THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



301 



consider that bad practice, as a queen 

 soon wears out with such manage- 

 ment. 



In this connection (though off of tlie 

 subject) I will say that I am con- 

 vinced I have had a queen do good 

 business through a whole season when 

 she was 5 years old. 



Last year (1882) I had several colo- 

 nies of those first-class hybrids (Ital- 

 ian queens fertilized by brown drones), 

 and they fairly took the lead of any- 

 thing I had, for surplus, and breed- 

 ing at the same time. They had 11 

 brood frames, 8x20 inches, and 75 

 pounds of surplus room in the height 

 of the season, and all full of bees and 

 work. 



Kew Richmond, Mich. 



*<i^hat and Boiiu 



ANSWERS BY 



James Heddon, Dowagiac, Mich. 



Use of a Honey Board. 



Mr. Heddon : in tiering up cases, in 

 your hive, do you use a honey board 

 between the first and second cases V 

 Please answer in the Bee Journal. 

 R. M. Denham. 



St. Clairsville, O. 



Answer.— We do not. There is no 

 need of any there. Between the brood 

 frames and first case is the place 

 where bracing and consequent daub- 

 ing occurs. 



Honey Register. 



Mr. Heddon : please explain how 

 to use your honey register. 



Ireneus M. Foote. 

 Creston, Iowa. 



Answer.— The following represents 

 our surplus honey register, and it 

 saves us more than $25 worth of time 

 annually. 



29 30 31 1 2 3 4 Renewed. 



28 5 



27 6 



26 7 



25 * 8 3-4 * 1-4 



24 9 



23 10 



22 11 



21 12 



20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1-2 



The dial plan was taken from the 

 Root queen register. We drive a pin 

 into each of the stars just over the 

 tapering part, or about }>i inch. Use 

 the cheap, soft, No. 2 pins, which cost 

 5 cents per paper ; they are better 

 than the higher priced pins. To 

 drive them straight, we use a little 

 square block, with a crease cut square 

 across it, which the pin lays in wiiile 

 being driven. Now, bend the pinto 

 a right angle, and a dial is formed. 

 We use two styles of paper, one of 



thin white writing, which we paste 

 on the north back corner of the su- 

 per, and one of manila straw-colored 

 tag board, which we tack on. I use 

 and prefer the paste plan. Now, sup- 

 pose you put on a case or super, either 

 for comb or extracting. If you do so 

 on June 2, put the left hand pin at 

 "2," the right hand at " R," in the 

 word " Renewed." Now, if you look 

 at this super to see how business is 

 developing, and find no commence- 

 ment made on June 6, set the left 

 pin at " 6," and the right one at " D." 

 " R " and " D " both denote an empty 

 super, but " R," that it has not been 

 examined since put on ; " D," that it 

 has one or more times. 



On the " 12 " you find it M ^"11 ; P"t 

 the left pin at " 12 " and right one at 

 " M-" If ^3 Ijetween " U " and "J^," 

 and thus for any proportion your eye 

 tells you is correct, from just started 

 to nearly finished. With our tiering 

 up system, we use one on every case, 

 and you see we can tell just how mat- 

 ters stand, and just where an hour's 

 work is needed at once. 



We need no month dial, as he whose 

 memory is a month " off," should not 

 try to manage an apiary. We know 

 just how practical and useful these 

 registers are, by how we chafe when 

 we come to one that we made the error 

 of not tagging with the register. 



Our style of arranging the figures 

 in the dial is much better than Mr. 

 Root's ; the square form with all the 

 figures upright, shows off at a glance 

 a long way off. 



lost but one colony since they were 

 set out, and that was deserted when I 

 was away. Bees are in line condition, 

 for quite a large number of them are 

 preparing to swarm, and, if the 

 weather should be favorable for a 

 week, general swarming may be 

 looked for. There is every prospect 

 for a large crop of lioney, in this lo- 

 cality, to those that have bees ; for the 

 fields are covered with clover, which 

 will begin to bloom about the middle 

 of this month. I5asswood is budding 

 as full as I ever saw it, and, with fa- 

 vorable weather, bees must have a 

 lively time. It has been exceedingly 

 wet ever since the snow disappeared 

 in this locality, until the last 4 days, 

 which have been warm and pleasant. 

 Ira Barber. 

 De Kalb June, N. Y., June 4, 1883. 



Cheering News from Kentucky. 



Our Convention on the 2d inst., was 

 a grand success — a tine turn-out of 

 practical bee men. Our white clover 

 harvest is immense, and the largest 

 crop of honey will be gathered in Ken- 

 tucky that we ever harvested ; the 

 clover fields look as white as snow, 

 and bee men are worked down, and 

 are in clover. N. F. Allen. 



Smith's Grove, Ky., June 4, 1883. 



Bees and the White Clover. 



We have rather abad season for our 

 pets; cold and raining some now. 

 Near me, we have a great crop of 

 white clover, but hardly a bee have I 

 seen on it. Dr. N. P. Allen says, in 

 the last Bee Journal, that the bees 

 are working on white clover in his 

 neighborhood. 1 walked through a 

 large field of beautiful clover, and I 

 saw only two or three bees on it. We 

 have fields literally white with it ; and 

 near us hundreds of acres of it. I 

 have had only one swarm as yet, and 

 that went back to the parent hive. 



G. W. ASHBY. 



Valley Station, Ky., June 3, 1883. 



Texas Honey Crop. 



The honey crop in this district 

 promises badly. So far, there is little 

 or none coming in, and colonies are 

 dwindling very much. I have been 

 feeding rhine, and am doing so now ; 

 and, instead of dividing, it becomes a 

 question of uniting weak colonies. 

 With no honey coming in, queens stop 

 laying, and colonies are fast getting 

 in such a condition that, if there was 

 to come a honey flow, the bees could 

 not fairly gather it. Last year there 

 was a good crop ; this year appears to 

 be an " off year." R. J. Kendall. 



Austin, Texas, June 3, 1883. 



Honey Prospect in New York. 



Up to this date bees have had a 

 cold, windy spring; and where they 

 were not in good condition wlien set 

 out, they have " gone up." I have 



Cross Bees. 



Why are my Italian bees so very 

 cross this spring ? One colony gave a 

 swarm on the 9th of this month, which 

 went back to the old stand without 

 clustering. The weather set in cold 

 and rainy, and they did not come out 

 again until the 17th, They clustered 

 on a little willow, close to the ground, 

 so that I could not saw it off. I set 

 the liive close up to the cluster, and 

 took a turkey wing and commenced 

 to brush them on the alighting board. 

 I had only made one stroke of the 

 brush, when about a quart went into 

 the liive, and about two quarts into 

 my face and hair. You may judge 

 the result ; as many stun" me as could 

 gef a chance. A neighbor of mine 

 had been wantiug for several days to 

 see the bees swarm, as it was a new 

 thing to him. He was standing close 

 by—they made a dive for him, and 

 gave him a fearful stinging ; he had a 

 little dog with him, and the bees gave 

 them both a fight. My neighbor ran 

 away and the dog followed ; both were 

 covered with bees. He ran into a 

 milk house, and so did the dog. Such 

 a fight I never witnessed before. The 



