bees did not have much to gather honey 

 from— the only thing to rely on is 

 golden-rod and asters for winter stores. 

 I shall get perhaps 100 pounds of comb 

 honey in sections for the season. 



H. H. Knapp. 



Danbury, Conn., Aug. 3, 1892. 



Characteristics of Punic Bees. 



I do not think it makes much differ- 

 ence to the honey producer whether 

 there are one or a dozen varieties of 

 bees in North Africa. I have only seen 

 the bees from a Punic queen mated with 

 a yellow drone, but they differ from 

 Italians, blacks or hybrids of the same 

 in their habits. They stand the change- 

 able weather in spring much better. 

 They work earlier in the morning, and 

 are stronger and quicker on the wing. 



In swarming they fly straight to a tree 

 and cluster at once, and if everything is 

 ready they can be on the stand in the 

 apiary in ten minutes from the time the 

 first bee leaves the hive. Their guard 

 at the entrance is small, but effective, 

 even against the bee-moth. 



The only objection I have to them is 

 that (contrary to my expectations) their 

 work in the sections is Italian, and does 

 not compare favorably with the work of 

 our other hybrids. I think it would be 

 well to have the opinions of some who 

 have Punics bees, and know they are 

 pure. If our queen had mated with a 

 black drone, I do not suppose we would 

 have known the difference, and would 

 likely have thought them pure. 



Wm. Clark. 



Pulaski, Ky., Aug. 4, 1892. 



Will Store Enough for Winter. 



I have 70 colonies of bees, spring 

 count, all in good condition, with no in- 

 crease and no honey to spare for this 

 year. The weather is very dry, and 

 they average a pound a day at this time; 

 but I think they will store honey enough 

 to last through the winter. 



John Roller. 



Richwood, Wis., Aug. 10, 1892. 



Bad and Short Season. 



On June 8 I extracted 2 gallons of 

 white clover honey, per double Lang- 

 stroth hive. From June 9 we had daily 

 rains to July 27, and up to that date 

 bees gathered little or no surplus honey. 

 We have had no rain the past five or six 

 days, and now it looks as if the bees 

 would store surplus honey. So far I 

 consider the season bad and short. 



P. E. Couvillon. 



Carencro, La., Aug. 2, 1892. 



My Experience with Punic Bees. 



I procured a Punic queen from Henry 

 Alley last October, and introduced her 

 to a small colony of common black Cali- 

 fornia bees. In three days after the 

 queen was introduced, I examined them, 

 and found all the combs full of eggs, 

 and by Dec. 1 they were a good-sized 

 colony. I examined them on March 1, 

 and found them full of brood sealed up. 

 On April 1 they filled a hive containing 

 15 frames 12x12 inches. I then divided 

 them, and the new hive now contains 13 

 frames 83^x17 inches full of brood and 



