122 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



the weather has been very severe since 

 Dec. 2.5. The Bee Journal failed 

 to put in an appearance this week for 

 the first time since 1 became a sub- 

 scriber. I have become so accus- 

 tomed to it that I am lonesome with- 

 out it ; the snow blockade must be the 

 cause. I hope it will make its way 

 through, for its bright pages are as 

 welcome to me as the smiling face of 

 a friend. W, M. Vinson. 



Elk Point, Dak., Feb. 5, 1883. 



Shipping Honey to England. 



Please give a report of the proceed- 

 ings of the Northeastern Convention, 

 held Jan. 9 and 11, at Syracuse, in the 

 Weekly Bee Journal. I have been 

 expecting to see it, as usual, and I 

 have no doubt it will be interesting to 

 all who were not there. Would you 

 advise shipping prime extracted honey 

 to England, next year V Can 10c. net, 

 in bulk, be realized by shipping '{ An- 

 swer in Bee Journal. 



J. E. Thom. 



Streetsville, Ont., Feb. 9, 1883. 



[The proceedings of the North- 

 eastern Convention have not yet been 

 received from the secretary, or they 

 might have been published. 



As to shipping honey to England, 

 we advise you to write to honey deal- 

 ers in that country about the matter 

 of realizing 10 cents per pound, net, 

 in bulk.— Ed.] 



All is Well. 



The floods have done incalculable 

 damage. On the 15th and 16th in- 

 stant the weather was like summer; 

 the bees roared as they do in the 

 spring of the year. Our bees are safe, 

 so far. The winter has been wonder- 

 fully wet and changeable. I feared 

 the results, but—" all is well." 



G. W. Demaree. 



Christiansburg, Ky., Feb. 17, 1883. 



Bee-Keeping iu Virginia. 



My Report for 1882.— I ran 12 col- 

 onies for extracted honey ; they yielded 

 4 barrels of honey, or an average of 

 116 lbs. to the hive ; all of it sold at 

 IzYi cts. per pound, making $172.80. 

 I had some 300 lbs. of comb honey in 

 one-pound sections, which I sold at 

 12J^ cts. per pound. I cannot sell one 

 grade of honey here any higher than 

 another. When a customer comes to 

 me for honey, 1 sell him the kind he 

 wants ; if he wants it cut out of the 

 sections and put into a bucket, I cut 

 it out ; if he wants it stirred up, I 

 take a stick and stir it into a mush. 

 The same 12 colonies that gave the 4 

 barrels, also gave 72 frames of honey 

 nearly all full and capped, which I 

 took out late this fall. I do not know 

 what they will weigh, but I estimate 

 them, an average of 6 lbs., which 

 would make 432 lbs. ; this was gath- 

 ered from asters in September and 

 October. Northerners must stop 

 saying that we cannot produce as nice 

 honey in latitude .36° as they can in 

 40°. I will venture to say that South- 

 western Virginia and Northwestern 

 North Carolina produce as white 



honey as anywhere on the globe. The 

 most beautiful honey I ever saw was 

 in Wilks Co., N. C. I do not know 

 what kind of flowers it was gathered 

 from, but I expect it was from sour- 

 wood. I have some honey that has 

 candied, when put on the table you 

 cannot tell it from light-colored but- 

 ter. I have produced sections almost 

 as white as snow. The flowers we 

 get our honey from are as follows : 

 The first to bloom in the spring are 

 elm and willow ; then comes locusts, 

 whortleberries and blackberries ; then 

 poplar and white clover, which is very 

 abundant; then follow linden, golden- 

 rod and buckwheat ; asters comes in 

 September and bloom until cold 

 weather. The mercury hardly ever 

 goes below zero, so our bees never 

 winter-kill, to any extent. 



John Paris. 

 Town House, Va., Feb. 7, 1883. 



Packed in Chaff— No Losses. 



My 25coloniesof bees, that I packed 

 last fall, in the Langstroth hives, are 

 all right. They had a nice flight yes- 

 terday, and to-day I examined all of 

 them ; they have brood in all stages, 

 and some young bees are crawling 

 over the combs in several of the hives. 

 I packed my bees on the summer 

 stands, with wheat straw on the sides 

 and back end of hive, and chaff cush- 

 ions over the frames ; and I never lose 

 any bees in this way of packing. 



A. T Kelly 



Franklin, Ind., Feb. 16, 1883. 



Lovely Weather in Florida. 



The weather is lovely here now, 

 just what is wanted during the State 

 Fair. I have been out to the Fair 

 twice, and find the display of fruits to 

 be very good. The part of most in- 

 terest to the readers of the American 

 Bee Journal is the display of \V. S. 

 Elart, of New Smyrna. He has some 

 of the finest comb honey I ever saw ; 

 it, and his display of extracted honey, 

 cannot be beaten outside of Florida. 

 Mr. H. also has everything necessary 

 for successful bee-keeping. 



H. G. Burnett. 



Jacksonville, Fla., Feb. 15, 1883. 



Statistical. 



I sometimes tliink it would have 

 been better if the amount of founda- 

 tion used by each bee-keeper had 

 been included in the reports ; mine 

 would read as follows : 20 colonies, 

 fall of 1881 ; 20 colonies, spring of 

 1882 ; .58 colonies, fall of 1882 ; 300 lbs. 

 of comb honey ; 2,300 lbs. of extracted 

 honey ; 10 lbs. of beeswax ; and 100 

 lbs. of foundation used in brood 

 frames. Aug. J. Hintz, 20-58. 



Lamont, 111. 



Too Much Sorghum. 



Yesterday, the thermometer being 

 about 45°, I walked out among my 

 bees, and found two colonies flying 

 briskly, daubing the entrance, front 

 of the hive and alighting-boards. The 

 others (20 in number), seem to be all 

 right now, but I fear they have too 

 much sorghum honey in the hives, as 

 there were several crops worked up 



in this immediate neighborhood, and 

 thousands of my bees were destroyed 

 in the boiling fluid. There has hardly 

 been a week this winter that bees 

 could not fly. I use the Simplicity 

 hive, with division boards and chaff 

 cushions, and the two that seem to 

 have dysentery are better protected 

 than the others, having a large box 

 turned down over the hive. One of 

 the queens is a perfect beauty ; I ob- 

 tained it from Mr. H. C. Hersperger, 

 who, I think, has a very superior 

 strain of bees, as regards docility and 

 industry. I propose to test sei'eral 

 of the better strains during the com- 

 ing season, in an endeavor to find the 

 best. N.H.Rowland. 



Keene, Ky., Jan. 31, 1883. 



Mortality Among Unprotected Bees. 



My bees, wintered on the summer 

 stands, had a flight to-day, the first 

 time since Dec. 23. I made a thor- 

 ough examination, and I find many 

 colonies in bad condition. They were 

 packed in sawdust. Those in the cel- 

 lar are wintering well. My neigh- 

 bors have bees left on the summer 

 stands, unprotected, and I looked over 

 several of them, and I feel safe in say- 

 ing more than half of them are dead. 

 It has been very cold ; as low as 36° 

 below zero on Jan. 22; the snow is 

 about 18 inches deep on the level, but 

 it is raining to-night. I fear the mor- 

 tality among the bees will equal, if 

 not exceed, that of 1880-81. I hope 

 Mr. Sorrick will call a convention at 

 Des Moines, as he has suggested. 



if. Clark. 



Palmyra, Iowa, Feb. 13, 1883. 



Scarcity of Water in California. 



The rain fall this winter, so far, has 

 been only 22i^ inches. Since 1878 the 

 rain has been insufficient, conse- 

 quently the surface of the country is 

 very dry, and, in the mountains, the 

 springs and streams are unusually 

 low. The general appearance of veg- 

 etation shows the effect of the drouth. 

 Last winter we had but little rain, un- 

 til February. The bee-keepers of 

 California were hoping for a wet win- 

 ter, as a good honey yield generally 

 follows such a winter. At present the 

 prospect for the bee-keepers is not en- 

 couraging, and, unless it rains soon, 

 California will not have honey enough 

 to supply the home demand. 



J. E. Pleasants. 



Carbondale, Cal., Feb. 5, 1883. 



Sowing and Planting for Honey. 



I see many favorable reports of the 

 honey crop for last year ; mine was as 

 favorable as any. As to the best 

 honey plant, there is nothing that ■ 

 equals the bassvvood. Clover is also 

 spoken of, as being first-class ; I only 

 consider it second-class for quantity, 

 and that is governed by the season. 

 Care should be taken to have plenty 

 of bee pasture. To sow, plant and 

 cultivate is the only way to make the 

 business profitable. It is about time 

 for nurserymen and seed men to ad- 

 vertise in the Bee Journal, to get 

 the bee-keepers at work preparing for 

 the next spring. I shall want some- 



