314 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



ecutive committee make such arrange- 

 ments as may be deemed best. 



Adjourned to meet on the 3d Satur- 

 day in next August, at I p. m. 



For tlie American Bee Jourual. 



Review of Unsettled Points. 



EDSON J. SMITH. 



No report of a trial with comb foun- 

 dation should be given to the world 

 by one who has made such advance- 

 ment in bee culture as has Jlr. Hed- 

 dou, when such comb foundation as 

 the V^mdervort and 01m are left out ; 

 both of which are equal, if not supe- 

 rior to any which were used in his 

 trial ; and it does the manufacturers 

 of both of ttie machines great injus- 

 tice. The \'andervort is the leading 

 machine in this vicinitv. getting 

 nearly all the wax to make up, in 

 preference to otlier machines. 



Last year I used over 600 frames 

 filled with the Vandervort foundation, 

 and but 4 of them sagged. I use no 

 wire, as I consider it useless when 

 foundation is fastened in as it should 

 be. 



Double-walled hives are taking the 

 lead in tliis county. At least "4 of 

 the apiaries contain them, and the last 

 year over 70 tons of comb honey was 

 produced in them, in one and two- 

 pound sections, and all being first- 

 class honey. Though the losses were 

 heavy ill some localities last winter, 

 here it was scarcely anything. 



In the spring of IHSl, mv bees had 

 come through the winter very strong, 

 and bred up fast. About Uky 1 they 

 commenced to bring in hoiiey and 

 pollen from the woods. The sun 

 shone out in the morning very warm, 

 there was no wind, and the bees went 

 to the woods in large numbers ; aljout 

 10 or 11 a. m., the wind blew up from 

 the north very cold ; and tlie bees on 

 their return to the hives, became 

 chilled, dropped on the ground and 

 died. You could pick them up every- 

 where, loaded with pollen ; and the 

 consequence was that the colonies 

 were not nearly so strong liv Mav l-'J 

 as they were on April 1. Now, I know 

 they were well wintered, and had the 

 weather kept warm, they would not 

 have dwindled; and yet, Mr. Heddon. 

 on page .578 of the Bke Journal for 

 1888, m reply to Mr. Mitchell's ques- 

 tion, says : '■ It is mv opinion that no 

 bees ever spring dwindled that could 

 rightfully be called well wintered." 



If the wind comes from the north 

 and blows hard and cold wlien the 

 suiicro.sses the equinoctial in March, 

 the bees will dwindle badly in tlie 

 spring ; but if tiie wind comes from 

 the south, or if the weather is calm 

 and the wind changeable, the effect 

 on the bees will be opposite from the 

 former condition. 



Bees will not dwindle as badly in 

 double-walled hives packed with chaff, 

 or feel the excessive heat of summer, 

 as in single-walled ones. 



The black bees are the best to go to 

 work in the sections, and build white 

 comb which will take the first pre- 

 mium every time over that made by 

 the Italians. The blacks are a hardier 



race of bees, less liable to swarm or 

 abscond, do not breed so fast after the 

 honey season is over, and will not 

 cling to the comb nm- rob as quickly 

 as the Italians. 



I cannot agree with :Mr. U. in re- 

 gard to separators being cheaper. I 

 am getting out 2.000 of them for one- 

 pound sections, each one being long 

 enough for two sections, and 51)0 for 

 two-pound sections; the whole cost of 

 which will be $fi..50. besides my own 

 work, and I think they will last a life- 

 time. 



Wood is preferable to tin for separa- 

 tors, as it is warmer and easier for the 

 bees to cling to or climb on. As 

 nearly all the honey in this county is 

 glassed, we shall continue using sep- 

 arators, for we believe it pays to glass 

 it when we can make $6 per dav for 

 washing and glassing ; and theii the 

 dealers demand it. As a proof of this, 

 one firm in this vicinity bought over 

 7 tons of honey last fall, all of which 

 was glassed. 



New England. 



For the Aoierlcan Bee Journal. 



Seneca County, 0., Convention. 



Met on Saturday, April 29, at Tiffin, 

 with President Troxel in the chair. 



" Early Spring Treatment" was the 

 first topic discussed. Mr. Overmyer, 

 of Sandusky county, advocated letting 

 bees remain quiet, not disturbing 

 them too much. After an examina- 

 tion sufficient to see whether they 

 need feeding, and to see that none 

 are motherless, they should then be 

 left to themselves— no opening and 

 breaking their clusters out of simple 

 curiosity. Have a purpose when you 

 open a CDlony, and when you do so, 

 perform the operation as rapidly as 

 possible, and then quit. They iieed 

 to be kept warm so that breeding mav 

 go on rapidly. He advised using a 

 division-board, and contracting the 

 brood-chamber to the number of 

 combs that the quantity of bees will 

 cover and no more. As the weather 

 gets warmer, and the bees increase in 

 number, give more combs. Usually 

 one comb at a time is sulficient. and 

 always put the comb you give them in 

 the centre, and not on the outside of 

 tlie hive. In describing the different 

 qualities of honey, he gave a descrip- 

 tion of a dark-colored honey the bees 

 had gathered at his apiary in Ottawa 

 county late in the season, from the 

 tall cane growing on the low lands 

 along Lake Erie. He found that any 

 colonies going into winter quarters 

 with any of this quality of honey un- 

 capped, was fatal to the colony. The 

 bees gathered this from the blades of 

 the cane, and he believed, upon ex- 

 amination, that it was the product of 

 a plant louse. He doubted verv much 

 whether there was any such thing as 

 '■ honey dew." 



Mr. Feasel thought it unnecessary 

 to contract the space in brood-cham- 

 ber, believing that the bees would see 

 to that, and generate heat sufiicient 

 to protect and mature the brood. He 

 had read in a bee- paper of a case 

 where bees had generated heat suf- 

 ficient to melt down their combs when 

 the thermometer was below zero. He 



was quite sure that there was such a 

 thing as honey dew when the condi- 

 tions were favorable for its formation. 



Mr. Martin did not believe in any 

 such reports that bees could generate 

 heat sufiicient to melt down combs, 

 when the thermometer was below 

 zero. Bees, he said, had no nose, 

 and did not breathe by means of 

 lungs as animals do, nor yet by gills 

 as tish do, but through small holes 

 called spiracles under their wings. It 

 was simply an impossibilitv for 40,000 

 bees— a strong colony— to inhale suf- 

 ficient oxygen to produce that amount 

 of heat. He believed that bees fre- 

 quently, when severe cold continued 

 for an unusual length of time, ex- 

 hausted their physical strength and 

 died from overexertion, in their ef- 

 forts to keep warm, by tlieir rapid 

 breathing, as that is the only means 

 they have of increasing the tempera- 

 ture in their hives. \Ve all know that 

 one way to warm up. when very cold, 

 is to breathe rapidly for a short time. 



Adjourned till 1 p. in. 



At 1 p. m. the association met with 

 an increased attendance. A general 

 examination of honey, hives, etc., 

 took place. 



" What kind of hive shall we use V" 

 and " Bee Pasturage." were the topics 

 for the afternoon session. Mr. Over- 

 myer explained his process of trans- 

 ferring. He said he used two kinds 

 of hives, the Langstroth and the Gal- 

 lup. He believed in having large 

 hives, so as to give plenty of room, 

 and when any colony weakens from 

 any cause, contract space bv a divi- 

 sion-board. He explained extracting 

 honey, and said that last summer he 

 obtained 41 barrels of honey from 17.5 

 colonies— spring count, in 9 days— 

 mostly from linden, as white clover 

 was very scarce in this locality. 



Mr. Martin explained, for the be- 

 ginners, the process of transferring 

 and putting a new swarm into the 

 hive. Would not transfer too early; 

 not before the fruit trees are in bloom, 

 and not then on any day when the 

 bees could not fly in safetv from cold 

 blasts of wind. He preferred the 

 standard Langstroth hive. 



Mr. Feasel said be used the Langs- 

 trotli hive and worked for comb 

 honey ; explaining fully his mode of 

 securing honey in sections. He said 

 if he obtained 2') pounds as an average 

 from all colonies, old and young, it 

 was equal to the large yields from 

 spring count. Can take one good 

 strong colony in his apiary, in early 

 spring, and "increase to 10 or 12 good 

 colonies by the time white clover and 

 linden open. 



Mr. Troxel gave his experience with 

 the Langstroth hive. He said he 

 worked for both comb and extracted 

 honey. He exhibited some very fine 

 specimens of comb foundation, of his 

 own manufacture. 



The suljject of --Bee Pasturage" 

 was postponed until the next meeting. 



Several new names were added to 

 the membership list of the associa- 

 tion, and the next meeting promises 

 to be one of unusual interest. 



Adjourned to meet May 17. 



E. J. 0. Troxel, Pres. 



J. T. M.\RTIN, Sec. 



