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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



No Fall Honey Crop. 



I started in the spring with 6 colo- 

 nies of bees, increased to 16 by divis- 

 ion, and have taken 195 pounds of 

 extracted, and '165 pounds of comb 

 honey. I had to feed 95 pounds of 

 sugar in order to bring my bees 

 through the last winter. It has been 

 a very poor season here. Bees have 

 gathered no honey since July 15. I 

 have done better than the most of the 

 bee-keepers, the average being, as 

 near as I can find out, from 15 to 30 

 pounds per colony, with no swarming 

 to amount to anything. 



If. L. Wells. -o 



Defiance, O., Oct. 28, 1884. 



Northwestern Convention. 



In the report of tlie Xorthwestern 

 Convention, on page 678, second col- 

 umn and second paragraph, the last 

 word in the paragraph should be 

 frames, not combs. Page 679, second 

 column, seventh paragraph and third 

 line, evening should be covering. Mr. 

 J. A. Green writes me that he has not 

 practiced the Heddon method of pre- 

 venting after-swarming, nor the 

 " tiering-up " of sections, and thinks 

 it probable that I " confounded him 

 with Mr. Furness, of Indiana." 



W. Z. Hutchinson. 6 68—108. 



Rogersville, Mich., Nov. 3, 1884. 



A Very Poor Season. 



This has been a very poor season 

 for honey in this section. But few 

 bee-keepers have secured any honey 

 at all. Nevertheless bees swarmed a 

 great deal, and I think that most of 

 the colonies will starve before spring, 

 unless they are fed. There was an 

 extra good crop of white clover, and 

 colonies which were in just the right 

 condition, gathered honey rapidly for 

 a few days, when the honey-flow 

 ceased almost entirely. There was 

 but little honey in any of the fall 

 flowers. Last tall I had about 195 

 colonies ; I lost 5 weak ones during 

 the winter, doubled the balance down 

 to 165 in the spring, and increased 

 them to 192, besides taking 1,.500 lbs. 

 of comb and 1,600 lbs. of extracted 

 honey. 



J. M. Valentine. ? 



Carlinville, 111., Oct. 29, 1884. 



ped comb honey from every colony, I 

 shall be well pleased. Out of 1,000 

 sections I had 300 capped on the tier- 

 ing-up plan. I believe that the pure 

 blacks or German bees are the best 

 bees in America for producing comb 

 honey, but they have two faults. My 

 bees were bringing in pollen on Oct. 

 19, and I put them into the cellar on 

 the 27th. I hived 2 second-swarms 

 and they did as well as any. I re- 

 turned about 30 first-swarms. I be- 

 gan the season with 48 colonies, spring 

 count, have secured 400 pounds of 

 comb and 1,300 pounds of extracted 

 honey, being a little more than 35 

 pounds per colony, and have in- 

 creased my apiary to 80 colonies. I 

 believe that dampness is the cause of 

 bee-diarrhoea. 



Fayette Lee.0 

 Cokato, Minn., Nov. 1, 1884. 



Tiering-up Sections. 



Here in Minnesota we cannot tier- 

 up sections and get them capped so 

 that we can use only one tier. Now, 

 which are the best side-sections to 

 use, and how shall we use them in 

 order to have them ready to take off 

 atone time? The 53-4x634 section is 

 too large, and the 434x434 is too small 

 for one tier, for the case will not hold 

 enough. I believe that a section 434x 

 534 '™d 7 to the foot is the best size. 

 To get them all capped at one time, 

 we must have a case made of such a 

 shape that the sections will come out 

 easily, so that when the centre ones 

 are capped we can put them at the 

 sides, and move the outside ones to 

 the centre. We need to know what 

 would be the best case for this pur- 

 pose. If I can get 35 pounds of cap- 



Much Bloom, but Little Honey. 



Last winter bees wintered well in 

 hives properly prepared. The spring 

 and the whole season was good as far 

 as rain, heat, wind, etc., are con- 

 cerned, but although we had a pro- 

 fusion of bloom, it yielded but very 

 little honey. White clover did well, 

 but it is not yet well grounded in this 

 country, still it is coming very fast, 

 and will be a great help. Fall bloom 

 produces our main crop. My hives 

 had 10 pounds of honey, and I have 

 fed 10 pounds of thick syrup to each 

 colony. They have very little pollen, 

 so that I think they are safe for win- 

 ter. I use chaff-hives. Bees fly 3 

 days during every week. My comb 

 honey in sections received the first 

 premium at our County Fair (Noda- 

 way Co.) I am doing all that I can 

 for the bee-business here. 



Jno. C. Stewart.^ 



Hopkins, Mo., Nov. 4, 1884. 



have had but one to quarrel, and that 

 did not amount to much, and very 

 few bees have returned to the old 

 stand. I have now, in my honey- 

 house, two Lan^stroth frames of 

 lioney which weigli 27 pounds. Who 

 can beat it? I took from one hive, 

 last season, 7 frames from which I 

 extracted .59 pounds of lioney. It 

 takes about 15 pounds of honey to 

 winter each colony here. My hives 

 now will average about 30 pounds of 

 honey. My plan is to let them have 

 plenty of honey in the hive during 

 winter, and then extract the surplus 

 in the spring. Our bees stop working 

 about Nov. 15. and commence again 

 on Feb. 1. We scarcely ever have 

 more than 4 or 5 days at a time when 

 bees do not fly out. I have plenty of 

 drones flying now. 



J. W. ECKJIAN.O^ 



Richmond, Tex., Nov. 1, 1884. 



Report for the Season. 



My honey crop for this season is 

 short. I commenced in the spring 

 with 160 colonies, and increased them 

 90 per cent, by natural swarming and 

 building up nuclei to full colonies. I 

 have taken 3,000 pounds of extracted, 

 but no comb honey. From the sale of 

 bees, queens and honey, I have re- 

 alized about $.500. In this locality I 

 have never seen two good seasons in 

 succession, but never an entire failure. 

 Linden and wild china yielded very 

 little honey this season. They only 

 yield well every other season. The 

 bees have been "gathering honey from 

 goldenrod during the past four weeks, 

 and are still working on it. I will ex- 

 tract some yet. I have been busy 

 doubling up colonies, and I now have 

 200 in first-class condition. My method 

 is to make 4 or 5 colonies queenless 

 on one day, and on the next evening. 

 a little before sunset, I take a queen- 

 less colony to the one with which I 

 wish to unite it, smoke both well, 

 take a few frames from a stationary 

 hive, fill them up with the queenless 

 one, put on an upper story, put in the 

 balance of the frames, sprinkle them 

 well witli sugar water, close them up, 

 smoke in the remaining bees, and 

 then I am ready for the next one. I 



Bee-Keeping in Canada. 



I started bee-keeping in 1883 with 

 2 colonies of black bees in box-hives. 

 These I increased to 8 by natural 

 swarming. I put some of the swarms 

 into hives holding 12 Gallup frames, 

 letting them build comb as they liked, 

 and the balance I put into common 

 boxes. I transferred one of the old 

 colonies in August, and obtained 

 about 25 pounds of honey from it. 

 This was the amount of my honey 

 crop for ISSo, although a good 

 season. I put them into winter quar- 

 ters with very scanty stores, the 6 

 new colonies having not more than 100 

 pounds of honey altogether. I win- 

 tered 3 colonies out-doors, packed in 

 straw, and 5 in the cellar. One of 

 those outside starved to death, and 2 

 of those in the cellar ; thus leaving 

 me but 5 weak colonies to commence 

 this season with. The cause of my 

 loss was neglect to feed them a little 

 syrup last fall. I would also have lost 

 another had 1 not fed it some syrup 

 in the cellar, which did not seem to 

 injure it in the least. Although those 

 out-doors seemed to suffer most from 

 bee-diarrhcea, they built up much 

 faster in the spring, and gathered 

 nearly double as much honey as the 

 others. I transferred my bees early 

 in the spring, and then during the 

 honey-flow I extracted over 800 pounds 

 of No. 1 honey from these 5 colonies 

 and their increase (1 swarm and 3 

 nuclei). I consider this aij extra good 

 yield for this season, for I only used 3 

 or 4 pounds of comb foundation. I 

 also made my own extractor, the 

 material for it costing me just 45 

 cents. This fall I obtained 5 colonies 

 from bee-keepers near me, who were 

 going to brimstone theirbees. I built 

 up my nuclei into full colonies, and 

 formed two new ones, so that I now 

 have 11 colonies in all. I have my 

 bees nearlv all prepared for winter, 

 some Willi all honey, and some with 

 nearly all sugar syrup ; some I will 

 put into the cellar, and some into 

 clamps out-doors. I know from the 

 past season's work that spring feed- 

 ing and good spring protection pays 

 well. 



Wji. Jno. Hinchey. 

 Tamworth, Ont.. Nov. 1, 1884. 



