154 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



A Floating Apiary. 



The problem of what to do with a 

 floating apiary was thrust upon me 

 last week by the unprecedented flood 

 in the Ohio river. I can recommend 

 the so-called " long idea" hive as the 

 best in the world tor floating. I had 

 about a dozen of them afloat last year, 

 and the bees kept above water, and 

 were uniniured. This year I saved 

 my apiary by floating about 50 colo- 

 nies on rafts, and confining about the 

 same number in a boom, where they 

 floated four days. A great many bees 

 have been lost in the Ohio Valley, by 

 the flood. I have picked up a number 

 of box hives and a few movable comb 

 hives, but the bees were all dead in 

 them. The water was 5 feet deep in 

 the lower rooms of my dwelling last 

 week. My buildings and fencings are 

 all wrecked ; my workshop oadly 

 damaged, and the machinery was un- 

 der water for several days. Words 

 cannot picture the distress among the 

 poorer classes, caused l)y this flood. 

 The water was over 5 feet higher than 

 ever before known to be. 



W. C. Pelham. 



Maysville, Ky., Feb. 21, 1884. 



Bees Doing Well. 



I have 96 colonies of bees in the 

 cellar under my dwelling house. Sev- 

 eral of them are only 3 to 4 frame 

 nuclei. The nuclei seems to be win- 

 tering as well as the stronger colo- 

 nies. Some colonies have stores of 

 honey only ; some have sugar only, 

 but most of them have both, and the 

 pollen is generally left in. Some have 

 brood. They have been in the cellar 

 101 days without a flight, and no signs 

 of diarrhffia. The cellar temperature 

 is from 40° to 52- ; generally from 4B^ 

 to 50°. I do not like it lower than 46^. 

 The hives have bottoms, but no tops 

 except single pieces of burlap, and 

 some of tliese have holes through 

 them. The hives are the 8-frame 

 Langstroth. They are so piled that 

 there are about 3 inches between the 

 tops in one row and the bottoms in the 

 row above. Occasionally we sweep 

 the cellar, and, so far, have taken up 

 about a bushel of dead bees. Our 

 hives are dry ; no mold in the cellar, 

 except among the dead bees on the 

 cemented floor. The cellar has an un- 

 derground ventilator of 6-inch tile, 

 and a 6-inch stove-pipe reaching to 

 within 20 inches of the cellar floor, 

 and connecting with the stove-pipe in 

 the room above. Ika Oevis — 96. 



Whitby, Ont., Feb. 21, 1884. 



Bee Diarrhoea. 



There seems to be a sincere wish to 

 find out if we can the cause of dysen- 

 tery among bees, especially is this the 

 case as relates to wintering ; some en- 

 dorse the pollen theory, but from my 

 limited experience I am inclined to 

 think that dysentery may be produced 

 by either of the following causes : 

 Sour honey, breeding and eating pollen 

 in confinement, gorging themselves 

 with honey without chance for a 

 flight, and want of proper ventilation; 

 and in this connection I wish to quote 

 a few lines from Langstroth on the 



honey bee, page 127 : " I examined, 

 last summer, the bees of a new swarm 

 vi'hich had been suffocated for want of 

 air, and found their bodies distended 

 with a yellow and noisesome sub- 

 stance justas though they had perished 

 from dysentery. A few were still 

 alive, and instead of honey, tlieir 

 bodies were filled with the same dis- 

 gusting fluid, altliough the bees had 

 not been shut up more than two 

 hours." Now, how ean this be ex- 

 plained on the pollen theory ? Is it 

 not best to be careful about endorsing 

 any set theory until we are in posses- 

 sion of a larger amount of facts than 

 we now possess 'i In the mean time 

 let every bee-keeper be on the look- 

 out to discover the true cause of this 

 fearful disease. .J. M. Goodrich. 

 South Frankfort.Mlch., Feb. 20, 1884. 



Are Bees Taxable in Michigan? 



Prof. Cook :— As you are a brother 

 apiarist and scholar, I address you for 

 the purpose of gaining information. 

 If you will tell us, through the Bee 

 .louRNAL, whether bees are taxable 

 in Michigan, and if so, is the whole 

 colony taxable or only queen and hive, 

 and are any number of colonies ex- 

 empt, you will not only oblige me, but 

 I think many others. I nave kept 

 bees about five years, and have never 

 known any to be taxed, in this place, 

 until last year my 42 colonies in Doo- 

 little hives were assessed $200. 1 am 

 a farmer and an apiarist on a small 

 scale. A. P. Cowan. 



Grattan. Mich. 



In reply to ]Mr. Cowan, I would state 

 that all property not exempted by 

 special act, is liable to taxation. Bees 

 are property, and hence taxable. Few 

 have bees, and many who do, keep so 

 few bees, that they have escaped no- 

 tice, and so find no place on the as- 

 sessor's blanks. Therefore, usage has 

 omitted bees. The bee-keeper, how- 

 ever, desires the protection of the 

 law and all the privileges of citizen- 

 ship; and so there is no reason in jus- 

 tice why his special property should 

 not bear the burdens of taxation. The 

 omission in the past has resulted from 

 an oversight. AH personal property 

 not exempted is taxable, and as bees 

 are not specially mentioned, they 

 would be, like all other property, taxed 

 according to the valuation placed on 

 them by the assessor. A. J. Cook. 



Double- Walled Hives. 



In the issue of Dec. 19, 1883, of the 

 Bee Journal, Mr. F. M. Cheeney, in 

 speaking of "double-walled hives" 

 for summer use, says: "They are 

 too much like a person putting on an 

 overcoat in .July to keep out the heat. 

 The dead-air space between the outer 

 and inner box will be of a higher tem- 

 perature than the surrounding air, 

 etc." Now, either Mr. Cheeney is 

 mistaken in this matter, or else all the 

 ideas of scientific men in regard to 

 heat and ventilation are entirely 

 wrong. Dead-air is an almost perfect 

 non-conductor of heat and cold. 

 AVere it not so, a d 'uble-walled house 

 or hive would be colder in winter than 

 a single. If a double-walled hive is a 



protection from cold (and there is no 

 doubt on this point), it must also be a 

 protection from heat, and the only 

 objection that has been made to their 

 use that I have seen (save this of Mr. 

 Cheeney) is that they will not warm 

 up as readily in the spring; as a single- 

 walled hive. The object of a double- 

 wall, is to secure evenness of tem- 

 perature, and thus preserve quietness 

 inside the hive. I do not write this 

 for the purpose of starling a discus- 

 sion, but to set Mr. C. right on a point 

 which he evidently raisaprehends. 

 J. E. Pond, Jk. 

 Foxboro. Mass., Feb. 22, 1883. 



Educate the Customers. 



"Why sell extracted for less than 

 comb honey V This is the inquiry I 

 am confronted with almost daily, and 

 one who put this same question, yes- 

 terday, said he always thought that 

 there was some adulteration to cheapen 

 it. Said he : " It looks to me as 

 though pure honey out of the comb is 

 worth more than that in the comb ; it 

 must be worth something to take it 

 out of the comb." When I explained 

 it to him as best I could, he said: "Oh, 

 I see now;" and I sold him 23 pounds 

 of extracted honey ; but he said : 

 " Nine-tenths of the people think the 

 same as I did." Why not get up a 

 circular to scatter among the people, 

 that will make this point clear to 

 them '? Let us have something shoi-t, 

 but to the point. Then I, for one, 

 would invest and spread them in my 

 neighborhood, and see what would be 

 the result. Even if we use pails, cans, 

 jars, etc., and leave this prejudice in 

 the minds of people, extracted honey 

 will drag along and find slow sale. 

 S. Smith. 



Neoga, m., Feb. 27, 1884. 



[We will, as suggested, get up some 

 leaflets on this point, and supply them 

 at .50 cents per 100, with the honey- 

 producers' name and address free, 

 when 200 or more are ordered at one 

 time, and send them to any address 

 by mail postpaid— all provided that 

 enough will be wanted to pay expen- 

 ses. Who will take them ?— Ed.] 



Ants' Wings. 



J. D. Enas, on page 118, speaking of 

 the queen ant's vsings being clipped, 

 asks, " Am I right V" He is right ; 

 she does it herself. I have seen her 

 perform the operation more than once. 

 After, I suppose a successful flight to 

 meet the drone ant, I have seen the 

 queen ant alight, crawl a few inches, 

 stop, turn her head around, and with 

 her mandibles, like a pair of scissors, 

 clip one wing and the other close to 

 her body. G. O. Grist. 



Nortli Springfield, Mo. 



Bee Space. 



On page 1.33 of the Bee .Journal, 

 I am made to say : Allow % inch bee- 

 space over the sections. This is " too 

 much of a good thing." I intended to 

 say 5-lP inch, and think J| inch not 

 too small. C. H. Dibbern. 



Milan,Ill.,Feb. 27. 1884. 



