THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



347 



Sweet clover was a favorite of his. By 

 cuttiiiK back, its blooming could be 

 prolonged until snow. 



J. J. Robinson said last year had 

 shown him the need of planting for 

 honey. His fall pasture was poor. 

 He recommended tlie jilaiiting of 

 mustard. It was protitahle for its 

 seed, and cattle would eat it. 



Mr. Cobb liad been benetitted by 

 the yield from boneset last fall. 



All agreed tliat while it does not 



Eay to cultivate plants exclusively for 

 oney, it would be found protitable to 

 scatter seed by the roadsides and in 

 waste places. 



VVm. M. S. Dodge, Sec. 





Wintered Well. — The Bee Jour- 

 nal comes to liand regularly, and I 

 like to see the able manner in which 

 it is conducted. Long may it con- 

 tinue to condemn tlie adulteration of 

 honey and food in any form. I see 

 reports from all parts, some from near 

 here; the weather lias been cold 

 nearly all the spring, witli an occa- 

 sional tine day to enliven up nature a 

 little. Since the lOtli tlie weather has 

 been fine, with little or no frost. Last 

 fall I told you of placing my 2-1 colo- 

 nies in a cellar. This spring tliey all 

 came out alive; 20 of tlieni were in 

 good condition, so I tliink witli my 

 little experience. They liave from 6 

 to 9 frames filled with brood and eggs; 

 frames 11x12 inches inside measure. 

 Three of the otliers are weak in bees, 

 brood and stores, having only from 1 

 to 3 frames tilled witli brood; the 

 others are Italians ; the queen died 

 about 2 weeks after setting out, lay- 

 ing only a few eggs. The colony 

 built two queen cells and they hatched 

 only worker brood. 1. What was tlie 

 reason V 2. Will sweet clover thrive 

 as far north as 44° N latitude V There 

 is a bird here that .seems to eat noth- 

 ing but bees. The throat and belly 

 are all white ; the top of the head and 

 back, to look at, are black, baton 

 opening the feathers on the liead, the 

 under feathers are a i)retty orange. 

 Some of the feathers I send with this. 

 The bird is not so large as the robin. 

 3. What is it ? 



Samuel Sanderson. 



Glenallen, Out., May 19, 1S82. 



[1. The larvse was too far advanced 

 before the cells w-ere built and feed- 

 ing of royal jelly commenced. 



2. We think tliere is no doubt of it. 

 It does excellently in otlier portions 

 of Ontario. 



3. There are two or three of our 

 wild birds wliicli might nearly answer 

 your description, except tliat they do 

 not eat bees that we are aware of. 

 The better w'ay will be to shoot one 

 with tine shot and send to some orni- 

 thologist for name and habits. — Ed.] 



Early Queen-Rearing.— Please name 

 tlie enclosed plant for me. It is cov- 

 ered with bees now, but it is the lirst 

 season I have ever known them to pay 

 any attention to it ; but that is proba- 

 bly owing to the fact that there is 

 no'thing else for them. Our apple 

 bloom vs'as all killed after two days' 

 work upon it, and the locust was far 

 enougli advanced when the freeze of 

 the 12th of April came for it to be 

 killed. So far it has been the worst 

 spring for bees that I have known. 

 My bees are in fine condition owing to 

 constant attention and feeding. If 

 we have a good red and white clover 

 bloom I hope yet to get a good yield, 

 as my bees work rni red clover splen- 

 didly. I sowed several acres of sweet 

 clover last fall, but it has not come up 

 to my satisfaction. I do not know 

 what is the cause of it, unless it 

 sprouted last fall (it being so mild) 

 and the winter killed it. I gave a 

 qiieenless colony eggs on the 20tli of 

 Marcli to rear a queen from, and on 

 tlie 2?id of April slie was laying, which 

 I consider very early queen-rearing 

 for tliis section. 



R. W. Keene. M. D. 



Versailles, Ky., May 4, 1882. 



[The plant is Phacelia rurshii, for 

 which there is no common name. 

 Like its relatives in the Waterleaf 

 family, it usually grows in moist, 

 shady places. It flowers from April 

 to June, and secretes a considerable 

 amount of very limpid nectar. The 

 flower is beautiful and interesting. — 

 T. J. BuRRiLL, 111. Ind. University.] 



Parthenogenesis.— Will you allow 

 me to express my gratificatiim that 

 you thought well enough of my arti- 

 cles to insert them in your excellent 

 Bee Journal, and at the same time 

 to define my position V At the time 

 that I wrote tlie paper you have 

 headed " The Functions of the Queen 

 bee," I believed that the evidence ad- 

 duced by Dzierzon was conclusive. 

 The experiments of the Abbe Ulivi 

 indicate, liowever, to my mind, the 

 possibility that former observers liave 

 misinterpreted some of the facts, and 

 I now entertain some doubts whicli 

 notliing but experiment can settle. 

 This explanation is deemed necessary, 

 because the last article you publislied 

 was written some time before the one 

 entitled " Parthenogenesis in Bees." 



Iloboken, N. J. C. F. Krobh. 



Pollen not Detrimental.— Bees win- 

 tered well in this section, and are 

 now doing w-ell. I have already re- 

 ceived enougti benefit from reading 

 the Bee Journal to i)ay for it a good 

 while. What was said about starving 

 caused me to look mine over, and I 

 found my best colony witliout luuiey. 

 I wintered 8 colonies. Two of them 

 I took out of trees in the middle of 

 August ; 1 of them I gave a little 

 honey, and the other none. I fed 

 botli all the syrup (made from tlie 

 best white sugar) they would take ; 

 botli wintered without the loss of a 

 hundred bees that I ccuild tiiid, but 

 one of them lost its queen about a 



month ago, and there was no brood or 

 eggs in tlie hive. Wliat I am getting 

 at is this, I had a colony in the same 

 kind of a hive tliat out-numbered 

 either of the two I have mentioned 

 at least four to one, and had more 

 than 20 pounds of nice capped honey. 

 It dwindled until two weeks ago, 

 when there was only about 200 bees- 

 and the queen left. I put her with 

 the swarm that had lost their queen, 

 and she has done finely, so the trouble- 

 was not with the queen, and there 

 was plenty of nice honey which wa» 

 where the bees could get it. I think 

 it would trouble some of the bee- 

 keepers to tell what ailed that colony. 

 A number of years ago I asked a man 

 who had lost 80 colonies one winter,, 

 why he thought they died ; he said he 

 thought it was the want of bee-bread, 

 as there was none in any of tlie hives,, 

 and there was plenty of honey. I 

 don't take any stock in the pollen 

 theory. I do not think it has anything 

 to (lowith the bees dying, and I could 

 give good reasons. T. Ellicott. 

 Fentonville, Mich., May 22, 1882. 



Fastening Foundation in Sections. — 



Not knowing how others fastened 

 their foundation into the section 

 boxes I was obliged to find a way, 

 and think I can put them in faster the 

 way I shall describe than any way I 

 have so far heard of. My sections 

 were 4'4x4i4 and the sheets run al- 

 most 4,'.2 inches in width, so after 

 dividing the sheet in pieces large 

 enougli for the section, I trimmed off 

 ,14 inch from the width ; I then set 

 luy section up-side-down, and laid 

 my foundation in far enough for it to 

 extend }i of an inch over the slot ; in 

 the meantime I had ready a lamp, 

 vv'ith a box by its side of the same 

 liight; I had a very small table knife 

 (such as the children use) laid on top,, 

 and vvlien mv section was ready my 

 knife was lio't (if any preferred they 

 could use a charcoal fire, if they did 

 not wish to use oil). I then passed 

 the knife over the foundation about 

 twice, which caused it to melt and go 

 into the slut; I then laid on the J^ 

 inch of foundation that I cut off, and 

 with about 2 or 3 strokes of the knife, 

 at the same time reaching behind and 

 raising tlie foundation to a perpendic- 

 ular, when it is complete. I have not 

 yet tried it, but it might be an advan- 

 tage to use a frame as described on 

 page 309, by Mr. L. James, in tlie Bee 

 Journal, but I can, in the manner 

 described, put in or fill 3 sections per 

 minute, when the foundation is cut, 

 and think, by a little practice, I could 

 yet put tliem' in much faster. 

 Ridgeland, 111. W. H. Bussey. 



Cold in Georgia.— For nearly a week 



we liave had a " snap " of unprece- 

 dentedly cold weather for this season 

 of the year. For several days fires 

 were required in order to be comfor- 

 table. Such weather is very bad for 

 queen-rearing. The season thus far 

 has been fine and the flow abundant ; 

 the quality being much better than 

 usual, of lighter color and better fla- 

 vor. J. P. II. Brown. 

 Augusta, Ga., May 18, 1882. 



