THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



555 



t blossom, and sucli a buzzing on it 

 as tlie liees kept up was enougli to 

 deliglit till" tieait ot any beo-keeper. 

 It lias proved tome: 1. That it is a 

 splendid lione\ -plant here in biwa. 

 2. It just lills the gap between the 

 blooming ot other clovers and the tall 

 flowers. In order to have it bloom 

 next year. I shall cultivate about one- 

 half of the ground, thus leaving small 

 furrows, and then harrow it in. Bees 

 here have increased fairly well : my 

 own having increased from 8 colonies 

 to 21, and most of them are now in 

 good condition ; but I have not yet 

 heard of any one taking a bit of sur- 

 plus honey, although the clovers never 

 bloomed more profusely. They gained 

 some ahead, but nsed it afterwards in 

 brood-rearing. Basswood bloom pro- 

 duced no nectar. Our time for sur- 

 plus, however, is generally during the 

 next four weeks. Jos. Beatii. 



Corning. Iowa. Aug. 13, 18.S4. 



Enjoying a Good Honey-Flow. 



Last season the honey-flow was 

 continuous from June 1 until Aug. 1.5. 

 with the exceptions of rainy days and 

 no fall honey crop. This season we 

 bad a splendid flow of honey from 

 white clover from June 1 nntil July 1, 

 ;uid after that the bees did not make 

 a living until Aug. 9. Since then we 

 have had a splendid flow of honey 

 from the second crop of white clover, 

 and from buckwheat; and we are 

 now iu the midst of as fine a honey- 

 flow as I ever saw at this time of the 

 year. Geo. E, Hilton. 



Fremont, Mich., Aug. 18, 1884. 



No Surplus Honey. 



Bees have done but little good here 

 for several weeks. We have had no 

 surplus honey yet. The weather is 

 so dry and so very dusty. The out- 

 look is very poor for a good yield this 

 fall. Our grain and garden crops 

 were never better in the last 20 years. 

 J. M. Hicks. 



Battle Ground, Ind., Aug. 15, 1884. 



Report for the Past Two Years. 



Iu the spring of 1883, I began with 

 16 colonies, 12 in fair condition, and 4 

 weak. In :May I fed them -50 pounds 

 of the best granulated sugar made 

 into syrup, so they built up and were 

 ready for the honey harvest when it 

 came, which was later tban usual 

 here. They increased by natural 

 swarming to 37, and I took .3,243 lbs. 

 of extracted honey from them. They 

 had very little comb to build, for I 

 had a lot of good combs to give the 

 increase. I sold nearly all of my 

 honey in my home market in small 

 lots, and realized an average of 13J< 

 cents per pound. Last winter I win" 

 tered them on the summer stands in 

 large boxes with 6 inches of wheat 

 chaff all around the sides of the hives, 

 and 9 inches on the top. and lost only 

 2 in wintering, and none in the spring, 

 and had no spring dwindling. I did 

 not unpack them until after fruit 

 bloom was over in the spring. I com- 

 menced this season with 49 colonies, 

 and increased them to 99 by natural 

 swarming. Forty-six of my 49 colo- 



nies were iu splendid trim for the 

 season's crop, which bid fair to be a 

 good one, but we had so much cold, 

 cloudy, windy weather iu .lune and in 

 the early part of .luly that 1 got only 

 a little over 2,U(Mt pouuds of extracted 

 and ()() <ine-pountt sections of comb 

 honey. Others about here who worked 

 for comb honey, got none. I have 

 been very successful in preventing 

 after-swarms this year, by givincc a 

 mature queen-cell to a colony the day 

 after it had cast a swarm. If possible, 

 I give cells that will hatch iu a few 

 hours, or in a day at the most. My 

 bees are all mixed with Italian blood, 

 and have at present full winter stores 

 with a fair prospect of getting enough 

 to do them for present use, or until 

 frost. Basswood was a failure here 

 this year, and thistles did but fairly. 

 This year's honey is of good quality. 



\V. J. IIONEYFOKD. 



Avening. Out. 



order, and I tliink that I have a 

 method of feeding and an entrance 

 to the boxes that will not be improved 

 soon. CiiAKLKs Ml rcuKi-i,. 



Molesworth, Canada. 



Absolutely no Surplus Honey. 



Cannot .\Ir. Doolittleor Mr. lleddon 

 lend me houey enough to make a jug 

 of vinegary Tlie silver lining hangs 

 on the southeast corner of '■theragged 

 edge of despair ;" and unless we get a 

 flow of honey from lieart's-ease, we 

 will have to fall back on sorglium 

 molasses, iu this section of the coun- 

 try. James Ronian. 



Villi.sca, Iowa, Aug. 16, 1884. 



Diseased Bees. 



I have a colony of bees which has 

 been diseased during all of this sea- 

 sou, having begun early last spring. 

 The colony was, early in the season, 

 a good, average one. The diseased 

 bees were often dragged out wlien 

 they were able to crawl back to the 

 hive. Great numbers of them were 

 were black and shiny, and looked as 

 though they had been dipped in oil. 

 The dragging-out process has been 

 going on all the time up to the pres- 

 ent. A very small number of bees 

 now remain,' but what few there are, 

 have vim, and they do not seem to be 

 discouraged. I have cleaned away 

 the dead bees several times, and there 

 is now quite an accumulation of them. 

 They may have 2 pounds of honey in 

 the hive. I examined the colony "last 

 evening, and found that the brood in 

 all stages of development is not in 

 proportion to the number of old bees. 

 The queen seems to be quite prolific. 

 I consider the colony of no value. In 

 the season of 1880, 1 had a colony in 

 my apiary that acted in the same way 

 up to about July 1, when the trouble 

 ceased, and the bees stored enough 

 honey to winter on. The season here 

 has been a poor one for honey and 

 increase. A\ e have had a great deal 

 of rain up to within 3 weeks past, 

 vegetation has been rank, and the 

 prospect is good for a crop of fall 

 honey. The bees are now out early 

 in the day, and seem to be gathering 

 honey. Isaac Sharp. 



Waveland. Ind.. Aug. 20, 1884. 



Preventing After-Swarms. 



I have tested quite well Mr. Iled- 

 don's method of preventing after- 

 swarms, and consider it a failure. It 

 has caused several cases of very bad 

 robbing. I always use the golden 

 opportunity — just between sundown 

 and dark — to discover robbing ; also 

 the first swarm will, sometimes for 

 weeks, treat the bees of the old col- 

 ony with suspicion. If I could not 

 introduce young queens, I would 

 shake off most of the bees in the old 

 colony, and keep the entrance well 

 closed for two days, and carry it 

 away at once. Fall feeding is next in 



Honey Crop Below the Average. 



The honev crop here is below the 

 average. \Vhite clover has yielded 

 well generally, but the yield here was 

 mostly from red raspberry bloom, and 

 not enough for a taste from basswood. 

 By close extracting I have managed 

 to get 18.5.5 pounds where last year the 

 yield was 3,000 pounds, with about 

 the same number of colonies, and the 

 crop was ^j basswood. I am satisfied 

 from experiments last season, that a. 

 syrup made from Granulated sugar is 

 better than natural stores for winter- 

 ing bees. I think it is well to have it 

 stored in combs that contain no pol- 

 len, as breeding need not commence 

 before the bees gather natural pollen 

 in the spring. If pollen is detrimental 

 for winter food, as I am inclined to- 

 believe, bee-diarrhcea will not exist, 

 as it is very liable to do when natural 

 stores are depended upon : and one, 

 at present prices of siigar. can gain 

 enough to well pay him for his labor. 

 A very thick syrup can be made for 

 5 cents per pound. We have had an 

 unusually cold July here, and it is 

 cold now. Prospects fair for a fall 

 crop. W. H. S. (Jrout. 



Kennedy. N. Y., Aug. 11. 1884, 



Bees in Northwestern Nebraska. 



With the experience which I have 

 had with bees in Northwestern Ne- 

 braska, I think it is a very poor coun- 

 try for the apiarist. Take it on an 

 average, bees gather just about 

 enough honey to decently winter on, 

 but they do well in swarming. I had 

 34 colonies in 1883, and received 380 

 pounds of comb honey, and 120 povmds 

 of extracted. I have -'A colonies this 

 season. They swarmed and seemed 

 to do well until July lo. I had some 

 very heavy swarms hanging out. It 

 was getting late in the season, and I 

 put on sections to keep the colonies 

 from swarming. I put the sections 

 on about July 1, the bees commenced 

 to work in them, and worked until 

 about July 1.5, when I noticed that 

 they commenced robbing, and kept it 

 up for about bj days. They destroyed 

 o colonies which had young queens 

 tbat had not been mated with the 

 drones. I closed the entrance of the 

 hives so that but 2 bees could pass at 

 a time, and then smoked those which 

 appeared to be robbing the worst, but 

 nothing seemed to do any good. They 

 are working very hard "now, and all 

 seem to be ni good condition. I use 



