98 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Eer pound. I do not think I should 

 ave got one quarter of tliat amount 

 with all black bees. Will the tulip 

 tree furnish honey, here in the north, 

 e^ual to the basswood, and is it as 

 rich a grower and as hardy 'i 

 Livonia, N, Y. 



[The tulip blooms in May and June 

 and is a very ornamental tree, which 

 sometimes grows to the height of 130 

 feet. In the South it yields honey 

 profusely, but in the North it yields 

 much less ; the honey is not equal to 

 basswood. It grows rapidly in deep, 

 rich soil, after being transplanted 

 when two years old. It is often called 

 " whitewood." — Ed.] 





Balled Queen— Grape Sugar. 



What is meant by a queen being 

 balled, as spoken of in the Bee 

 Journal, page 21 'i Wiiat is grape 

 sugar made of V S. F. Milleb. 



North Manchester, Ind. 



[When a queen is distasteful to the 

 bees they cluster about her, and, un- 

 less she is released, they will sting 

 her to death— that queen is said to be 

 "balled." Sometimes she is balled 

 by her friends to keep the enraged 

 bees from her— then she is "balled in 

 a friendly way," as mentioned on 

 page 21 . 



Grape sugar is made from Indian 

 corn ; the solid is called grape sugar, 

 and the liquid is named glucose. 

 These are not as sweet as cane sugar 

 or molasses. 



You should get a manual, and 

 "read up " all these things; then you 

 can understand the more advanced 

 apiarists.— Ed.] 



Honey from the Spanish Needle. 



My bees are doing well ; they had a 



food flight on Jan. 24th and 28th. 

 ;very writer should say how cold it 

 has been this winter. VVhen we read 

 what Mr. Doolittle and his neighbors 

 say about their bees, we should re- 

 member that they live in New York 

 State, and it will not do for us in the 

 West to govern ourselves in the same 

 way they do. I live 198 miles south of 

 Chicago, where it hardly ever gets too 

 cold for bees to remain out of doors. 

 I think that in 1880-81 there were a 

 few colonies that did winter-kill by a 

 careless man who let his bees remain 

 out on some bench on the north side 

 of his liouse. Bad honey is all that 

 we dread in this part of the country 

 for wintering bees ; that is, the honey 

 that bees gather in the late fall and 

 never cap over. It sours and will kill 

 the bees. The coldest it has been is 

 12° below zero, but it only lasted a 



part of one day. Several mornings it 

 was 10° below zero. We have had a 

 very good winter, and our bees have 

 the very best of honey. Our princi- 

 pal yield of honey is from the Spanish 

 needle. Does it sell as well on the 

 market as other honey y I have about 

 20 colonies to transfer ; when is the 

 best time to do it ? They are all in 

 good movable frame hives, but they 

 have deep frames, and I use the 

 Langstroth hive. 



D. R. ROSEBKOUGH. 



Casey, HI., Feb. 1, 1883. 



[The honey from the Spanish needle 

 will sell very well, especially if ex- 

 tracted. 



The best time to transfer is in early 

 spring, before there is much honey in 

 the hives.— Ed.] 



"Mason" Bees. 



I send an insect, and wish to know 

 what it is, and what its habits are. 

 A miner discovered about half a peck 

 of them some 12 feet in from the 

 mouth of a coal bank. Do they 

 usually inhabit such places 'i The 

 men are much excited about them. 

 Peteh Sears. 



Barnesville, O., Jan. 24 1883. 



[The insect is one of the " Mason " 

 bees, belonging to the genus Colletes. 

 It is a member of the large family, 

 the Apiarice, of which the hive bee 

 forms a conspicuous part, though its 

 habits are quite different from the 

 latter. No one, so far as I know, ever 

 before found them in a coal mine, but 

 their usual nesting, or home-making 

 place, is in the ground, where they 

 tunnel out, a foot beneatli the surface, 

 six or eight cells, some inches long 

 and two-thirds of an inch in diameter, 

 lined with thin, silken membrane and 

 closed with a cap, like a drum head. 



The bees gather pollen and have 

 been seen in considerable numbers in 

 the flowers of squashes, cucumbers, 

 etc.. but I do not know that they col- 

 lect or use nectar. They are stingless 

 and harmless little creatures, and 

 seem to have little fear of harm to 

 themselves, being slow in their move- 

 ments and appear to make little effort 

 to escape.— T. J. Bukrill.] 



My Experience in Wintering Bees. 



I have 24 colonies in " Langstroth 

 hives;" I changed 6 of them to 

 doubled-walled chaff hives ; the others 

 had large boxes placed around them, 

 and the spaces filled with chaff. The 

 weather has been very cold for the 

 last two weeks, and tlie snow had 

 drifted entirely over some hives. I 

 thought I had better remove the snow 

 from the entrance, for fear they might 

 smother. I found, in front of those 

 packed in chaff', a large hollow space 

 in the snow, which the heat from the 

 bees had melted, and what bees had 

 died were in front of the hive, on the 



ground. The chaff hives were not in 

 as good condition ; they had alighting- 

 boards fastened in front of their hives, 

 and as some snow had blown in and 

 some moisture run out from the in- 

 side of the hive, the entrance."! were 

 entirely filled with ice. I expected to 

 find them smothered, as the air 

 seemed to be entirely excluded, but 

 they were all right, and the 24 colonies 

 are yet all right. I think I have 

 learned a lesson ; there should be no 

 alighting-boards in front of hives in 

 winter, as ice will collect on it to the 

 detriment of the bees. The entrances 

 should be large with nothing to hinder 

 the dead bees from falling to the 

 ground. Bees properly packed in 

 chaff will never perish from cold ; if 

 they fail to winter, it will be from 

 some other cause. 



S. J. YOUNGMAN. 



Cato, Mich., Jan. 28, 1883. 



Experience of a Beginner. 



A swarm came to me, a year ago 

 last spring, and I hived them" in a box 

 hive. Last spring they swarmed and 

 I had a frame hive all ready, but, not 

 knowing how to manage to find the 

 queen, we could not succeed in hiving 

 them, and they all went off and liivea 

 themselves in another box hive, in a 

 neighbor's yard. Now I have 2 colo- 

 nies in box hives and I am at loss to 

 know how to get the honey or wliat to 

 do with them. Do you think it would 

 be safe to take any of the honey away 

 from them '/ They lived out doors au 

 last winter and came out last spring 

 very strong and full. I take the risk 

 of leaving them out this winter, but 

 how can I get any of ttie honey '? 



Mrs. W. W. Smith. 



Princeton, N. J. 



[Next spring some of the honey can 

 be taken in the old way, by turning 

 up the bottom of the hive and cutting 

 out a little near the bottom. The best 

 way is to transfer them to a movable 

 comb hive, in the way recommended 

 in your bee-manual, for, of course, you 

 have one. No one should think of 

 getting along without such at hand to 

 refer to at all times. — Ed.] 



Winter in Kentucky. 



The winter in Kentucky has been 

 a very changeable one ; the mercury 

 frequently changing from IS"^' to 60° 

 within 24 hours, and as often as 4 

 times per week, yet the bees appar- 

 ently are wintermg well. I have 90 

 colonies on the summer stands and 

 think they will come through all right. 

 J. T. Connley. 



Napoleon, Ky., Feb. 3, 1883. 



Bees are Wintering all Right. 



The bees are all right ; but they 

 have had no flight since the begin- 

 ning of November, now almost three 

 months. There are very few dead 

 bees on the bottom boards, not aver- 

 aging over ?^ of a pint.per colony. This 

 is now the tenth winter's experience 

 for my sy.stem of wintering bees, and 

 have hot lost a single colony, all these 



