170 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Failures Throug-h Mismana^eiiient. 



It is stilted here by a man who pro- 

 fesses ii practical experience, that 

 bees cannot do well here, because the 

 pasturage is grazed too close. My 

 experience is exceedingly limited, but 

 in no book or bee paper have I ever 

 seen such a statement. There is an 

 abundance of poplar, ash, locust, and 

 other bee trees here, plenty of white 

 clover, fruit trees and fall plants, and 

 in a radius of 5 miles there are not 100 

 colonies of bees. I think that a fail- 

 ure is owing to mismanagement. It 

 is true that the meadows here are 

 closely grazed. Can that be the rea- 

 son that the old-fashioned bee men 

 have so little honey V 



E. H.GAiTnER. 



Harrodsburg, Ky., March 17, 1883. 



[Ordinary grazing helps some bee 

 pasturage. Probably mismanagement 

 has as much to do with the lack of 

 honey as anything,— Ed.] 



Half-Pouud Sections Not Wanted. 



This is a cold winter. My bees are 

 packed in sawdust, on the summer 

 stands ; they are now in good condi- 

 tion. I lost one colony by dysentery ; 

 the rest all clean and bright. Much 

 has been said and written about in- 

 troducing the consumption of honey 

 in place of syrups, and now some turn 

 around and work on the contrary to 

 make honey a luxury, which it surely is 

 when half-pound sections are adopted. 

 It is not the consumers that demand 

 small sections, but some bee-keepers 

 that do it. George Castbllo. 



Saginaw, Mich., March 17, 1883. 



Xarge Increase and Honey Crop. 



I am satisfied that if I had read 

 Mr. Ileddon's article on 'How to 



f)revent after swarms," in time for 

 ast season's work, it would have been 

 worth a year's subscription of the 

 Bee Journal to me. Mr. Roberts 

 says on page 137, that he does not be- 

 lieve in large yields of honey and bees 

 in the same season. I have sold 3,(500 

 lbs. of last season's crop, " all the 

 ■same," and I have 65 colonies alive at 

 present (6 dead), besides what honey 

 a family of ten could use, and there 

 are full 30 lbs. to the colony, at this 

 ■date, in the hives, besides the 100 ex- 

 tra combs of honey that are reserved 

 for use, if needed, which I doubt. If 

 Mr. Roberts will visit me, this spring, 

 I think I can convince him that "these 

 are facts." All of the honey and in- 

 -crease was produced by 1!) colonies, 

 that did not have one pound of sweets 

 in any of them on June 4, 1882, and 3 

 of them were four-frame nuclei, 

 ■shipped to me May 1, and transferred 

 May 4. Bees are in fair condition, 

 and healthy at present. S. H. Moss. 

 Colchester, 111., March 16, 1883. 



Bees in Good Condition. 



After almost 4 months confinement 

 I took 1.5 colonies out of my cellar on 

 the 13th ; all in nice, clean condition, 

 and having plenty of honey and brood. 

 On the day following 1 took the rest 

 out of the cave ; 1.50 in all, and one 

 dead ; the rest were heavy and had 



plenty of bees. So, out of 145, 144 

 came through in as healthy condition 

 as I ever saw them in the spring. I 

 had 16 on the summer stands, with no 

 protection, and lost 4. We have had 

 a pretty severe winter, and a good 

 many bees are lo.st, where iki protec- 

 tion was given them ; while others, 

 that were packeil in chaff, or put in 

 cellars, came out without much loss, 

 as a rule. J. E. Hastings. 



Carlisle, Iowa, March 16, 1883. 



Bees Strong and Healthy. 



My bees, to all appearances, have 

 wintered splendidly ; I put 100 colo- 

 nies in bee-house, and took out 101 

 hives, with bees in them. I had a 

 hive of nearly empty comb in the 

 house, and the bees got so hot, the day 

 before I took them out, and crawled 

 around and got into this hive, enough 

 to make a swarm, but, as I had no 

 queen, I had to put the bees in other 

 hives again. I fear the effects of the 

 sudden change on the 18th ; the bees 

 were flying out pretty freely, when a 

 gale struck us from the northeast and 

 it began to freeze ; the bees were scat- 

 tered, and I fear there is a large loss 

 to each hive by their getting chilled. 

 I never had my bees come through as 

 strong and healthy, when taken out, 

 as they were this spring ; but I expect 

 to lose some that I will have to break 

 up, by loss of queens, as I did not get 

 all my old queens changed last fall. 

 R. R. Murphy. 



Garden Plain, 111., March 21, 1883. 



Shipping Crates for Honey. 



What size of shipping crates is the 

 most popular in the great honev mar- 

 kets of the United States V 



M. Blanchard. 



Sherwood, Wis. 



[Those holding one dozen two-pound 

 sections or two dozen one-pound sec- 

 tions of honey.— Ed.] 



Gathering Pollen and Honey. 



Bees came through the winter 

 finely ; have plenty of honey vet ; are 

 breeding up rapidly, gathering pollen 

 and honey from peach and plum 

 blooms. We have splendid weather, 

 and all early vegetables are up and 

 growing finely. I have 40 colonies to 

 start with. E. P. Massey. 



Waco, Texas, March 14, 1883. 



Looking for a Good Honey Harvest. 



It has been a very poor winter for 

 bees here, they have had no flight 

 since Nov. 11, worth mentioning. 

 Dysentery is prevailing here, whicli 

 seems to be caused by bad honey 

 gathered last fall ; some that were 

 fed with sugar are not affected. I 

 have 8 colonies in chaff liives, and 

 packed 63 in a chaff bin ; those in the 

 bin had the dysentery, and some, I 

 fear, are passed their troubles. The 

 loss around here will be very heavy, 

 tliis spring. We are looking for a 

 good honey harvest, as we always 

 have a good one after a hard winter 

 and lots of snow. My bees are all 

 Italians and Syrians. I use the Gal- 

 lup frame, but have two in the 



Quinby frame, which is far stronger 

 than the rest, and always winter and 

 come through stronger than the rest. 

 Honey sold readily at 1.5c. per lb. for 

 extracted and 25c. per lb. for comb. 

 I believe dampness is worse on bees 

 than cold. I could not get along 

 without the Bee Journal. 



Arthur Russell. 

 Millbrook, Ont., March 14, 1883. 



Corrections. 



I find some blunders in my article 

 on the standard Laugstroth liive, on 

 page 116 of the Journal, which I de- 

 sire to correct, to wit : The figures 

 1838 and ISSg, given in 3d and 4th lines, 

 should be 17% and n%—one inch out 

 of the way, in that place, might make 

 lots of trouble. In line 35. next col- 

 umn, drop first comma and " hives," 

 and insert mills instead. The word 

 "former" in 36th line should be 

 farmer. M. M. Baldridge. 



St. Charles, 111. 



[The " blunders " in the figures were 

 in Mr. B.'s copy ; the loords were not 

 very plainly written and were an over- 

 sight of the printer, who also omitted 

 a figure "4," in Mr. B.'s article on 

 page 102, in the second line after the 

 last engraving. It should read : " the 

 4 recesses or passage ways." — Ed.] 



Bees in Georgia. 



Bees that have been properly cared 

 for have, thus far, wintered well in 

 Cherokee, Ga. The honey flow was 

 light, in this section, during the 

 latter part of last summer ; hence, 

 many late colonies, that were not fed, 

 died of starvation. Bees are in- 

 variably wintered upon their summer 

 stands, in the Southern States, and if 

 kept dry, with plenty of good,available 

 food, are never seriously affected by 

 cold. It would seem that the above 

 conditions are all that need be ob- 

 served in any honey-producing coun- 

 try, since to suppose that bees freeze 

 and die under such circumstances, is 

 to suppose a physical inconsistency 

 contrary to the laws of nature. Our 

 bees have been gathering pollen for 

 the past three weeks. 



Wm. Farell. 



Rome, Ga., March 9, 1883. 



Out of the Woods Again. 



The middle of March has come, and 

 my bees are all alive but two nuclei, 

 which died of starvation. My bees 

 have been bringing in pollen for a 

 month from the elm, and have from 1 

 to 3 frames of brood in each hive. I 

 consider that good for the middle of 

 March. In answer to the question 

 asked by Mr. C. W. McKown in the 

 Bee Journal for March 7, 1 would 

 say I have a few chaff hives, but my 

 bees are in no better condition in those 

 than in my single-walled hives. I do 

 not want any more chaff hives in my 

 yard ; they are too unhandy for trans- 

 portation and are more expensive than 

 single liives. I place my hives in a 

 row and pack sawdust all around 

 them, except the front, and cover them 

 well. My therinometer reached zero 



