314 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



for it not explained in the correction. 

 If it is out of place to express one's 

 preference for hives or anything else 

 used in the apiary, giving tlie name of 

 the inventor oi manufacturer, then I 

 ■will be more careful in the future in 

 making out my reports. 



' Mus. A. M. Sanders. 

 Sheridan, Mich., March 13, 1882. 



[Inasmueli as it is admitted in tlie 

 nbove letter that the words omitted 

 '• did not change the ideas," of course 

 the only thing to complain of was the 

 omission of advertising in the reading 

 ■columns— a thing we aim to do at all 

 times— but once in a while such ad- 

 vertising is so woven into the letter 

 that it escapes our notice. So long as 

 the hive was mentioned, for which the 

 writer had preference, it was wholly 

 unnecessary to give the name and ad- 

 dress of the manufacturer ; tluit would 

 be simply an advertisement for wliich 

 our columns are open at 20 cents per 

 line, and against which our reading 

 ■columns are cloccd, at any price. So 

 there is nothing to complain of, and 

 no excuse tor writing to the manu- 

 facturers of the hive that we had 

 ■made the omissions to injure it, etc. 

 Had we inserted tlie free advertise- 

 ment in our reading columns, our ad- 

 vertisers, wlio pay for such notices, 

 ■would have had cause to coui))lain. 

 But now, no injustice has been done, 

 and no one luis any just grievance. — 

 Ed.] 



Waters UecedeiU— The water lias 

 fallen 5 feet ; I4 of the lands ovei- 

 flown are planteil ; '4 will be planted 

 this week ; I4' will be planted before 

 June, and ttie remaining J4 will not be 

 planted this year. Weather 60 ' to 

 80 ', and cloudy ; rain last night. Bees 

 are doing but little this month ; no 

 swarming so far. We fertilize from a 

 nucleus of drones, made with two 

 frames of hatching drone brood and 

 •one frame of honey. 



^ ' J. W. K. Shaw. 



Loreauville, La., May 8, 1882. 



Bees Doing Well.— 1 started with .50 

 colonies— have 120 now, all vigorous ; 

 have had no spring dwindling or any 

 disease here. I have on a large lot of 

 sections that are being Idled rapidly. 

 Those I offer for sale here are all 

 nicely capped and white as snow, and 

 are looked upon with groat wonder. 

 An old fogy said : "See what this 

 country can do besides raising cotton, 

 -if we only had the sense to develop it." 

 I have repressed swarming as much 

 as possible, and shall always liere- 

 ufter clip a wing of every queen, to 

 prevent swarming as far as 1 can. 1 

 am hopeful of Southern bee-culture. 

 :Success to the 1?eb Journal and 

 Nortliein bee-keepers theuresent sea- 

 son. Osc.\K F. Bledsoe. 



Grenada. Miss., May 10, 1882. 



Rubber for Bellows Smokers.— See- 

 ing in the Bee-A'eeper.s' Exchange an 

 article giving experiments with" rub- 

 ber' in the manufacture of smoker 

 bellows, I thought you would be 

 pleased to place before your readers 

 further experiments with that article. 

 To do tills and to avoid the implica- 

 tion of interest in the matter (except 

 for the benetit of bee-keepers), I mail 

 to the Bee Journal, this mail, two 

 Bingham rubber bellows, which have : 

 been in steady use since May, ISSO, 

 for inspection. The thinner rubber 

 has stood the test much the best, and 

 has worked quick and easy all the 

 time. The heavy rubber has cracked 

 much the worse of the two, and 

 worked slow and hard. They both 

 began to crack the second season, and 

 have grown worse all the time since. 

 When I began the experiment, I saw 

 that rubber had two good points for 

 smoker material, viz: Careless bee- 

 keepers would liiul that mice would 

 not gnaw them, and that they would 

 cost the manufacturer about twocents 

 less apiece. To balance this, they 

 would weigh more and perhaps have 

 otlier fatal qualities. I was so well 

 pleased with the thin rubber experi- 

 ment the first season, that I contem- 

 plated putting rubber smokers on the 

 market, and bought considerable ma- 

 terial for that purpose, but lo ! when 

 cool spring management began, my 

 much hoped-for rubber began to crack 

 as you see, and no rubber smokers 

 were offered for sale by me. 



T. F. BiNOIIAM. 



Abronia, Mich., May 8, 1882. 



[The rubber bellows above referred 

 to have come to hand, and both show 

 evidence of much use. One only ex- 

 hibits signs of cracking to any consid- 

 erable extent, and even that is but 

 little, if any, impaired for use. We 

 do not believe, however, that they are 

 at all superior to good leather, either 

 in point of durability or effective 

 work.— Ed.] 



Wiiiterhisf Bees.— I commenced last 

 season with 2 colonies of bees— one 

 black, the other Italian ; reared 40 

 Italian queens, and increased to 9col- 

 onies ; bought 4 colonies of blacks in 

 August, and Italianized them. In 

 September we united the nuclei and 

 commenced to feed coffee A sugar, 

 and just before winter set in we cut 

 two ?4 inch holes through each comb 

 about two inches below top-bar of 

 each frame, and then they had large 

 ([uantities of pollen stored, about one- 

 half of the cells being jiartly Idled 

 \vith pollen and linished with honey, 

 and we estimated that each colony 

 bad about 1-5 pounds of honey and 

 sugar syrup, and the cold weather 

 caine on before they had cap]ied all of 

 it. This has been a very hard winter 

 for bees in this section, the losses 

 being larger than a year ago, averag- 

 ing about .50 per cent. We enclosed 

 each hive in a separate house, with 5 

 inches space between the house and 

 hive on the sides, and -3 inches on the 

 bottom, made high enough to contain 

 the hive with the sections on, and 



covered with a good, tight roof. We 

 next put new, clean burlaps on top of 

 the frames, then had a frame 7 inches 

 wide halved on the lower edge so that 

 it will shut down over the top of the 

 hive one-half of an inch with two 

 pieces of burlaps between them ; then 

 we tacked a piece of clean burlaps on 

 the bottom of this frame, leaving it 

 slack enough so that the halving will 

 go down over the hive, we then tilled 

 this with chaff and placed it on the 

 hive ; next we filled all the space be- 

 tween the hive and house with dry 

 sawdust .3 inches above the bottom of 

 the chaff box, put the roof on the 

 house, and leave the entrance wide 

 open all winter and see that it is kept 

 clear, and let them remain on their 

 summer stands, which is about 4 

 inches from the ground. By so doing 

 we now rejoice with 13 colonies, all 

 strong and healthy, and, strange to 

 say. they had consumed nearly all of 

 their large supply of pollen before 

 they commenced to rear lirood, with 

 no "injurious results. I think that a 

 properly ventilated and protected hive 

 is tlie most essential thing in safe 

 wintering. Our houses cost about 

 three dollars each, and they are orna- 

 mental as well as useful. 



Isaac IIutchins. 

 Wellington, Me., May 5, 1882. 



Still Cold and Cheerless.— Our cold 

 weather continues, and snow and 

 frost is the order of the day here in 

 what is called " cold Spofford," as that 

 is the name of our town. The morn- 

 ing of the 2d of May found us with 2 

 inches of snow on the ground and a 

 freezing wind from the northwest, 

 while on the hills it was fair sleighing. 

 The 30tli of April (Sunday) was quite 

 a warm day, and some pollen was 

 brought in for the first, but the cold 

 of the 2d killed the blossoms of the 

 elms and soft maples which were 

 opening. With the exception of April 

 30th, it has not been warm enough to 

 open bee hives in a month. My best 

 colonies have brood only in 3 frames, 

 while the poorest have none at all. 1 

 am liopiug for warm weather soon. If 

 it does not come, the mild winter will 

 have been of little benetit, for our 

 bees might as well die from a cold 

 winter as from a cold spring. 



G. M. DooLrrTLE. 



Borodino, N. Y., May 8, 1882. 



Honey Harvest in Texas.— Bees are 

 gathering honey rapidly from ratan. 

 This harvest will connect vi'ith horse- 

 miiit, and if seasonable, will give us 

 a constant How of 60 days. 



Wm. R. Howard. 



Kingston, Texas, May 3, 1882. 



Wintered Successfnlly Afrain.— Bees 



have again come tlirough all in ex- 

 cellent condition. This is now win- 

 ters in succession without loss by my 

 system of chaff packing, of which I 

 am the originator. Wintering suc- 

 cessfully is settled with nie ; but how 

 to prevent swarming is the great 

 problem with me, if I run for box 

 honey. H- H. Flick. 



Lavansville, Pa. 



