346 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



full colony of bees. Now, to those 

 who are rearing cheap queens, I wish 

 to say that wliat I luive said in the 

 Bee Journal was not intended to 

 reflect on your lionesty, not in tlie 

 least. When I am talking about 

 queen-rearing, I tliink I know what I 

 am about. If a man can make money 

 rearing queens for $1, keep on rearing 

 them. 1 cannot, and if I sell for tliat 

 price or for a less sum, by-and-bye you 

 can make up your minds that it is for 

 self amusement. 

 Wenham, Mass. 



Local Convention Directory. 



1882. Time and Place nf Meeting. 



June 3— Hiirt County, Ky.. .it Woodsouville, Ky. 



9— N. W. Wisconsin, at LaCrosse, Wis. 



G. J. Pammel, Sec. LaCrosse. Wis. 



Sept. 5— N. W. 111. and S. W. Wis., at Rockton. 111. 

 Jonathan Stewart, See. 



Oct. 5— Kentucky ITnion, at Shelbyville. Ky. 



G. W. Demaree, Sec, Christiansburg, Ky, 



Tuscarawas Valley, at Newcomerstown, O, 

 J. A. Bucklew, Sec, Clarks, O. 



IW In order to have this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetinds.— ED. 



Western Michigan. 



The Western Micliigan Bee-Keep- 

 ers'Association convened according to 

 appointment in the city of (irand 

 Rapids, April 2fjth and 27th, 1882. The 

 attendance was good, considering tlie 

 unfavorable time of the year. JSIuch 

 interest and good feeling was mani- 

 fested, and tlie discussion as follows : 

 T. M. Cobb was asked to give his 

 experience tlie past winter. Said, be- 

 ing anxious for increase tlie past sum- 

 mer, he had divided artilicially, and, 

 the season being poor, tliey tiad failed 

 to build up as he expected them to; 

 consequently, liad dwindled, and he 

 had lost many. He would warn all 

 to be cautious in this. Having no 

 cellar suitable for the purpose of win- 

 tering, he had practiced packing with 

 straw, setting the hives in rows. Had 

 some colonies in chaff hives last win- 

 ter, and should use them exclusively 

 in the future. 



The President wintered in a dry, 

 well ventilated cellar 9 feet deep. Re- 

 moved the caps from the hives 

 (Langstrotli), and slid back the board 

 cover to leave a crack of an inch for 

 ventilation. The winter before last, 

 out of 60 colonies be had lost 7 ; 6 of 

 these had starved. Last winter, no 

 loss. Temperature of cellar never be- 

 low 40'3. Where he had found too 

 much honey, he had extracted in 

 August. 



J. H. Robertson : Wintered in a 

 cellar in which there was a spring of 

 the temperature ot .52^. The presence 

 of water had a purifying effect on the 

 atmosphere, and helped to maintain 



an evenness of temperature. Used 

 burlaps over the frames to allow 

 moisture to pass off. Winter before 

 last, through carelessness, had lost 8 

 out of 40S colonies. The past winter 

 out of .511 had lost 2. Temperature 

 50'J to .55'J. Preferred .50" to 40'^. 

 Objected to the cost of chaff hive. 



Mr. Cobb, with others, objected to 

 the trouble of carrying out and in a 

 cellar. He thought chaff hives better 

 for summer as well as winter, and 

 little more expensive, taking cellar 

 into the account. He objected to oil 

 cloth or board cover for winter use. 



The President thought the extra 

 expense would more than pay for a 

 good cellar. The one he used, which 

 would hold 3.50 colonies, had cost him 

 S.50. 



Mr. Robertson had built a cellar 4 

 feet in the ground, with earth walls 2 

 feet thick, rising 4 feet above the sur- 

 face, to hold 390 colonies, for $25. In 

 answer to a question, he said he pre- 

 ferred well-ripened clover honey to 

 winter bees on. Buckwheat honey, 

 some seasons, was very nice, but he 

 put no dependence on it. Buckwheat 

 grown on clay produced honey infer- 

 ior to that grown on sandy soil. Suc- 

 cessful wintering depended much on 

 the management through the season. 



Mr. R. E. Kilburn addressed the 

 Convention as follows, on 



Planting for Honey. 



Much has been done within the 

 past few years toward making bee- 

 keeping a grand success, so far as im- 

 proved iiniilements, and the careful 

 breeding of the best strains of bees 

 are concerned. We now have in 



place of the log gums " in which the 

 working of tlie busy bee was a mys- 

 tery not to be solved," the movable 

 comb hive, by the use of which we 

 are enabled to admire and profit by 

 those very huvs of nature which, be- 

 fore, were so mysterious, and are 

 prompted to excla'im with the poet : 

 " Little creatures, that by a rule in 

 nature teach the law of order to a 

 peopled kingdom." 



And as regards the improvements 

 of bees, we now have the beautiful 

 Italian, Cvprian and Syrian bees, 

 bred to such a high state of excellency 

 that our Italian bees are declared to 

 be fully equal, if not superior, to the 

 native bees of Italy, so much so, that 

 the propriety of further importing is 

 questioned. But still, a great many 

 of us are not satisfied, and we say bee- 

 keeping does not pay ! Now let ns 

 pause a moment and ask, why V We 

 certainly have all we can desire in 

 the shape 'of improved implements 

 and highly bred strains of bees, and 

 if so, there can Vie onlyone other cause 

 of failure provided we manage pro- 

 perly—it is a scarcity of honey-pro- 

 ducing plants or natural flora. And 

 if this is the cause, what is to be 

 done V Our forests are melting away 

 with wonderful rapidity, and within a 

 few years our honey harvest from 

 forest trees, such as basswood, sugar 

 maple, whitewood or tulip tree, will 

 be a thing of the past; while on our 

 prairies and river bottoms, every 

 tract of land that is brought under 

 cultivation, and every swamp that is 



drained and made tillable, will take 

 from the bees another portion of na- 

 ture's flora, anl from the apiarist a 

 portion of his expected honey crop. 



There seems to be only one great 

 honey plant of all the natural flora, 

 which is not injured by cultivation, 

 but on the contrary is beneflttedby it, 

 this is white clover {Trifoliimi repens). 

 That modest little flower, from which 

 bees usually obtain the richest and 

 best harvest of the season. But it 

 will not do to depend entirely on white 

 clover, for it sometimes, by reason of 

 unpropitious weather, refusses to sur- 

 render to the bees the rich gift of nec- 

 tar expected, and as a consequence, 

 the bees are threatened with starva- 

 tion, and the bee-keeper gets dis- 

 couraged and exclaims: "It don't 

 pay," and he is probably right. 



There is only one thing left for us 

 to do, we mmt phint tor honey. Several 

 of our leading apiarists have recog- 

 nized this fact. Mr. D. A. Jones, of 

 Beeton, Canada, a practical apiarist, 

 and the (irst importer of Syrian and 

 Cyprian bees to America, is reported 

 to have 20 acres of land sown entirely 

 to sweet clover, for the beneflt of his 

 bees. Sweet clover (MelUotus alba), 

 is one of the very best honey-produc- 

 ing plants known. The honey which 

 it produces is considered superior to 

 white clover. It is very hardy, will 

 grow anywhere, and on all kinds of 

 soil. A correspondent of the Bee 

 Journal writes that if sweet clover 

 be sown in a bed of Canada thistles, it 

 will ultimately destroy them. 



]5ee-keepers should see to it that all 

 waste land in their vicinity, such as 

 thistle patches, fence corners, swamps, 

 etc., be well stocked with sweet clover 

 or some other honey-producing plants. 

 Borage, catnip, motherwort, mus- 

 tard, etc., for instance, and they will 

 be greatly rewarded in the extra 

 amount of honey they will procure, 

 and will exclaim : " Bee - keeping 

 does pay !" Besides, there will be a 

 great improvement in the looks of the 

 ground where the thistles used to be. 

 An estimate has been made that an 

 acre of ground sown to sweet clover 

 will sui)port 20 colonies of bees, and 

 afford from "00 to 1,000 lbs. of honey. 

 " Such estimates are evidently a lit- 

 tle large," but, nevertheless, let us all 

 plant for honey, and see if it does not 

 pay. 



Mr. Robertson : A. I. Root was of 

 the opinion that cultivating plants ex- 

 clusively for honey would not pay. 

 He (Robertson) was satislied it would 

 pay to jilant the Alsike clover. The 

 honey was the same as that from 

 white clover. Stock preferred Alsike 

 to red clover. In seeding, use only 2 

 to 4 lbs. to an acre. It did best on low 

 ground. He found bees swarming on 

 sweet clover last summer for the first 

 time. Bokhara clover was the same 

 as sweet clover or melilot, the differ- 

 ence being in the seed ; the former 

 being imported, and more perfectly 

 cleaned. He was inclined to think 

 the best plant for honey was the 

 Simpson honey plant or ligwort. It 

 would grow on any soil. 



Mr. Kilburn said Mr. Dadant had 

 found it ditticult to grow in Illinois. 



