OBSERVATIONS BY APIAHISTS.: 





old daughter attends the bees almost entirely and enjoys it. She says 

 it is easier than raising poultry, and has more money in it. I know it 

 will pay any farmer's wife to keep a few stands of bees in order to 

 have plenty of honey to use in the family." 



J. C. BALCH, Bronson. Bourbon county; fifteen stands. "I prefer 

 Italians ; have found Cyprians cross and almost unmanageable. We 

 have no honey-producing flora in this part of the state. Bees in Kan- 

 sas are not a source of pecuniary income every year; but, taking one 

 year with another, will average with other agricultural pursuits. I 

 have been keeping bees in a small way since 1875, and have never 

 been out of honey for our table but twice, for a few months each time, 

 and I have sold hundreds of dollars' worth of honey." 



D. B. JONES, Mound Ridge, McPherson county. "I have four 

 stands of bees. My experience is that alfalfa is a good honey plant 

 upon lands watered by rain. But I do not think there is any better 

 plant to make fine-flavored honey than white clover. Yet our bees 

 have been doing much better since there has been plenty of alfalfa 

 raised here. I do not think bees have half the care they deserve." 



H. H. McGuGiN, May view, Jewell county; forty stands. "I prefer 

 Italian, but like Carniolans almost as well. I think alfalfa and sweet 

 clover are the best honey-producing plants we have." 



P. C. GRESS, M. D., Atchison, Atchison county; fifty stands. "I 

 have none but Italians, as I find them far superior in every way to 

 other races. They are better workers, more gentle, less excitable, 

 winter better, remain kindly upon the comb, while other races 

 under like handling run and fall down and scatter, and are more 

 annoying to the apiarist. One of my observations is of special inter- 

 est to fruit-growers. In my estimation the honey-bee is one of the 

 greatest necessities for the proper cross-fertilization of blooms. I 

 have protected limbs of trees by screen cloth during blossoming sea- 

 son, and kept the insects from them, only to find a limb without fruit, 

 where others, without protection, were well fruited. I have received 

 good interest on every dollar invested, and mean to continue the in- 

 dustry, despite the loss and backset which I received last winter, 153 

 colonies stored for the winter being burned." 



SOLON STEERE, Asherville, Mitchell county ; thirty-five colonies ; 

 Italians. " I think that alfalfa is about the only plant here from which 

 bees secure a surplus of honey, and that, of course, with natural 

 moisture. Sweet clover I consider the very best honey plant we have, 

 but there is not enough of it. It is not inclined to spread very fast. 

 I have scattered quite a little of the seed at different times, but re- 

 sults have not been very encouraging. We seem to get the greatest 

 benefit from alfalfa, when it is left for the seed crop. I do not make 



