10 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



very lieavy honey, of a light amber 

 color, aiul'excelleiit flavor. Tliis flow 

 lasts until tlie cabbage-palmetto and 

 mangrove come, in the last part of 

 June. From this on until about the 

 10th of August, the flow is continuous 

 and heavy, the honey as liandsome as 

 can be produced, and of very fine 

 flavor. 



A resting spell now comes for tlie 

 bees, which lasts until the middle of 

 September, wlien tlie fall flowers, and 

 later, tlje saw-palmetto berries yield 

 a surplus of darker honey, suitable for 

 winter sujiplies or spring feeding. As 

 bees fly here almost every day in the 

 year, fall honey can be fed without 

 fear of dysentery. 



Some of the leading honey and pol- 

 len producing trees are the maple, 

 willow, sweet gum, the bays, orange, 

 myrtle, oalvs. basswood, hickory, you- 

 pon, mock olive, saw-palmetto, cab- 

 bage-palmetto and mangrove. The 

 last two of which come together in the 

 middle of summer, and are imequaled 

 as honey producers by any thing else 

 in the whole vegetable kingdom known 

 to the writer. They produce honey in 

 abundance of the finest quality, and 

 we think it safe to say, never fail to 



Eroduce a good crop. We also have 

 oney-producing vines and plants too 

 numerous to mention. 



Bees increase very fast, and, as the 

 season is long, and the winter mild, 

 even a small handful of bees can be 

 safely built up into a strong colony in 

 a shoVt time. 



The writer started this past spring 

 with 35 colonies, wliicli increased to 

 86 ; some were disi)osed of, and others 

 run for comb honey or queen raising, 

 so there were but (iO colonies worked 

 exclusively for extracted honey. From 

 these I took 6,210 lbs. of honey by 

 Aug. 10. I have since taken a few 

 hundred pounds— enough to make my 

 crop foot up 7,.500lbs., without putting 

 my bees on short allowance. Several 

 of my neighbors have done nearly as 

 well. 



Transportation for our crop to all 

 the large markets of the world by 

 water is good, and getting better 

 every year. Hive lumber is cheap. 

 Living is inexpensive, and orange 

 growing (our leading industry here), 

 can be coupled with bee-keeping to 

 the advantage of both. 



The bee's a model citizen— ease, food. 

 Life, all is yielded to the public good ; 

 No individual interests weiE-'h a grain. 

 Where there are public interests to maintain ; 

 As in old Rome, when all were for the State. 

 Rich helped the poor, and poor men loved the 

 great. 



New Smyrna, Fla. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Notes from "Western Missouri. 



LEE EMRICK. 



Anotlier year is numbered with tlie 

 past. A year remarkable for its ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold; of floodsand 

 drouth, and closing with weather 

 mild and spring-like. But mid all 

 these changes tlie Bee Journal has 

 never failed to make its weekly call, 

 and in renewing my subscription for 

 the coming year 1 know I will be 



entertained and benefited as I cer- 

 tainly have been in the past. 



Tiie past winter was most disas- 

 trous to bees, as many empty hives 

 forcibly tell. I had 10.5 colonies at the 

 beginning of winter. When the 

 peach bloomed I could count but 4o. 

 liy natural swarming my nuniber now 

 stands at 70, and I think in good con- 

 dition, in numbers and stores. The 

 honey crop was a failure. From 40 

 coloiiiesiu two story Langstroth liives, 

 I extracted about 600 pounds, or an 

 average of lo pounds to tiie colony. 

 From SO colonies run for comb honey, 

 I had no surplus. I sold my extracted 

 lioiiey readily at 1.5 cents per pound. 



By " this showing, any one can see 

 that my bank account would be small 

 if I depended on bee keeping alone. 

 But 1 combine it with stock raising 

 and farming, and so a failure of the 

 honey crop is not so severely felt. 

 The sweet clover certainly is to be 

 prized as a honey plant ; it blossomed 

 longer than any other plant during 

 the severe drouth of the past summer. 

 I have been trying alsike clover, 

 but it has not yet proved a success. I 

 do not think it adapted to this cli- 

 mate. 



Harrisonville, Mo., Dec. 28, 18S1. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Sweet Clover for Bottom Lands, 



WM. BOLLING. 



Bees in this part of the country are 

 not in as goixl a condition to go into 

 winter as they might be. The fall 

 (low of honey was very small ; the 

 blossoms of goldenrod and aster dried 

 up before they had fairly opened, and 

 bees worked very little on them ; tliis 

 stopped late breeding, and but little 

 brood was found in the liives by the 

 end of September. 



I packed my 42 colonies of bees for 

 winter on their summer stands, in the 

 same manner as described in Bee 

 Journal for Aug. 3, page 241 . I had 

 some 200 lbs. of honey in frames ready 

 to extract, but while the dronth con- 

 tinued, I kept it for future necessity, 

 and when I packed my bees, it was 

 just the thing I needed to let my bees 

 have plenty of honey to winter on. 



Honey lias been sold here from 1.5 

 to 18 cts. for comb, and 10 to 14 cts. 

 for extracted. I have sold all my ex- 

 tracted honey to the laboring class of 

 people for 14 ct.s. per lb., who want to 

 put the honey on bread for their 

 children on going to school. Two lbs. 

 of honey will cost no more than 1 lb. 

 of butter, and the former will go much 

 further than the later. 



As soon as we have educated the 

 laboring classes in tliis country to use 

 honey in this way, and tluit )ioney is 

 as wholesome aiid healthful for their 

 children as butter, honey producers 

 will never see the market glutted with 

 extracted honey. 



Allow me to .say to Mr. E. Doty, 

 Macksburg, Iowa, that he can plant 

 nothing better on his 8 acres of bot- 

 tom lands than sweetclover to answer 

 every purpose. Sweet clover will 

 grow on bottom lands, even if the 

 point of the roots will touch the water. 



One of my neighbors had aliout 2 acres- 

 on the bottom of the Big Canadaway 

 Creek, thickly grown with sweet clo- 

 ver; he movved it in June, but wlien 

 in August and September the sun had 

 burnt up every green thing in the 

 pastures, and fanners had to feed 

 their cows from thehay-mow, his cows- 

 had plenty of green clover to eat, and 

 could make butter without extra cost 

 for grain ; and last, though not least, 

 my bees gathered the honey and 

 worked on it from early morning un- 

 til late at niglit. 

 Dunkirk, N. Y., Dee. 15, 18S1. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



The Apiary Register Book. 



M. L. TRESTEK. 



I like Mr. Thomas' suggestions 

 about the form of this book. I would 

 like a book ruled as follows: First 

 column, number of stand or location, 

 which is always permanent; then, 

 number of hive, which is liable to be 

 changed from one stand to another; 

 age of colony ; age of queen; race of 

 bees from which the queen came; es- 

 timated number of bees in a colony, 

 estimated amount of honey in the 

 hive ; when the honey was last taken 

 away ; date of last observation ; two 

 or tliree blank columns for apiarists 

 to place a. heading to suit themselves, 

 and a wide column for remarks, sim- 

 ply a good book or none. 



One year ago I packed straw all 

 around and over the hives, two or 

 three feet thick, leaving open the 

 small entrance, and I lost them all. I 

 bought two Italian colonies in the 

 spring and started anew ; increased 

 to 14 colonies by division, and ex- 

 tracted 230 lbs. of honey, leaving 

 them plenty for winter. If I have ten 

 colonies in'the spring I will feel posi- 

 tive that I liave made over four hun- 

 dred per cent. I like the Bee Jour- 

 nal and my bees very much, but if I 

 had a cast iron nose and upper lip I 

 would like the bees better. 



Lincoln, Neb., Dec. 17, ISSl. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Consumption of Honey in "Winter. 



REV. DR. 31. MAHIN. 



In the American Bee Journal 

 December 2S, W. Williamson, Lex- 

 ington, Kentucky, says of bees flying 

 out in such wea'tlier as we liave had 

 during the winter so far, " Of course 

 they consume more lioney;" lam 

 well satisHed from my observation 

 during the last twelve years that this 

 is a mistake, though a very common 

 one. Two and four years ago the bees 

 flew out almost every week, and some- 

 times almost every day for weeks at a 

 time, and the consumption of honey 

 was much less tlian in cold winters. 

 If breeding were carried on abundant- 

 ly the consumption of food would be 

 large: but it is not, and with a moder- 

 ate supply of honey 1 apprehend no 

 danger from starvation. So far my 

 bees, which are on the summer stands, 

 have consumed but little honey, as in- 



