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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Local Gonyention Directory. 



1886. Time and place of Meetino. 



AnR. 18, 19.— Cedar Valley, at Waterloo, Iowa. 



H. E. Hubbard, Sec, Laporte City, Iowa. 



Aug. 31.— Stark County, at Canton. O. 



Mark Thomson, Sec, Canton, O. 



Sept. 4.— Sheboygan Co., at SheboyEan Fan8,Wi8. 

 Mattle B. Thomas, Sec, Sheboygan Falls, Wis. 



Sept. 6.— N. W. Ills. & S. W. Wis., at Dakota. Wis. 

 Jonathan Stewart, Sec, Rock City, Ills. 



Sept. 7.— Iowa State, at Des Moines, Iowa. 



A. J. Norrls, eec, Cedar Falls, Iowa. 



Oct. 7.— WiB. Lake Shore Center, at Kiel, Wis. 



Ferd Zastrow, Sec, Millhome, Wis. 



Oct. 12— 14.— North American, at Indianapolis, Ind. 

 F. L. DouKherty, Sec, Indianapolis, Ind. 



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

 J. M. UambauRb, Sec, Spring, Ills. 



Dec. 1. 2.— Michigan State, at Ypsilanti, Mich. 



H. D. Cutting, Sec, Clinton, Mich. 



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

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetlntrs.— Ed. 





Bee-Keeping in Minnesota.— J. W. 



Powell & Son, Mankato,? Minn., on 

 Aug. 4, 1886, writes : 



The weather has been generally dry 

 here this season, still we have had 

 local rains covering a small tract of 

 country in our immediate vicinity. I 

 think this county (Blue Earth) will 

 have the best crops of any in the 

 State. We will have an average yield 

 of honey this season. We have taken 

 about 4,500 pounds of extracted, and 

 have about 4,000 pounds of comb 

 honey ready to take from the hives. 

 We began in the spring with 140 colo- 

 nies in Simplicity hives, and have 

 increased them to 240, by natural 

 swarming. The prospect is good for 

 a fall yield of honey. Why do not 

 more bee-keepers join the Union ? Is 

 it because men always neglect their 

 bees and their preacher when they 

 are short of money V 



Hive with Transverse Passages-— 

 J. II. Andre, Lockwood,? N. Y., on 

 Aug. 5, 1886, writes : 



Bees are beginning to bring in 

 honey from the early buckwheat. If 

 we do not get early frosts hard 

 enough to kill fall flowers, there will 

 be a good chance for the bees to build 

 up in numbers, if not in stores, and 

 those that have plenty of good stores 

 will be apt to winter well. I gave a 

 description of the hive I use, on page 

 361, and I find there is not room 

 enough to work the frames so wide ; 

 they should be 7i| inches wide out- 

 side measure, and instead of cutting 

 the frame-rests in the side of the 

 hive, nail on a strip % of an inch 

 square where the frames come, end- 

 wise to the side of the hive. This 

 will admit of a shorter end-bar being 

 used (.516 of an inch), which is needed 

 in changing the frames inside ends to 

 outside of the hive. Each end-bar 

 must be short, or the inside end will 



strike the side of the frame hung in 

 the other space and prevent its being 

 placed close to the cross, which must 

 be done in order to keep the bees 

 from building comb under the cross. 

 After the strips for the frame-rest are 

 securely nailed on where each frame 

 rests, a piece may be sawed out be- 

 tween each frame to give a free pas- 

 sage for the bees at the end of the 

 frames. I shall put in 24 frames in 

 each hive next season, for that will 

 give more room for brood, and the 

 way the frames are arranged will ad- 

 mit of their being spaced closer the 

 year around than any other hive. 



Acorn Honey. — C. Theilmann, 

 Theilmanton,o, Minn., on Aug. 4, 

 1886, writes : 



My bees have done fairly so far, 

 though white clover has not yielded 

 very well on account of cold^ windy 

 j\'eather nearly all through June. 

 Basswood was almost a failure on 

 account of the frost we had on May 

 4, when the buds made their appear- 

 ance. My bees have stored about 

 3,000 pounds of honey from the acorns 

 which were pierced by an insect, 

 thus causing honey to run out. 



Prevention of After-Swarms, etc.— 

 David L. Howe, Woodstock,? Vt., 

 asks the following questions : 



1. What is the Heddon method of 

 preventing after-swarms V 2. Will 

 honey be augmented by covering the 

 section-boxes in the hive with a mat 

 or something of the kind during the 

 honey-flow f 3. Should the brood- 

 nest be covered with enameled cloth 

 or a mat or some substance that will 

 give ventilation when prepared for 

 winter V 



[1. A comprehensive answer to this 

 question is too long for this depart- 

 ment, and can be found in the Bee 

 Journal for 1883, page 126, or in 

 Gleanings for 1885, page 414, or in 

 Prof. Cook's book, or in mine. 



2. No. Use a board cover in sum- 

 mer. 



3. Some say " yes " and others say 

 "no," and each class winter their 

 bees and lose them with diarrhea 

 when adopting each plan. I have 

 succeeded and failed both ways.— 

 James Heddon.] 



Honey-Dew Observations. — Wm. 



Willis, Pomona, o Kans., on Aug. 9, 

 1886, writes : 



I have been an observer of the 

 vexed question of honey-dew for 

 nearly 40 years. If there is no dew, 

 there will be no honey-dew or nectar 

 in flowers. That is the rule here, and 

 honey-dew is not confined to oak or 

 any other kind of tree or plant. In a 

 State or Territory where tlie most 

 honey-dew is found, the most honey 

 is produced. California is the great- 

 est honey-producing State of the 

 Union, and in parts of California, and 



near Honey Lake, Utah, the honey- 

 dew hangs in great drops on the sage- 

 bush in sucli quantities that the 

 wings of the sage-hens become so 

 loaded that they cannot fly. There 

 are no oak trees there, and not many 

 bugs either. Now all agree that bees 

 do not make honey, but gather it, 

 and I think it equally reasonable that 

 plant-lice do not make honey, but 

 subsist on it. If plant-lice do make 

 honey, what do they make it out of ? 

 If they make it out of a green acorn 

 they can excel the honey-bee and all 

 the professional chemists combined. 

 It is not improbable that bugs of any 

 sort may gorge their stomachs on 

 honey-dew until it will pass undigest- 

 ed ; hence the "bug-juice" so much 

 talked of to the great injury of our 

 honey market. 



Paper Comb Foundation.— Chas. F. 



Ilenning, Citra,© Fla., on Aug. 4, 

 1886, says : 



So far my bees have done very well. 

 I have taken a little over 207 pounds 

 on an average, per hive, and all are 

 full again. Wax for foundation has 

 been very scarce with me, and I have 

 tried many experiments of which I 

 will speak some other time, but the 

 following in particular I am well 

 pleased with : I take strong but very 

 thin paper, cut it the proper size for 

 brood-frames, dip it into wax twice, 

 run it through the mill, and I have 

 very fine foundation for brood-frames, 

 and foundation that my bees never go 

 by. It is stronger, never sags, and 

 dofs not take more wax than thin 

 foundation for surplus. I will report 

 later. 



Partridge Pea, Reversing Combs, 



etc.— T. M. Coleman, Glendon,*olowa, 

 on Aug. 5, 1886, writes : 



I send a plant that grows very 

 plentifully here, and the bees work 

 on it a great deal, but it looks to me 

 as if there could be but little for them 

 in it. I would like to know what it 

 is, and whether it is a good honey- 

 plant. Our bees have done better 

 than I ever knew them to do in May 

 and June, but they have done very 

 little since. I tried reversing a hive 

 by nailing strips of lath across the 

 top of the frames and turning it over 

 just before putting sections on. It 

 was a strong colony, and the frames 

 were full of brood and honey during 

 basswood bloom, yet they "did but 

 very little in the sections for about a 

 week. There were brace-combs, and 

 every space filled with honey, crowd- 

 ing the tops of the frames very 

 closely. When turned over, the bees 

 cut these thickened combs away and 

 put it in the sections, and the result 

 is very dark, unsalable honey in the 

 sections ; wliile all the rest is so very 

 white and good. I have concluded 

 that I do not want to reverse frames 

 any more. But I am using over a 

 dozen hives with frames 6 inches 

 deep, outside measure, otherwise 

 Langstroth size, that three seasons of 

 close watching convinces me are bet- 

 ter in many respects than any deeper 



