AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



727 



wish, right in the fresh paint, then rub 

 the paint mostly out of the brush, and 

 with it spread the black lines, moving 

 the brush only one way, and see what a 

 nice clouded hive, or imitation of marble, 

 you will have.— Mrs. Jennie Atchley. 



1. I think so, decidedly. 2. Ochre 

 mixed with boiled oil stands the weather 

 best of all paints. I have tried white 

 lead, and would like it best, but it is ob- 

 jectionable because it rubs off like white- 

 wash when handling the hives. I once 

 had 50 hives made from lumber directly 

 from the saw ; I kept them nicely white- 

 washed, and they were the cheapest lot 

 of hives I ever had, and answered every 

 purpose. — 6. W. Demakee. 



CONVENTION DIRECTORY. 



Time and place of meeting. 



Dec. i.— Rock River, at Morrison, Ills. 



J. M. Burtch, Sec, Morrison, Ills. 



Dec. 13, 14.— Michigan, at Lansing, Mich. 



Geo. E. Hilton, Sec, Fremont, Mich. 



Dec. 14, 15— Illinois, at Springfield, Ills. 



Jas. A. Stone, Sec, Bradfordton, lils. 



Dec. 14, 15.— Eastern Iowa, at Maquoketa. 

 Frank Coverdale, Sec, Welton, Iowa. 



Dec. 27-29.— North American, at Washington. 

 W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec, Flint, Mich. 



Dec. 28, 29.— "Vermont, at Burlington, Vt. 



H. W. Scott, Sec, Barre. Vt. 



Jan. 13, 14.— S.W.Wisconsin, at Boscobel.Wis. 

 Edwin Pike, Pres., Boscobel, Wis. 



Jan. 18, 19.— Colorado, at Denver, Colo. 



H. Knight, Sec, Littleton, Colo. 



Jan. 12-14.— Minnesota, at Minneapolis, Minn. 

 A. K. Cooper, Sec, Winona, Minn. 



In order to have this table complete, 

 Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting.— Thb Editor. 



North American Bee-Keepers' Association 



President— Eugene Secor.. Forest City, Iowa. 

 Secretary— W. Z. Hutchinson.... Flint, Mich 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddon . .Dowagiac, Mich. 

 Sec'y and Manager— T. Q. Newman. Chicago. 



Honey from Beans is reported 

 by a California paper. It says that in 

 the big Santa Clara Valley a bee-keeper 

 moved his bees into his bean-fields when 

 other sources of nectar supply were ex- 

 hausted, and the result was a good crop 

 of delicate, first-class honey. 



Empty Brood-Combs — Their 

 Host Profitable Use. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY JAMES A. GREEN. 



Sooner or later every bee-keeper is 

 apt to find himself the possessor of a 

 number of empty brood-combs. If he 

 seeks information from authorities as to 

 the best way to utilize them, he. is liable 

 to receive very contradictory advice. 



Some will tell him that these combs 

 are very valuable ; " As good as money 

 in the bank ; "The sheet anchor of suc- 

 cess," etc., while others will say that 

 the best thing he can do with them is to 

 melt them into wax. As usual, the truth 

 will be found to lie somewhere between 

 the extremes. Their value for use in 

 the hives will depend very much upon 

 circumstances. At times they are very 

 valuable, and at other times they might 

 better be thrown away than used. 



The most natural and common use is 

 to hive swarms upon them. We know 

 that a new colony must have brood- 

 combs before it will do much at storing 

 honey, and nothing could be more nat- 

 ural than to suppose that by giving 

 them these combs already built, they 

 will be greatly helped and enabled 

 thereby to commence sooner the profit- 

 able work of filling sections. 



But if weexperimentcarefully, we will 

 often find that what looks so plausible 

 in theory, does not turn out so well in 

 practice. The colonies that we had sup- 

 plied with full sets of ready-built combs 

 somehow do not give as great a surplus 

 of honey as those which had to build 

 their combs anew. There are several 

 reasons for this. One is, that bees, as 

 well as human beings, will often take 

 more time to patch up an old thing than 

 to make a new one. Combs usually re- 

 quire considerable fixing over before the 

 queen will lay in them. 



The most serious objection to their use 

 in this way is, that the bees will begin 



