570 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Bees Hanging Out— W.M.Barnum, 



Angelica,? N. Y.,on Aug. 25, 1886, 

 asks the following questions : 



1. Will you kindly give the address 

 of the British Bee Journal, and is it a 

 weekly or monthly ? 2. Oiia of my 

 colonies seems persistent in hanging 

 out of the hive. I have been noticing 

 them for a week or two, and I think 

 that most of them lay out at night. 

 What is the trouble with them V 



[1. The British Bee Journal is a 

 weekly, published at S2.50 a year. We 

 club it and the American Bee Jour- 

 nal for $2.75 a year. 



2. This is not uncommon. The bees 

 are numerous, the breeding apartment 

 full of brood and honey, and there is 

 but little or nothing in the fields to 

 gather. There is therefore nothing 

 for them to do.— Ed.] 



Cyprian bee seems the favorite of 

 European bee-keepers, and also of 

 Mr. Benton. I have two objections 

 to the pure Cyprians, viz., their 

 vicious stinging propensity, and 

 their much swarming. The former 

 should not be any more objection in 

 a honey-apiary, however, than the 

 vicious disposition of a cow in a dairy, 

 if the cow is a No. 1 milch cow. I 

 never had a Cyprian queen from Mr. 

 Benton, and this is the first one for 

 the purpose of cross-breeding. I have 

 received several letters of inquiry 

 from Eastern farmers concerning 

 Oregon and Washington Territory, 

 all of which I have answered cheer- 

 fully, with the exception of one from 

 Missouri, which I have not been able 

 to answer because the letter has been 

 mislaid, and I wish through the Bee 

 Journal to ask that the man who 

 wrote the letter, write me again, so 

 as to enable me to answer him. 



Keeping Bees on Shares, etc.— E. 

 S. Hildemann, Ashippun,o+ Wis., 

 writes : 



As I had rented my farm and had 

 not bees enough of my own, I took 3 

 apiaries on shares, one apiary of 6 

 colonies, one of 9, and the other some 

 30 colonies. The one of 6 colonies, of 

 which I took particular account, had 

 one queenless colony, and a very few 

 bees in it at that. I gave it brood 

 from which to rear a queen. I ob- 

 tained from the 6 colonies 140 pounds 

 of comb honey, and 610 pounds of ex- 

 tracted, in all 750 pounds. I have 28 

 colonies of my own. I got of white 

 clover and basswood honey, of mine 

 and my share, 2,000 pounds, which I 

 retailed at the following prices : Ten 

 cents per pound, or 11 pounds for$l, 

 and 50 pounds at 8 cents per pound. 

 Comb honey I sold at 12J^ cents per 

 pound. All of it I sold in one town. 

 By this way I saved all of my honey- 

 kegs, which I can use another year. 

 My honey was well ripened, conse- 

 quently it was well liked, and I always 

 nave calls for more. We have had 

 some honey-dew this year, but not as 

 much as last year. I have noticed 

 some honey-dew on poplar leaves 

 near lakes and rivers, which is so 

 thick that it will not come out by 

 extracting. 



Bee-Keeping in Oregon, etc.— Gust 

 Murhard, Portland, ~o Oreg., on Aug. 

 27, 1886, writes : 



The honey yield in Oregon and 

 Washington Territory is an entire 

 failure this year. The season opened 

 well, and everything was most prom- 

 ising, when the drouth set in and cut 

 everything short. Unless many bees 

 are fed they will have to die of starva- 

 tion, and many have already left their 

 hives in despair. I have just received 

 a Cyprian queen mated in Carniola 

 with a Carniolan drone, to try the 

 crosses between the Cyprian and 

 Carniolan bees, to compare them with 

 the crosses between the Mt. Lebanon 

 and Carniolan bees, which have 

 proved so satisfactory to me. The 



Silk-Culture and Bees.— H. Fisher, 

 Silk-Culturist, Oshkosh,o+ Wis., on 

 Aug. 30, 1886, writes : 



To those desiring to write to me 

 about the above subject, I wish to say 

 that in order to avoid all mistakes, 

 and to insure a prompt answer, please 

 address me hereafter as stated above. 

 This precaution I deem necessary, as 

 letters that were intended for me 

 (after I had made the few encourag- 

 ing remarks about silk-culture, on 

 page 490) were delivered to a name- 

 sake of mine. 



Report, etc.— E. Jarvis, Fair Grove, 

 o* Mich., on Aug. 28, 1886, writes : 



Bees did well here this year, es- 

 pecially in early swarms, and a dry 

 July gave them rest, but they held 

 their own, and now with the showers 

 we have recently had, colonies are 

 strong in bees, and are filling up the 

 hives fast with brood and honey. On 

 page 538 it is requested to state our 

 experience with " removing young 

 bees " from the hives. I saw a bee 

 drawing out another, and my first 

 impression was that of war, but I saw 

 no fighting. I could not tell which 

 was the youngest, or the most perfect 

 bee. This continued more or less for 

 2 or 3 weeks in July. 



do not know who made it, or what its 

 name is, but for the last three years 

 I never knew its colony to swarm, but 

 it would fill with honey all the space 

 given. I believe it to be a non- 

 swarming hive. This year that col- 

 ony has already filled 220 sections, 

 and I do not know how many more it 

 will fill by the end of the season. I 

 believe, though, that it will fill 40 

 more, because I have just given it a 

 case of 40 sections, and the bees have 

 gone into them just as they do In the 

 spring when everything is in bloom. 

 This colony is at work all the time 

 while the others are doing compara- 

 tively nothing. I believe in order to 

 get a large flow of honey we must 

 have a strong colony and the right 

 kind of a hive. I get 13 cents per 

 section, or two for 25 cents, for all of 

 my honey here at home. I would not 

 keep bees to produce extracted honey. 



Bees Working Vigorously, etc.— 

 R. F. Holtermann, Brantford, Ont., 

 on Aug. 28, 1886, says : 



In my letter regarding the sources 

 of honey-dew, page 539, the 23rd line 

 should read : The theory that such a 

 substance is excrement from aphides 

 alone, etc. It will be seen from what 

 follows that this is as it was intended. 

 Bees are working vigorously on buck- 

 wheat, mullen, etc. I have secured 

 from the first and thistle sufficient to 

 give me 40 pounds per colony, spring 

 count ; and bees are in very fine con- 

 dition. Upon extracting, the yield 

 may prove to be more. I secured 80 

 pounds per colony from clover. 



-V. W. 



Aug. 27, 



Non-Swarming Hive, etc. 



Clough, Geneseo,^3 Ills., on 

 1886, writes : 



I am a constant reader of the Bee 

 Journal, and I often wish I was a 

 writer, for 1 could tell a very inter- 

 esting story regarding my experience 

 with bees. I started with 14 colonies, 

 only 10 of which were very strong. I 

 bought my bees from my father, who, 

 after 25 years' experience with bees 

 and general farming, wished to retire 

 from active business and move to 

 town. From the 14 colonies I have 

 secured 1,200 1 -pound sections of 

 comb honey, with an increase of 8 

 new colonies, all of which have filled 

 the brood-chambers besides filling 125 

 sections of nice honey. I have one 

 hive that I consider very valuable. I 



Fall Honey Crop, etc.— A. M. 



Gander, Adrian, o. Mich., on Aug. 26, 

 1886, says : 



Bees are getting some fall honey 

 in this locality at present. The crop 

 of white honey was fair, but not a full 

 one. I would as soon think of living 

 without working as to get along suc- 

 cessfully with bee-keeping without 

 my bee-papers. It would be like 

 groping around in the dark. 



One of the Bonesets.— J. P. Cedar- 

 holm, Galesburg, ? Mo., writes : 



I send you some leaves and blooms 

 of a honey-plant that has yielded 

 plenty of honey this season. Please 

 give its name. 



[It is one of the " bonesets," and 

 yields rich golden nectar.— Ed.1 



Wintering Bees.— W. F. Smith, 

 Button, Ont., writes : 



About March 7, 1885, 1 wrote to the 

 Bee Journal, saying that I had 

 constructed a winter hive embracing 

 the seven requisites named in the 

 book, " Bees and Honey." I had at 

 that time 24 colonies in these hives, 

 but I could not tell at that time, of 

 that the severest winter ever known 

 in this country, how they would come 

 out in the spring, so I said nothing 

 about their condition, but every col- 

 ony came out nicely in the spring, not 



