392 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



The President puts on surplus ar- 

 rangements when he sees that the 

 comb at the top of the frames in the 

 brood-chamber is being filled. 



G. W. Calhoun said that if he 

 wanted increase of colonies he would 

 not put on the surplus arrangements 

 until swarming is over. 



A lady member stated that she 

 found six queens with one swarm. 

 She wanted to know how it happened. 

 The Secretary then gave the process 

 of queen-rearing, showing that the 

 six queens were young queens that 

 had hatched at the same time. 



S. W. Myers reported that he at one 

 time had three young queens and one 

 imported queen all in a hive atone 

 time. He removed the old queen and 

 two of the young ones. The remain- 

 ing one came out all right. 



On the subject of uulting.or swarms 

 settling together, Mr. Brown thought 

 that the best queen would come out 

 best. Several did not agree with him 

 in this, but thought it best, if possible, 

 to select the queen that the bee- 

 keeper desires to keep. 



"How do you prevent a swarm 

 from settling in the top of high tree?" 



The Mayor of the city being pres- 

 ent, he said that he had successfully 

 used what is called a " Yankee queen- 

 stick." It is made by taking a stick 

 2 inches square, the top end dressed 

 down to 1^ square for about afoot; 

 on this is nailed lath G or 8 inches 

 long to form a net-work. When a 

 swarm is about to settle, this queen- 

 stick is held among them, and he 

 found that they would settle on it. 



The President here described a 

 swarm-basket as used by many api- 

 arists. Some members explained the 

 advantage of contracting the size of 

 the hive by a division-board, to suit 

 the size of the colony early in the sea- 

 son ; also how the weak may be 

 strengthened from the strong, so as 

 to make all good colonies early in the 

 season ; the advantage of having all 

 hives alike in tlie same apiary, and 

 the necessity of combs being straight 

 in the brood-chamber. 



The following reports were made 

 on the results of the past winter : 



I. N. Brown winters his bees in the 

 cellar by tiering-up the hives and 

 turning back the covers. His cellar 

 has no ventilation. Part were under 

 the dining-room. He finds that those 

 under rooms without noise did the 

 best. He put in 39 colonies and took 

 out 37. 



Dr. Lewis wintered his bees in the 

 cellar. He put in 10 colonies and 

 took out 10. He lost one colony after 

 putting them on the summer stands. 



S. W. Myers also wintered his bees 

 in the cellar, with the temperature 

 from 40^ to 45°. He put in 8 colonies 

 and lost none. 



W. H. Ford wintered his in a cellar. 

 He put in 14 colonies and took out 11. 



A. Pinkerton wintered his bees in a 

 cellar. The temperature got as low 

 as 40°. His cellar had ventilation. 

 He put in from Nov. 22 to Dec. 5, 117 

 colonies, and put out from April 7 to 

 April 14, 116 colonies. He had the 

 cellar partly light and partly dark, 

 and found that those in the dark did 

 the best. 



J. W. Sanders wintered his bees in 

 the cellar, with a temperature of from 

 38° to 45°. He had a number of light 

 or nuclei colonies that were put away 

 so as to save the queens if possible. 

 Some proved a little light in stores. 

 He put away 64 colonies in the first 

 week in December, and on April 9 put 

 out 56. 



The subject for the next meeting is 

 "Fall care of bees," and "How to 

 keep honey in the best shape." Proper 

 arrangements will then be made for 

 the coming Fair. The association 

 then adjourned to meet at the Court 

 House in Marshalltown, Iowa, on 

 Saturday, July 16, at 10:30 a.m. 



J. W. Sanders, Sec. 



Read at the Mich. Horticultural Convention. 



Fniit-Growersiaiiil Bee-Keepers, 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



That bees are an important factor 

 in the economy of nature, has long 

 been proved. Only a few days ago I 

 came across the following in the 

 American Bee Journal : 



" Most of the readers of the Jour- 

 nal are aware that in England 

 melons, cucumbers, pumpkins and 

 squashes cannot be raised in the open 

 air ; they are all raised in green-houses 

 and hot-bed frames, and many hours 

 have I worked in the garden at home 

 in England, with a fine, long camel's- 

 hair brush, conveying the pollen 

 from blossom to blossom, where the 

 bees could not get to do the work ; 

 and even now in this climate, if we 

 do not have good weather for the 

 bees to work on the fruit blossoms, 

 and especially on red clover saved for 

 seed, we get but a poor crop. Last 

 year I had a good crop of mammoth 

 clover seed, while a few miles from 

 here there was none, and I think I 

 owe it to my colonies of Italian bees, 

 for they worked on it first-rate." — W. 

 Addbnbrooke. 



A few weeks ago I heard two old 

 farmers discussing bees and buck- 

 wheat. " I tell you," said one, " buck- 

 wheat is a good thing for bees." 

 " Yes," replied the other, " but the 

 bees are not a very good thing for the 

 buckwheat." "No, I suppose not," 

 said No. 1. And thus the conversa- 

 tion ran on until I ventured to ask 

 Mr. Farmer how he kne^v that buck- 

 wheat was injured by the bees. 

 " Why, they take something from it, 

 don't they? If they .do, it injures it. 

 How can it be otherwise V" replied 

 my farmer friend. I then explained 

 that I was a bee-keeper, and that I 

 also raised buckwheat ; that my buck- 

 wheat, which was at times fairly 

 " swarming " with bees, yielded fully 

 as well, if not better, than buckwheat 

 that was far removed from the busy 

 workers. I explained how necessary 

 were the bees for the fertilization of 

 blossoms ; that if the blossoms were 

 covered with muslin, so that the bees 

 had no access to them, they produced 

 no fruit. My opponent contended 

 that it might not be lack of visits 

 from bees that made the covered 

 blossoms unfertile, but lack of heat 



from the sun's rays, as the result of 

 being covered. I then cited to him 

 the experiments of Prof. Lazenby, of 

 Ohio, in covering strawberries with 

 boxes, and fertilizing one variety 

 with the pollen of another. Speci- 

 mens that were left unfertilized pro- 

 duced no fruit ; those that were fer- 

 tilized did. 



I also told that oft- repeated story 

 of how the fruit-growers of aceilain 

 town in Massachusetts, years ago 

 compelled the bee-keepers in that 

 vicinity to move their bees out of 

 town— the bees injured the fruit, so 

 said the fruit-growers. In a few 

 years they were persuading the bee- 

 keepers to bring back their bees, as 

 the crops of fruit had been excep- 

 tionally light since the removal of the 

 bees. The bees were brought back, 

 and with them came abundant crops. 

 I told him that crops of red clover 

 seed could not be raised in Australia 

 until humble-bees were imported to 

 fertilize the blossoms. I then waxed 

 eloquent, and declared that the beau- 

 tiful colors were not given flowers 

 simply to please the human eye, the 

 grateful fragrance to regale the human 

 olfactories, nor did the nectar flow 

 simply that it might be gathered up 

 and used to tickle human palates ; 

 these things were the blossom's ad- 

 vertisement, which attracted to it 

 the honey-loving bee, which came, 

 bringing with it the fertilizing pollen 

 from distant flowers. When I had 

 finished, my opponent said : " Well, 

 I don't know anything about it ; may- 

 be you are right, my friend." 



Now, those of you who know that 

 bees are largely instrumental in the 

 fertilization of blossoms, and that 

 the removal of the nectar in nowise 

 injures the fruit or grain, may be in- 

 clined to smile at the old farmers 

 views, but he is not alone in his ignor- 

 ance ; even editors — yes, and agricul- 

 tural editors at that— have exhibited 

 lamentable ignorance upon this sub- 

 ject. The agricultural editor of a 

 very prominent New York weekly 

 paper very gravely informed an in- 

 quiring correspondent that bees were 

 an injury to buckwheat, taking the 

 same ground as did my farmer op- 

 ponent. It was this same editor who 

 said he had watched, with interest, 

 the progress of the Italian bees ever 

 since the first pair (!) was brought 

 over from Italy. 



It is nearly always ignorance that 

 leads to trouble about bees. In Wis- 

 consin, the past season, the owner of 

 an apiary was sued for damages 

 alleged to have been done to sheep 

 while grazing in a pasture of white 

 clover. It was claimed that the bees 

 came in swarms and drove the sheep 

 from the pasture ! It is well known 

 to those who are conversant with the 

 habits of bees "that, when foraging, a 

 bee is timid, and will flee upon the 

 approach of any object. The plaintiff 

 in the suit was not only ignorant of 

 the habits of bees, but seemed to for- 

 get that were it not for the services 

 of the bees in fertilizing the white 

 clover blossoms, there would have 

 been no white clover pasture for his 

 sheep. The judge in this suit decided 

 that there was no law applicable to 



