234 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Local Convention Directory 



iSHi. 'JHine and place of Meetino. 



AVT 17.— Marshall Co.. at Marshalltown, Iowa. 



.1. W. Sanders. Sec, LeGrand, Iowa. 



Aor iT — Des Moines County, at BurllnBton, Iowa. 

 Jno. Nau. Sec, Middletown, Iowa. 



Apr. 29, 3a— Western, at Kansas City, Mo. 



P. Baldwin. Sec. Independence. Mo. 



Apr. 30.— Northern Ohio, at WellinKton, O. 



H. R. Boardman, Sec B. Townaend, O 



Mar 1.— ]..lnwood. at Rock Elm, Wis. 



' B. J. Thompson, sec. 



jjay 4,— W. N. y. and N. Pa . at Randolph. N. V . 

 A. U. .lacobs. Sec, Jamestown, N. \ . 



May 5, 6.— Te.'tas State, at McKinncy, Tox. 



B. F. Carroll, Sec. Dresden, Tex. 



May 20 —Wis. Lake Shore Center, at Kiel, Wis. 

 Ferd Zastrow. Sec, Mlllhome, Wis. 



Oct. 19, 20.— Illinois Central, at Mt. Sterling, Ills. 

 J. M. HambauBh, Sec. Spring, Ills. 



^" In order to haye this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetings.- ED. 



lap-joint we all know is good for 

 nothing in constructing bee-hives. 





Fastening Frames in Hives.— J. 

 M.Gooclrich.South Frankfort. x^Mich.. 

 says : 



To fasten frames in Langstroth 

 hives, I have two iron rods of ,1-4-inch 

 iron made with a small ring on one 

 end and a nut on the other that can 

 be turned up by hand, and as king 

 between the ring and nut as the hive 

 is wide. I drive a headless nail into 

 each end-bar, near the bottom of the 

 frames, letting them project 14 of an 

 inch. I now make four holes in the 

 sides of the hive, so that when the 

 frame are in. and the rods are pushed 

 into the holes, they will come against 

 the frames and rest on the nails in 

 the end-bars. Screw it up tight, and 

 the frames will be fastened. :Make 

 the holes in the sides of the hive large 

 enough to give a little play, and cover 

 them with washers. When you wish 

 to take out the frames, remove the 

 nut and take out the rods. 



Good Prospects. — J. S. Scoven, 

 Kokomo.O Ind., on April 1. 1S86. 

 writes : 



I commenced in the spring of 1884 

 with one black colony of bees, in- 

 creased it to two. and took no surplus 

 honey. I commenced in the spring of 

 1885 with 2 colonies, increased them 

 to «, and took a surplus of 17-5 pounds 

 of fine comb honev. I winter my bees 

 in large store-boxes, well packed in 

 forest leaves. My bees are all alive, 

 and brought in the first pollen on 

 March 18. Bees are wintering well in 

 this county, and the prospects for the 

 coming season are good. 



Only 2 Colonies Lost. — Mexico 

 Sperry, La Ilarpe.K) Ills., on April S. 

 188G, says : 



I wintered my bees on the summer 

 stands, and lost only 2 colonies out of 

 28. The 26 are in good condition. 



Malaria from Bee-Cellars.— J. H. 

 Andre. Lockwood,? N. Y.. writes: 



I would like to hear, through the 

 Bee Journal, whether those who 

 have made a practice of wintering 

 bees in cellars under dwelling-houses 

 for a number of years, consider that 

 it makes the cellar unhealthful for 

 those living in the house above it. 

 Some here contend that wintering 

 bees in a cellar creates a poison which 

 will produce malaria. I hope that] 

 those who have had much experience 

 will kindly give their opinion. The 

 3 winters that I have had my bees in 

 the cellar we have had a great deal of 

 sickness called " malaria." I do not 

 know that the bees caused it. but if 

 they do cause such diseases the sooner 

 we find it out and provide some other 



Elace for wintering, the better it will 

 e for us. I would also like to ask if 

 in making hives it would be a good 

 plan to cut the pieces for the body of 

 the hive just the exact length that 

 one wishes the size of tlie hive inside. 

 and then put them togetlier by nail- 

 ing through one-quarter-round mould- 

 ing both ways, and tliussave mitering 

 them, which is quite a job unless one 

 is somewhat skilled with tools. A 



Are the Drones Pure 1—R. F. Hol- 

 termann, Brantford.Ont., writes: 



The last reply to Query. No. 230, 

 interested me. I will not attempt to- 

 answer tlie Query ; I cannot. But we 

 know that the sperm-sac in the queen 

 is filled not only with myriads of ever 

 moving bodies, one of wliich fertilizes 

 each egg. but the fluid surrounding 

 it— all from the drone. It is by many 

 careful students supposed that this is 

 absorbed in the system, in part at 

 least, who will say it is not so with 

 the queen. We know tliat the queen 

 after fertilization, and often before 

 having undergone any apparent physi- 

 cal change, at least to the naked eye, 

 externally, will have a new and more 

 graceful carnage, and these sperms 

 in the sac kept alive year after year, 

 who will say there is no exchange 

 between the contents of the sac and 

 the organs of the queen ? May the 

 relationship not after all be more in- 

 timate than we might at first think. 

 as great as in the higher animals V 

 And may the drone not have a greater 

 effect upon its male progeny than we 

 might at first be led to suppose V 



in tightly between and all around 

 with forest leaves. I use the Lang- 

 stroth hive witli S and 10 frames. I 

 divided several colonies last summer, 

 and all did well. 1 bought 2 colonies 

 in the spring of 1884, but some how 

 one of them I suppose lost their 

 queen, at least the bees were all gone 

 out of the hive before I knew any 

 thing about it; they left plenty of 

 honey. The hives were close side by 

 side. I then got an Italian queen, 

 and when the bees were busy at work 

 I put the queen-cage into the empty 

 hive with the queen in it, carried the 

 old stand 4 or r, rods away, put the 

 other in the place of the old one, and 

 the bees went in with the new queen, 

 all seemingly satisfied. They then 

 ate through and let the queen out of 

 the cage on the third day. In about 

 six weeks they sent out a large swarm. 

 I want to learn the best method of 

 wintering bees. I shall continue as I 

 have done if they continue to winter 

 as well as they have the past two 

 winters. My neighbors lost all they 

 had ; I lost one colony which I think 

 was caused by the queen's dying. 

 Having a few warm days tlie last of 

 February, the bees came out quite 

 thickly in front of the hives, and I 

 then noticed two drones from two 

 different hives. I had always heard 

 that the drones were all killed off in 

 August or September. 



Working on Early Bloom. — C. 



Weeks. (Uifton,? Tenn.. on April 1, 

 1886, says : 



My bees have wintered without 

 loss.' and are now working on peach 

 and other early blooms. 



Wintering Bees— Old Drones.— W. 



H. Tuttle. Crestoii.9 Iowa, on March 



SO. 1886. writes : 



Bees are all right yet. 1 have but 

 1-5 colonies, and have wintered them 

 in a bee-shed which is perfectly tight, 

 except the south side which is boarded 

 half way down from the top in order 

 to shade the bees. I have chaff cush- 

 ions with upper ventilation in the 

 hives, which are 4 to 6 inches apart, 

 also the same distance from the north 

 side of the shed. They were packed 



An Old Colony.— J • S- Barb, Bristol- 

 ville. 6 O., on March 25. 1886, writes : 



In the fall of 1884, I had 14 colonies 

 of bees ; in the spring of 1885, 1 had 

 only 4. and one of those was very 

 weak. 1 built up the weak colony to 

 a good one, bought a swarm on June 

 11. and got a large swarm from it on 

 Aug. 12. I had a colony to keep on 

 shares, and I got a good s\varm from 

 that, so ill the fall I had l:i colonies, 

 aud had taken 200 pounds of comb 

 honey. I have lost but 2 colonies so 

 far this winter. An Italian colony 

 which had a Southern queen that I 

 obtained in 1883, gave me 4 good 

 swarms.and nearly 45 pounds of honey 

 besides. How is that V The old 

 colony and all the swarms are alive 

 and in good condition now. I gave 

 the swarms frames of comb, which I 

 had saved. I had 31 colonies last 

 fall, and now I have 2.S. My father 

 has a colony of bees that I call the 

 ■Old Veteran." It is in a large box- 

 hive, holding as much as a salt barrel. 

 It was put into this hive on June 20. 

 1870. and has stood the storms of all 

 the severe winters that we have had 

 since then. It stands right at the 

 wood pile where we chop, saw and 

 split wood every winter, and it has 

 1 had no protection except the cap of a 

 1 Langstroth hive filled with straw 

 1 placed on top of the hive. This year 

 I have a chaff cushion on top of the 

 ' hive. We get some honey from this 



