THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



137 



Local Convention Directory. 



Mar. 

 W. 



Miir. 

 Apr. 

 Apr. 

 Oct. 



Time and place of Meetina. 



lO.-N. Jersey & Eastern, at N. Y. City. N. Y. 

 B. Treadwell. Sec, 16 Thomas St.. New York. 



L'd.— Patsalana. at Arcadia. Ala. 



M. G. Kushtun, See., Raif Branch, Ala. 



lo.~Union, at Dexter, Iowa. 



M. E. Darby, Sec, Dexter, Iowa. 



■J7.— Des Moines County, at BurUncton, Iowa. 

 Jno. Nau, Sec, Middletown, Iowa. 



IH, 20.— lllinoia Central, at Mt. Sterling, Ula. 

 J. M. llambaush. Sec, Spring, Ilia. 



1^~ In order to have this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 4)1x06 and place of future meetings.— Ei>. 







^M 



im>^ 



Bees all Right Now— J. Q- Wells, 

 Boone Giove,-o Ind., on Feb, 24, 1886, 

 says : 



I use the American hive, or, in 

 other words, a hive composed of 9 

 frames 12 inches square inside, mak- 

 ing the liive 13 inches square inside. 

 From 31 colonies, last year, I ex- 

 tracted 16 barrels of honey, 82 gallons 

 to the barrel, and increased my apiary 

 to 52 colonies. There are no bees of 

 any consequence within 5 miles of 

 mine. Bees are wintering finely so 

 far, but the worst time is yet to come. 

 I winter my bees in the cellar. 



TJniting ftueenless Colonies.— V. 

 Heinemanu, of Valparaiso,^ Ind., 

 practices the following plan : 



My method of uniting queenless 

 colonies wiih colonies that contain 

 queens is as follows : Take the bot- 

 tom-board off the hive of the queen- 

 less colony, and place it on the hive 

 which contains the queen, leaving the 

 honey-board with communications on 

 the lower hive; close the entrance in 

 the top hive, and give a little smoke 

 to each colony. This must be done 

 in the evening, after the bees quit 

 flying. The queenless colony should 

 be left on from 24 to 48 hours. If the 

 queenless colony has not united with 

 the lower colony at the expiration of 

 the time mentioned, they should be 

 brushed down. This plan I have 

 practiced for a number of years, and 

 I have never lost a queen or bees by 

 its use. 



Disinfecting Foul-Broody Hives, 

 •etc.— G. J. Pease, Ann Arbor,o^Mich., 

 writes : 



In the spring of 1884 I had 8 colonies 

 of bees, 6 of them gave me 500 pounds 

 of comb honey, and 300 pounds of 

 extracted honey ; one colony stored 

 230 pounds of it. My bees had the foul 

 brood, but I did not know it until the 

 spring of 1SS5. I then commenced 

 smoking them with thyme, as per the 

 Bee Journal, only more thoroughly, 

 giving each hive from 25 to 75 puffs 

 from the smoker each morning before 



working hours. I think it may have 

 done some good, as (i colonies stored 

 over GOO pounds of honey in the sea- 

 son of 1885, and 3 colonies sent out 

 swarms, but they soon returned to 

 their old home. I gave them plenty 

 of room, ticring-up several stories in 

 height. They all seemed to be full of 

 bees, and putting in full time. Foul 

 brood increased as the honey-flow 

 ended, and in the fall of 1885 I sub- 

 mitted a sample of comb to one of our 

 best and most scientiflc apiarists for 

 advice. He advised me to destroy the 

 bees. I did it with sulphur. I have 

 10 hives, 8 supers, bottoms andcovers, 

 frames and sections, boxes in all con- 

 ditions, some empty, some tilled with 

 comb, and some partly filled; some 

 very nice and white, and some dark ; 

 some filled with honey, some partly 

 filled, some with foundation starters ; 

 the honey candied— all a confused 

 mass, and mostly stacked up in rny 

 honev-room. My apiary was on tin 

 and iron roofs over buildings. From 

 accounts of the foul brood malady all 

 the roofs must be more or less in- 

 fected. I am desirous to re-stock my 

 apiary, if I can do so with a good 

 prospect of success. I wish to have 

 advice, first, as to how to disinfect 

 adjoining roofs; second, will a coat of 

 paint make my apiary roof all right 'i 

 third, for disinfecting hives, will 

 painting them with some solution, or 

 boiling, be the cheapest and most 

 effective ? and fourth, how can I best 

 utilize candied honey in the comb, 

 there being dark comb and some foul 

 brood in a few frames? 



fVVill some one having had experi- 

 ence with foul brood please reply to 

 the above.— Ed.] 



Honey-Comb —W.J. C, Brown Co., 

 Ills., asks the following : 

 Is honey-comb digestible ? 

 [No.— Ed.] 



Producing and Selling Honey.— 3 

 — R. Grinsell, (19-43), Baden, o Mo., 

 on Jan. 22, 1886, writes : 



In the fall of 1884 I had 50 colonies 

 of bees, 10 were rather weak, and the 

 balance were in good condition. I 

 wintered them on i\\^ summer stands, 

 having lost very heavily the year 

 previous by cellar-wintering. In the 

 spring of 1885 I had 17 good colonies 

 and 2 weak ones to start with, and 

 about 400 empty combs. I worked 13 

 colonies for extracted honey, and 

 secured 1,000 pounds of honey, one- 

 half clover and the balance light- 

 colored fall honey. I considered that 

 doing well for a farmer bee-keeper. 

 I worked these colonies « ^a Dadant ; 

 had only 3 swarms, and those I hived 

 in 10-frame Simplicity hives, 3 deep, 

 with empty frames in each. lu work- 

 ing for comb tioney I use the Heddon 

 plan— an 8-frame hive with cases of 

 sections P/^ inches wide with no sep- 

 arators. I think that Dadant & Son 

 have the secret of producing extracted 

 honey, but what I am looking for is 

 the secret of selling it. I sold all of | 

 my clover honey at a good price, but 



I sold a 500-pound barrel of fall honey 

 for Ti% cents per pound. How does 

 that compare with the cost of produc- 

 tion V In St. Louis to-day I can buy 

 10 tons of extracted honey at 5 cents 

 per pound. If bee-keepers do not 

 learn to sell their extracted honey at 

 liome, their days are numbered. I 

 put 43 colonies into the cellar last 

 fall. The temperature in the cellar 

 is from 38° to 4.5°. Tliey are doing 

 well. 



Bees in Splendid Condition.— Henry 

 W. Ilaag, Pettit,+o Ind., on Feb. IS, 

 1886, says : 



My bees are in splendid condition. 

 To dav I took them from the cellar 

 for a flight after 77 days' confinement. 

 I examined one of the weakest colo- 

 nies, and to mv surprise I found brood 

 in all stages of development. I have 

 12 colonies, and one 3-frame nucleus, 

 which is also in fine condition. I have 

 been wintering my bees in a cellar 

 where the mercury was between 40° 

 and almost at freezing point. 



Large Hives, etc.— 8— Fayette Lee, 

 (64-124), Cokato,© Minn., on Feb. 23, 

 1886, writes : 



The best hive for any bee-keeper 

 who does not want to feed his bees in 

 the fall, is a 10-frame Langstroth hive, 

 the first story for extracting, or 2 

 cases for comb honey. Mr. Chas. 

 Dadant is right in regard to large 

 hives, for in them we always get 

 enough honey in the brood-chamber 

 to winter the bees on if we manage 

 rightly, and every comb is filled. 

 Capped honey is the cheapest food 

 for winter. Any hive that will not 

 hold honey enough (say 20 pounds) 

 besides what combs the brood covers, 

 is a poor hive for beginners. Bees 

 will store just as much honey in the 

 upper story If there is 30 pounds in 

 the brood-chamber, after the 30 pounds 

 is put there. I think that some one 

 said that bees would not eat pollen if 

 the temperature was right in the 

 cellar. The temperature of my cellar 

 has been from 40° to 4-5° all winter, 

 and the bees do eat pollen. I still 

 think that dampness is the cause of 

 bee-diarrhea, and I am not alone in 

 this belief. My bees are all right yet, 

 with only two pailfuls of dead bees on 

 the cellar floor. 



Good Results.— Joseph Beath, Corn- 

 ing, P Iowa, on Feb. 16, 1886, writes 

 thus : 



I have always supposed that we 

 had hardly an average country here 

 for bees, but the following dated Feb. 

 1, 1886, appeared in a local paper of 

 Feb. 4 : "I started last spring with 

 20 colonies of bees, and I increased 

 them to 89, obtained over 2,000 pounds 

 of comb honey, and sold !S365 worth 

 of bees and lioney. I have .50 colonies 

 in the cellar, and they have from 30 

 to 80 pounds of honey each.— S. T. 

 Dagget." I had a conversation with 

 Mr. Dagget, and he said that the 

 increase Was all obtained by natural 

 swarming, and he used only 2J^ pounds 



