THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



299 



" Will h.uulling bees in the spring 

 niateriiilly injure them V" It was 

 thought to be a matter of how rough 

 they were handled. 



"Will bees swarm in the spring if 

 they have plenty of honey ?" It was 

 thought they would when the liives 

 became full of young bees. 



Mr. Simon said, " he thought one 

 cause of dwindling was a lack of 

 young bees to take the place of the old 

 ones in the spring, and would advise 

 breeding as late as possible in the 

 fall. I winter out of doors. I use as 

 young queens as possible for late fall 

 lireeding. After the bloom is gone, I 

 feed melted sugar in the hives. This 

 spring 1 noticed a dwindling of my 

 bees ; the cause being the lack of 

 young bees." 



Mr. Kinney said, ■' I have had 

 queens whiolilaid eggs and tlie work- 

 ers destroyed them. What is the 

 cause y 



" Are Italian bees longer lived than 

 the black bees V" Mr. Carson said, 

 " I do not know. It is a fact that the 

 black bees are short lived in the 

 spring." 



" What sized frames would you ad- 

 vise to get the most lioney from, long 

 or short frames V" There was a dif- 

 ference of opinion. Mr. Simon used 

 the long frame, and thinks it prefer- 

 able. 'Mr. Carson uses the Union 

 frame, and is well pleased with it. 



" The best way to preserve empty 

 combs'?" Mr. Carson said, " I clean 

 out my hives and hang them in such 

 a way"that mice cannot get at tliem." 



Mr. Simon said, " I keep mine in 

 my liive. under a shed, when it is 

 cool." Mr. Carson said, " if worms 

 get into them, fumigate with brim- 

 stone, not too strong." 



" Will the drones produced by fer- 

 tile workers on virgin queens perform 

 the office of drones V" Mr. Simon 

 said " I prefer young queens fertilized 

 by a good drone. 



" How is the best way to get rid of 



fertile worker bees ?" Mr. said, 



"I unite them with a good strong 

 nucleus. Mr. Simon said, " I take the 

 liives that have fertile workers and 

 shake them on the ground, and the 

 fertile workers never crawl back." 



" Will it pay to put on sections for 

 the bees to draw out foundations for 

 apple bloom V" Mr. Hall said, "yes." 

 Mr. Winnery thought that if the body 

 of the hives is full of honev it would 

 pay. 



'■ Which is the most profitable to 

 produce, comb or extracted honey?" 

 Mr. Carson said, "extracted." 



"Do you prefer drones from the 

 parent colony for a cross V" I think 

 it would be preferable. 



" A queen from a pure Italian 

 mother, that meets with a black 

 drone, what will her drones be ?" Mr. 

 Page said, "tliey are his best work- 

 ers, and are, as a general thing, less 

 quarrelsome." Mr. Hall says, " I 

 wish to breed from the best, let tlie 

 breed be what it may. I should cross 

 with those drones whose record is 

 good." 



" Do bees ever swarm on apple 

 bloom ?" Mr. W. said, " I have 

 known of such instances, but do not 

 think it advisable." Mr. H. said, "I 



would build up weak colonies by giv- 

 ing tliem a few sections of brood." 



Committee report : We lind placed 

 on exhilaition tlie following : Mr. 

 Eadler, a novice extractor, also a new 

 hive which attracted considerable at- 

 tention. Mr. George King, a Sim- 

 plicity hive. Mr. L. Carson, a Union 

 iiive, a combination of several. 



The matter of where and when to 

 hold our next meeting came up for 

 action. It was the inianiraous voice 

 of the meeting to hold our meetings 

 at different points in the Mahoning 

 Valley. 



Adjourned to meet at Newton Falls 

 on the third Saturday of August, 1883. 

 E. W. TUBNER, Sec. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Shall Separators be Used ? 



F. I. SAGE. 



I noticed by the Bee Journal 

 (page 263) that Mr. T. E. Turner con- 

 fesses that he is becoming "so in- 

 sane " as to dispense with the use of 

 separators. I consider it pretty good 

 evidence that he has become insane 

 on this subject, and as he admits it, 

 we will take it for granted that such 

 is a fact. But, really, I hope he v»ill 

 not induce New York State bee-keep- 

 ers to adopt this plan of securing sur- 

 plus honey. The bee-keepers of New 

 Tork have the reputation of securing 

 their comb honey in the very best 

 shape for market, and all use separa- 

 tors, except, perhaps, a few who are 

 away behind the times. Of the 50 tons 

 of York State comb honey I have hand- 

 led during the past season, not a sin- 

 gle lot have I bought except where 

 separators have been used ; nor would 

 I buy any such, unless at a discount. 

 Every pound of honey I buy must be 

 secured by the use of separators, and 

 every section must be glassed, except 

 the small amount of one-pound sec- 

 tions I use — those should not be 

 glassed. 



Mr. Turner says glassing sections 

 are too expensive to the producer ; 

 this remark will make some of our 

 York State producers " smile." I al- 

 ways supposed this glassing was the 

 most profitable part of bee-keeping ; 

 to be sure, it is some work to glass 

 sections enough to nse up one or two 

 tons of glass, but I guess the bee- 

 keeper works many hours for less pay 

 then he gets for glassing his honey. 

 We know it is nonsense to say it does 

 not pay the producer to glass his 

 honey, but whether it does pay or not, 

 our more-advanced bee-keepers, those 

 that get their honey in the most de- 

 sirable shape and secure the highest 

 price, know it must be glassed for our 

 Eastern trade. I have had Michigan, 

 Illinois and Missouri honey, which 

 was secured without the use of sep- 

 arators, and hence, could not be 

 glassed, but I want no more of it. 

 Although the quality was all right, 

 the style of putting it up was not sat- 

 isfactory to the consumer, the mer- 

 chant, or the honey dealer. I could 

 go on, and lengthen out this article, 

 by giving various reasons why this is 

 so, with our Eastern trade, but take 



it for granted that New York State 

 bee-keepers are too shrewd, and too 

 far advanced in their profession, ta 

 dispense with the use of separators 

 and glass, in order to secure their 

 honey in the most remarkable antl 

 profitable shape. 

 WethersHeld, Conn., May 28, 1883. 



Read before Central Michigan Convention. 



Cellar vs. the Chaff Hive- 



J. T. MATTHEWS. 



Among the many ways of winter^ 

 ing bees, which are adopted generally 

 by the people of this country, but two 

 are wortliy of notice. These are 

 " cellar wintering," and "chaff hive 

 wintering," the other, leaving the bees 

 out of doors, to " come through " as 

 best they may, is not worthy of men- 

 tion, for the simple reason that it does 

 not pay. 



We have then a single hand-to-hand 

 combat— cellar vs. chaff hive. The 

 question we are trying to decide is, 

 " How to winter bees the cheapest, 

 and have them come out healthy and 

 ready for work in the spring." 

 "Things seen are mightier than things 

 heard." I can do no better than to 

 give a retrospective view of some 

 things brought to my notice within 

 the past year, at the College apiary. 



On the 5th of last October, we com- 

 pleted our preparation of the bees for- 

 winter. We had 17 colonies of Syr- 

 ians put up for winter as described 

 by Prof. A. J. Cook, each colony oc- 

 cupying 8 combs of honey, or about 1 

 cubic foot of space; each colony had 

 about 30 pounds of honey, and from 

 all hives, except one, pollen was care- 

 fully excluded, in looking them over. 

 All hives alike had a sack, made for 

 the purpose, filled with very dry saw- 

 dust over them, to absorb moisture 

 from the hive and to assist in keeping 

 out the cold in the fall and spring. 

 Four were chaff hives to be left out of 

 doors through the winter, and these, 

 in addition to the sacks before re- 

 ferred to, had sacks extending so as 

 to fill the entire space between the 

 division-board and the end of the 

 hive, thus surrounding the bees on 

 all sides by cushions of chaff. The 

 bottoms were protected by keeping 

 the snow banked under them. Our 

 chaff hives were complete. 



On the 14th of November, all the 

 hives were carefully weighed, and the 

 weight of each set opposite to its re- 

 spective number. On the same day, 

 ten of our commoii hives {i.e. single- 

 walled hives holding 18 frames) and 

 three chaff hives were carefully re- 

 moved to the cellar. The object of 

 chaff hives in the cellar was to test 

 chaff hives on an equal footing with 

 single-walled liives, to see the effect 

 upon "spring dwindling." The tem- 

 perature of the cellar, for the winter, 

 ranged from 38= to 42= F. Of the 

 temperature outside you can judge for 

 yourself; suffice it to say it was very 

 cold. 



On the 5th of April we returned to 

 our old friends, after an absence of 

 142 days, and find them as familiar 

 as ever. To complete our expert- 



