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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



August Dwindling. 



Who of the bee-keeping fraternity 

 have had an experience of au August 

 dwindling V Herein southern Ulster 

 county, in eastern New York, on the 

 afternoon of Aug. 16, bees in large 

 numbers lay around my yard unable 

 to reach their hives from being 

 chilled, ea«h laden with honey or 

 pollen. But it so happenefl to be 

 warm the next day, and they most all 

 revived, though had it rained the 

 following night, which it threatened, 

 they would all have perislied. 



D. A. Martin. 



Plattekill, N. Y., Aug. 20, 1883. 



Oyer 600 lbs. from One Colony. 



On page 398, Bee Jouenal, Mr. 

 Knickerbocker states that his " boss 

 colony " has already gathered J45 

 pounds, with the prospect of getting 

 175 pounds. My "boss colony" (a 

 full blooded Italian) has alreaciy 

 gathered 340 pounds ; but my "bosser" 

 one (a7i Aniericanus) has already gath- 

 ered 603 pounds, with the prospect of 

 50 or 100 more. This has been 

 a good year for honey here. The 

 honey flow has been very regular for 

 three months, but is slacking up some 

 now. Our main source of honey is 

 Alfalfa. J. F. Flory. 



Lemore, Cal., Aug. 16, 1883. 



Collecting Sweet Clover Seed. 



Bees are doing well here this sea- 

 son. Be kind enough to state in the 

 Weekly BEBjouuKALthebest method 

 of collecting seed from tl»e bokharaor 

 Bweet clover. J. C. Thom. 



Streetsville, Ont., Aug. 16, 1883. 



Will you please inform me through 

 the Weekly Bee .Journal how the 

 seed of the melilot is secured from the 

 stalk, and what it is worth by the 

 quantity V W. M. IIeilig. 



Lutherville, Md., Aug. 23, 1883. 



[Its price is regulated by the " sup- 

 ply and demand " in the localities 

 where it is to be sold. To secure it, 

 mow, thresh and screen it, as you 

 would other grain. — Ed.] 



Honey-Producing Plants. 



We are expecting a (ine display of 

 honey-producing plants and insects 

 injurious to bees, at the Tri-State 

 Bee-Keepers'Association meeting and 

 Fair. It is prepared by a student of 

 the Michigan University. I am not 

 positive it will be here, but expect it. 

 Prof. Cook has written me in regard 

 to it. The Professor has also given 

 me a invitation to act as chief judge 

 at.the Fair at Detroit, and I expect to 

 " obey orders." A. B. Mason. 



Wagon AVorks, O., Aug. 24, 1883. 



"Nothing but Leaves." 



In my communication on page 419, 

 where it is said that the caps were 

 nearly all lilled with " lioiiey," it 

 should have read nearly all tilled with 

 leaves. The weather is again cool 

 duringthe nights, and honey is coming 

 in slowly. H. S. Hackman. 



Peru, 111., Aug. 24, 1883. 



Honey Yield iu Ontario. 



Beine desirous of having my bees 

 store surplus honey in the second 

 story of my hives, I determined to re- 

 move a couple of sections ftom the 

 brood-chamber to the upper story, 

 and, in doing so, I was obliged to cut 

 some of the sections apart where they 

 had worked together, and consider- 

 able honey ran down to the bottom of 

 the hives, making a condition unsat- 

 isfactory to the bees. What are the 

 probable results of such removals V 

 My hives had a strong force of work- 

 ing bees, with the bottom full of 

 honey, and most of the section combs 

 worked together. I had the second 

 story of my hives tilled with sections 

 of comb foundation, and yet the bees 

 would not work on the second story. 

 I made this division only three days 

 since, and I now find them working 

 all right with the exception of one 

 hive, on the front of which a large 

 number of bees cluster. This I at- 

 tribute to the imsettled condition of 

 the bees, caused by cutting the combs, 

 whereby the honey flowed to the bot- 

 tom of the hive, causing confusion in 

 their working. The yield of honey 

 in this part of Ontario, this season, 

 so f;ir, is far above the average, and 

 bee-keepers anticipate very large re- 

 sults, and well they may, when comb 

 honey, broken up, sells at 1.5 cents 

 per pound, and one-pound boxes of 

 honey retail at 2-5 cents per pound; 

 white extracted honey is sold at 13 

 cents per pound wholesale, and retails 

 at 1-5 cents per pound. Our bees are 

 principally Cypruins and Italians; very 

 few black bees are to be found, and 

 those who have them are classed 

 among the old fogies. J. H. Peck. 



Trenton, Out., Aug. 20, 1883. 



[The removal of unfinished sections 

 to the upper story is frequently done 

 to induce the bees to work up there, 

 and there will be no trouble to get the 

 bees to clean up the honey ; in fact 

 that is, of itself, an inducement for 

 them to store it above.— Ed.] 



Report for the Season. 



I commenced the season with 57 

 colonies; some of them were by no 

 means strong. They brought in the 

 first pollen on April 2 ; one month 

 later than usual. My first swarm 

 issued May 18 ; ten days earlier than 

 last year. It commenced to rain 

 April 30, and continued about five 

 days out of every week, more or less, 

 up to June 22, when it ceased. White 

 clover commenced to bloom the latter 

 part of May ; the bees made good use 

 of the time between showers, and at 

 this date the pasture fields are white 

 with bloom. Our favorite linden 

 commenced to bloom the first of July, 

 and lasted for 25 days; it gives a 

 bountiful harvest of fine honey. I 

 sell it readily at ray home market, 

 extracted at 10 cents ; comb at 15 

 cents per pound. One-pound sections 

 are a new thing here ; a few days ago 

 I put a crate of one-pound sections of 

 beautiful white comb honey in the 

 store ; as it was the first they had ever 

 seen, it was admired by many. Bees 



have swarmed too much here this 

 year. Many wild swarms passed over; 

 one went in the gable end of a dwell- 

 ing house, at a knot hole in the 

 weather boarding, and they are still 

 working lively. H. Clark. 



Palmyra, Iowa, Aug. 1, 1883. 



Home Markets for Honey. 



I said, many years ago, that all the 

 honey produced in the state of New 

 York could be consumed in the State, 

 without taking any of it to our largest 

 cities. This may seem a broad asser- 

 tion, but let bee-keepers commence, 

 as I did 20 years ago, to dispose of 

 their honey, and I think that they will 

 be convinced that their country and 

 village will consume nearly all of it. 

 The very same families that a few 

 years ago bought but a few pounds, 

 will now take as many dollar's worth; 

 aud for the past few years I have had 

 more orders by far than I could fill. 

 Another thing, you are not only crea- 

 ting a home market which will increase 

 aa years roll by, but you get the cash ; 

 but if it be consigned to the best com- 

 mission men, time must elapse before 

 you get the pay, sav nothing of break- 

 ing and many otlier contingencies. 

 One word of caution : be careful not 

 to try to sell honey of an inferior class 

 for first-class; sell it for just what it is. 

 I never have any trouble to sell it all. 



Oran, N. Y. W. P. B. 



Queen's Stings, the Clovers, etc. 



Two weeks ago, a Holy Land queen 

 stung my wife on the middle finger, 

 while she was daubing her with honey, 

 to return her to hive No. 19, from 

 which she had just emerged with a 

 swarm ; and, one day last week, my 

 daughter was assisting me, and while 

 she was preparing to kill a Holy Land 

 virgin queen in hive No. 3, she was 

 stung on the middle finger. My wife 

 and daughter are my main helpers in 

 the apiary, and they have handled 

 hundreds of queens, and were never 

 stung by one before. The stings were 

 painful ; both queens retained their 

 stingers and are now doing splendidly. 

 My 5 acres of buckwheat are iu full 

 bloom, and the bees are on it from 

 daybreak till noon, and are on the 

 sweet and red clovers all day. The 

 bees are not now working on the 

 white clover, but very little. The fig- 

 wort and catnip are blooming, and 

 dotted thick witli bees from early un- 

 til late. My Black-Italians (hybrids) 

 do not work on red clover. My Syrio- 

 Italians draw the nectar from the red 

 clover bloom, easily and quickly. The 

 queens all had a vacation some three 

 weeks back, but now they are at the 

 front, booming. The honey is the 

 finest I ever saw. The prospects are 

 yet splendid in favor of a fall honey 

 harvest. We have had no rain now 

 for ten days, and to-day it is 94° at 1 

 p.m.; wind northwest. I keep my 

 51 colonies all equal and full of bees ; 

 when one gets so full that they cannot 

 be smoked in, to stay and work, I find 

 the weakest hive, and, late in the 

 evening, I shovel them up and take 

 them to that hive and smoke them in. 



Kane, 111. R. M. Osbobn. 



