382 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Walla Walla I cannot ascertain ; all 1 

 know is tliat t liey do not offer to sting, 

 for all tliat, they have stings as well 

 as other bees. I would like to get 

 some information about tlie gray Ari- 

 zona bees, through tiie Bee JouuNAL, 

 about their liabits, etc. 



My bees here are doing well. White 

 clover has been better than ever here- 

 tofore, and Ijasswood has just com- 

 menced to bloom a day or so ago, and 

 promises a large yield. 



I have just received a letter from my 

 sou, written lOdays after 1 left Medical 

 Lake, sayiiu; that these gentle bees 

 are doing nicely, ile is liviug at tlie 

 Lal<e and is attending to them. 



Theilmanton, Minn., July 19, 1883. 



[Will some one in the Territories 

 please reply to the above ? Are they 

 not the same grey bees that are found 

 in the Soutli V— Ed.] 



Fur the American Bee JournaL 



Bee Notes from Mississippi. 



O. F. BLEDSOE. 



My bees are doing well this season, 

 and are profitable in pecuniary re- 

 turns, thougii I cannot yet obtain 

 results to compare witli those of some 

 Northern bee-keepers. I am, how- 

 ever, encouraged in the business. I 

 am satistied that in this locality, and 

 almost anywhere in tlie Soutti, there is 

 each year ample honey (low to make 

 bee-culture prolitable. Tliegreat prob- 

 lem with me is the best method for 

 controlling the swarming fever. 



It is difficult here to keep bees at 

 the poinfe, in strength, at wliicli they 

 will make comb and seal comb honey, 

 and yet not swarm. My plan is to 

 shade, ventilate, remove all drone 

 comb, to provide ample room to clus- 

 ter and build coiub at the sides, con- 

 fining the brood nest by division 

 boards, and to remove ail sections 

 from the top as soon as sealed over. 

 I clip one wing of every queen. If a 

 swarm issues and I do not desire to 

 put it in a new hive, 1 let it return and 

 remove the queen, or return her to the 

 hive caged. On the seventh day after 

 swarmuig, I open the hive and cut 

 out all queen cells. Nearly all tlie 

 brood will by this time be sealed over, 

 but lest tlie bees will take some of the 

 youngest unsealed larvie and try to 

 make a queen, I select five of the 

 youngest queen cells and put them 

 back directly over the brood nest in 

 the place of a section box, whicli has 

 been taken out for the purpose. After 

 two days more, I remove all these 

 queen cells and let out the queen, or, 

 if the queen has been taken from 

 them, remove all the cells but one. 

 Under these circumstances, the bees 

 are compelled to stay and go to work, 

 and, if ample room is given, will not 

 often swaiui again, especially if they 

 have a young queen from a cell left to 

 them. As fast as new comb is made 

 in the frames at the sides, it is cutout 

 while still white and pure, the honey 

 extracted, and the comb used in sec- 

 tion boxes. 



I can get much more, and more 

 beautiful comb in this way, than if 1 



put section boxes at the sides in the 

 brood frames. The bees are quicker 

 to go to work in common frames with 

 good starters or foiindalLon ; more 

 bees can get to work, and, the build- 

 ing-clusters being more continuous, 

 they make more rapid progress. 



The frame I have adopted is a short- 

 ened Langstroth frame, that fits ex- 

 actly in the Langstroth hive when 

 turned round, and the entrance put in 

 one of the sides ; dimensions of the 

 frame, lo^gxgi^. A broad frame of 

 these dimensions will hold exactly six 

 4^4x414 sections. Nine of these frames 

 in brood nest takeOOit'a square inches 

 of comb, the Doolittle standard for 

 brood nest being 1,000 square inches 

 of comb. If those who use Langs- 

 troth hives should use tliese short 

 frames for awhile, they would not in- 

 sist on a frame ITf-gXli'a as the best 

 for a standard. The Langstroth 

 frame is certainly of the proper depth 

 to obtain the best results in comb 

 honey, but for many reasons it is too 

 long; and, among others that it does 

 not admit of the proper arrangements 

 for the side-building of comb, and 

 this is certainly the correct principle 

 in the production of comb honey. 



Grenada, Miss., July 24, 1883. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Honey Crop Not a Large One. 



.1. L. GRAY. 



Please allow me to protest against 

 the almost universal practice of 

 writers in bee papers (especially those 

 who have kept bees only for a short 

 time) of exaggerating the bee busi- 

 ness in general, and the present crop 

 of honey in particular. This gives 

 honey dealers the impression that the 

 markets are about to be Hooded with 

 the largest crop of honey ever known. 

 The bee papers are full of glowing 

 accounts of the wonderful yields in 

 certain parts of the country, while 

 those that are getting light yields, or 

 none at all, do not report ; the dealers 

 only seeing one side of the report, 

 take it for granted that they can 

 safely cut the prices, and are not slow 

 to do so. 



The crop of honey in this part of 

 the country is away below an average, 

 so far this season ; some of the most 

 successful apiarists not having secured 

 any surplus as yet, and clover and 

 basswood are nearly over. 



Mr. James Ileddon has, for years, 

 manfully fought against this and 

 kindred wrongs ; he has stood unaided, 

 and almost alone, against the practice 

 of many who coax, yes, almost i)ull 

 everybody into a business already 

 crowded ; he has been called selfish, 

 because after he had been to a great 

 expense, and had devoted the best 

 years of his life to make a success of 

 what these same outsiders had 

 laughed at. He protested against 

 trying to persuade everybody — in- 

 valids, cripples, and lazy good-for- 

 nothings to step in and overstock a 

 pasture lie has by all means the best 

 right to. 



1 know how this works, for I have 

 had a practical illustration with one 



of the kind who thinks that the more 

 swarms he gets the more successful 

 he is. It is not selfish for a person to 

 look first to his own Interests, and 

 secondly to mankind in general. 



What would we think of a doctor, 

 lawyer or merchant who would con- 

 tinually try to convince others that 

 his was the best paying business, and 

 want everybody to open a store or 

 office and take part of his trade or 

 practice from him. I would think 

 liim" short of wit," but I suppose 

 others might say he was selfish, if he 

 did not do this. 



Lee Centre, 111., July 2o, 1883. 



[We give place to the above at once, 

 so that the " protest " may have its 

 full weight. It is, of course, useless 

 to think of deceiving any shrewd 

 business men, either by " talking up " 

 or " talking down " the size of the 

 honey crop. The quantity, be it 

 either large or small, offered for sale, 

 decides the matter and makes the 

 " exact truth " known. 



The Bee Journal has, on every 

 every occasion, discouraged the idea 

 that the business of keeping bees was 

 fit for the lazy, invalids, etc., and does 

 not believe in tempting any one to 

 keep bees— but any selfish policy will 

 in the end defeat itself. — Ed.] 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



Bee-Keeping in Canada. 



EDWARD MOORE. 



Last fall I put 3 hives of bees into a 

 box, packed with sawdust, but not 

 packed as 1 would like, my means 

 being very limited, and, at the proper 

 time for packing, I was working, and 

 could not attend to the bees. In the 

 spring, when I opened the box, one 

 colony was dead, and tl.e other two 

 very weak in numbers. The first 

 opportunity 1 had, I united them, and 

 the first flight they had. I saw they 

 had the dysentery Ijadly , but I allowed 

 them a few fliglits. They were lively 

 and active, and soon overcame that. 

 Later I searched 2 or 3 times for the 

 queen, but could see none; seeing 

 hybrid queens advertised for sale,! 

 thought I could do no better, so I sent 

 for one, and received it all right. 

 Taking the netting off the little hole 

 of the queen's cage, 1 plugged it up 

 with beeswax, and laid it on the top 

 of the frames ; sometime after, ou 

 looking, I saw the wax was gone, so 

 was the queen. I closed up the hive. 

 (It was oil the I4tli of June I received 

 the queen.) As they were so weak iri 

 the spring, I expected no sy\'ann this 

 summer, but on July 3, they swarmed, 

 and by appearances would more than 

 fill ffc gallon measure; so tliere must 

 have been a queen, for had the queen 

 1 put on the frames been received at 

 once, and begun to lay immediately, 

 the earliest hatched could not have 

 been before the 5th ; besides the 

 queen was a hybrid. To-day, July 12, 

 I had a second swarm, considerably 



