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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Local Convention Directory. 



1886. Time and place of Meeti/no. 



Jan. ll-13.-N.Y.State,E.N.Y..&c.. at Albany,N.Y. 

 Jno. Aspiuwttll. Sec, Barrytown. N. Y. 



Dec. 14.— Keyetone, at Scranton, Pa. 



Arthur A. Davis, Sec, Clark's Green, Pa. 

 1887. 

 Jan. 12.— Nebraska State, at Lincoln, Nebr. 



H. N. Patterson. Sec, Huinbuldt. Nebr. 



Jan. 13.— Vermont, at Burlington, Vt. 



R. H. Uolmes, Sec,, Shoreham, Vt. 



Jan. 18.— N. W, Ills. & 8. W. Wis., at Rockford, Ills. 

 J. Stewart, Sec, Hock City, Ills. 



MW In order to have thts table complete, Secre- 

 t&rles are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetintrs.— Ed. 



Keeping Bees in a Warm Room.— 



A. T. Aldrich, Wilcox, 5 Pa., on Nov. 

 26, 1886, writes : 



Last year I gave an account of my 

 experience in keeping bees in a warm 

 room. Another year has passed and 

 the same colony stands at my desk 

 within 2 feet of my elbow, where it 

 has stood for three years and a half, 

 the brighest and best of all my colo- 

 nies. I have had no carrying into the 

 cellar, no packing, no feeding, no any- 

 thing — I simply let them alone except 

 to put on and take off sections. The 

 temperature ranges, during winter, 

 from 30° to 70" above zero, and the 

 bees are always quiet and consume 

 but little honey ; they are strong in 

 the spring, and the flrst to cast a 

 swarm. This colony gave me, the 

 past season, 114 pounds of comb 

 honey in sections ; also an early 

 swarm which gave me 67 pounds, 

 making 181 pounds, spring count. I 

 am aware that old bee-men who live 

 in more favored localities will laugh 

 at this, but when we consider that no 

 other of my 25 colonies gave me one- 

 half that amount, the showing is not 

 so bad. As a further test I have 

 placed two weak and two medium 

 colonies in my kitchen chamber, 

 where it is always warm, hoping to be 

 able to give a good account of them 

 next year. 



Bees did Well.— David Watterson, 

 Bristow,5 Iowa, on Oct. 31, 1886, says: 



My bees did very well the past sea- 

 son. I had 12 colonies to begin with, 

 and increased them to 28 by natural 

 swarming, besides taking 800 pounds 

 of honey. I had one colony that 

 swarmed four times, and got 110 

 pounds of honey, besides having 

 plenty to winter on. 



spring count. Ventilation, shade and 

 tiering-up keeps back swarming. 

 One-third of my colonies did not 

 swarm, and 26 others that I took care 

 of increased to 70, and I took from 

 them nearly 1J4 tons of honey. For 

 the winter I have packed 40 in the 

 sawdust and clover chaff all around, 

 and a little board with a cleat under 

 each end to keep the entrance open. 

 I have 16 on the ground without bot- 

 tom-boards, packed in sawdust, en- 

 trances open; and 16 with wind- 

 breaks, and the caps full of oat-straw, 

 and the rest in a bee-house which has 

 double doors, double windows, and is 

 covered so as to make it dark ; it is 

 double-walled with 10 inches of saw- 

 dust between, battened on the outside, 

 and on the inside covered wilh oiled 

 paper, and lined with shiplap lumber 

 on the paper ; on the north and west 

 sides is a one-inch air-space. Yester- 

 day the temperature was 60° outside, 

 and 47^ inside ; this morning, 34° 

 outside and 46° inside. I owe my 

 success in bee-keeping to reading bee- 

 papers, and making good use of the 

 same. I think the last sentence of 

 Dr. Mason's article, on page 682, is 

 right to the point — much in a " nut- 

 shell." 



Preparing Bees for Winter, etc.— 



E. Pickup, Limerick, 5 Ills., writes: 



After " endowing " La Ilarpe Col- 

 lege with 2.5 colonies of bees, I had 16 

 colonies left in the spring to begin 

 this season with. I increased them 

 to 40, and had one ton of honey. The 

 colony that did the best cast 2 swarms, 

 and produced 300 pounds of honey. 



Honey-Plants from Florida— A. 



A.Dodge, Palmetto,? Fla., on Nov. 

 2, 1886, writes : 



I send you six different honey- 

 plants, from which I tind the bees 

 were gathering honey to-day. We 

 are having fine, sunny days. The 

 thermometer shows 50° lowest, 80° 

 highest. Bees are at work as they 

 would be at the North in the month 

 of July ; and appear in the same con- 

 dition "in regard to brood, drones, etc. 



[The plants sent are three golden- 

 rods, two asters, and one thorough- 

 wort. It needs not to be said that all 

 are excellent honey-plants. — A. J. 

 Cook.] 



has is from the wax or comb, and not 

 put in by the bees' sting. If you take 

 a section that is full of honey, and 

 not capped, and put it in a warm room 

 for two weeks, it will have the same 

 fliivor that sealed honey has ; extract 

 the sections before it "is ripe, or the 

 water out of it, and put it in a jar. 

 and you will see by letting it stand in 

 a warm place three weeks, that it has 

 a flat taste. One of my neighbors 

 put 24 colonies in the middle of a large 

 straw-stack, and they were all dead 

 before March 1. They froze solid, 

 with honey within 2 inches of the 

 cluster. They would be better off in 

 a half-inch nail keg on the bench, for 

 there would be some change in the 

 weather. The black bees are ahead 

 of anything for white comb honey. 



The Season of 1886.— J. W. Bu- 

 chanan & Bro., Eldora,© Iowa, on 



Nov. 29, 1886, write : 



We began the season with 16 colo- 

 nies, bought 3 more, making 19 in all, 

 which we increased to 33 colonies, 

 and took 820 pounds of comb honey 

 in one and two pound sections. We 

 took 14 colonies on shares, 10 of them 

 being old colonies, and 4 new ones. 

 As it was late in June when we got 

 them, and no sections on, they did 

 scarcely anything. We placed sec- 

 tions upon their hives immediately 

 after getting them home, and got 200 

 pounds of comb honey, and 7 swarms 

 from them. The drouth spoiled the 

 honey crop in our locality, almost all 

 of our surplus being from white clover 

 in June and the latter part of May. 

 We have 25 colonies in the cellar, and 

 28 in a cave built purposely for them. 

 We have sold a part of our honey 

 (some at 12}^ cents, and some at 15 

 cents per pound) in our hom.e market, 

 and have 500 or 600 pounds still on 

 hand. We use the " Ileddon-Lang- 

 stroth hive," both 8 and 10 frames. 

 We have our bees all housed for 

 winter. 



Wintering Bees in a Straw-Stack, 

 etc.— Fayette Lee, (126), Cokato.Q 

 Minn., on Nov. 21, 1886, writes the 

 following items : 



I have taken 2,000 pounds of comb 

 and 3,000 pounds of extracted honey 

 this year, mostly linden honey. I in- 

 creased my apiary from 95 to 144 colo- 

 nies. I have sold some, so I now 

 have 126 colonies in the cellar. My 

 honey is nearly all sold at home at 15 

 cents per pound for comb honey, and 

 9 cents per pound for extracted. 

 When I say at home I mean that I 

 have not gone 7 miles away from my 

 apiary. I would say, let the Bee- 

 Keepers' Union set the price on 

 honey, and all sell at that price, then 

 all will know what the price of honey 

 is. When the Union takes this step, 

 then it can have my $1.25 and my 

 help. I find in some of my colonies 

 brood in all stages in from 1 to 3 

 combs. Does the queen lay every 

 month in the year ? It looks as if 

 she does. They are Syrian bees. 

 That good flavor which comb honey 



Managing Robber Bees.— Charles 

 Mitchell, Molesworth, Ont., writes : 



I have been watching the bee- 

 papers long and closely for something 

 equal to their depredations, and I 

 have failed ; so have all the remedies 

 thus far offered. In consequence of 

 this I will give something which will 

 not fail— at least it has not with me 

 in two years. To distinguish between 

 robbing, and colonies taking a general 

 flight, has cost me more study than 

 any one thing in connection with 

 bees ; and unless the reader knows 

 his business, never treat bees for rob- 

 bing until 10 or 20 minutes after 

 heavy flying, when they will return, 

 light on the hive, and many will fan 

 their wings while traveling in, when 

 all will be over. But robber bees 

 will hover about the entrance on 

 wing with their legs straight out be- 

 hind, like a crane, lest they get caught 

 by the feet. (This is before they are 

 overpowered.) I am of the opinion 

 that many of those old, shiny bees 

 become ''professors," and end their 

 days robbing, even on into a good flow 



