THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



587 



Bee-Keeping in Florida.— Dr. J. S. 



McAllister, Tarpon Springs,? Fla., 

 on Sept. 2, 1887, writes : 



I have not been in Vohisia county 

 yet, but I have been down the interior 

 of this State, a little below the 28 

 parallel, and I saw a few apiaries, 

 and all that I have seen as yet are not 

 very encouraging for any one to en- 

 gage in bee-keeping here. But there 

 are points in the state that I have not 

 yet visited, where I understand that 

 bees do well ; but my advice would 

 be, to look the field over before going 

 to much expense in bee-culture in 

 Florida. There were 75 colonies 

 brought to this place some two years 

 ago, by an expert, that have never 

 half paid running expenses. 



Getting no Honey.— R- J. Mathews, 

 Riverton,K) Miss., on Sept. 1, 1887, 

 says : 



Our bees are getting no honey, and 

 have not for 8 weeks. Prospects are 

 poor for a fall crop. One of my 

 neighbors has lost about 40 colonies, 

 and has to feed his bees. 



Bug-Juice —Jos. H. Wood, Loving- 

 ton,© 111., on Sept. 6, 1887, writes : 



I send you a sample of honey that 

 my bees are bringing in — " honey 

 dew " I guess. Will it do for them to 

 winter oiiV As this question interests 

 all the bee-keepers in this part of the 

 country, please answer in the Amer- 

 ican Bee Jouknal. If it will not 

 do to let them have it, in what way 

 would we get rid of it? All the bees 

 are short of stores. 



[It is bug-juice, sometimes miscalled 

 " honey-dew." If you can furnish 

 the bees with good honey or sugar 

 syrup, do so ; if not, they may as well 

 risk the bug-juice as to die of starva- 

 tion. You can easily take it away 

 from the bees, by the honey extractor. 

 -Ed.] 



Some Results of the Season.— O. R. 

 Goodno, Carson City,© Mich., on 

 Sept. 5, 1887, writes : 



I have increased my apiary from 100 

 colonies in the spring, to 144 now, 

 with a full summer's work put in, and 

 I have secured all of 1,000 lbs. of 

 comb honey in 1-lb. sections. When 

 you consider that that amount is more 

 than I can learn of in all the sur- 

 roundinff county, it is indeed a great 

 amount. I do not know of as much 

 comb honey within ten miles, as I 

 have secured. Mr. H. M. lioop, of 

 Carson City, has had 48 colonies this 

 season, but has not a pound of sur- 

 plus honey. Mr. G. M. Bosney, of 

 this place, with 140 colonies, procured 

 nearly as much honey as myself, but 

 fooled it away at 10 and 12 cents per 

 lb. W. A. Buck, of Crystal, has 50 

 colonies, and has not a pound of sur- 

 plus. Mr. Stevens, of Bushnell, has a 

 quantity of bees with no surplus. 

 Mr. Robert North, of Palo, 10 miles 

 away, with about the same number of 



colonies as I have, has no surplus. 

 Mr. Chas. Cross, of Carson City, 4 

 miles from here, has 75 or SO colonies, 

 and supposed he had at least 1,000 

 lbs.; he has scraped it together and 

 finds 12 crates of 28-lb. sections each, 

 all he has. This is a fair sample of the 

 way the results of the season run so 

 far as I can hear. I have 42 crates 

 with 28 sections each, but not filled as 

 full as they should be ; they will 

 average less than 25 lbs. each, and 

 are in excellent condition. The col- 

 onies in the yard I think are in first- 

 class condition, except those hived 

 after July 1, 8 of which are in Heddon 

 hives, and those I am feeding every 

 night. Aside from those I think there 

 is plenty of honey in the yard to 

 winter upon, by equalizing the supply. 



Heart's-Ease and Sweet Clover.— 

 r.L. Merrick, Waldron,o 111., on Sept. 

 5. 1887, says : 



I send you two plants or weeds. 

 The one with pink blossoms is here 

 called heart's-ease ; the other, that 

 blossoms in June, is known here as 

 sweet clover. The latter dried up 

 here in July. The former is now in 

 full blossom, and bees are working 

 on it lively. Please give me the names 

 to each. 



[The botanical name of the sweet 

 clover is melilotus alba, and the heart's- 

 ease is viola tricolor. Both are excel- 

 lent for honey.— Ed.] 



Linwood Bee-Keepers' Convention. 



— Mr. A. C. Sanford, the President, 

 of Ono,^ Wis, on Sept. 5, 1887, writes 

 as follows : 



The Linwood Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion met on Sept. 1, 1887, at Spring 

 Valley, Wis. Those present reported 

 4.54 colonies of bees, and a light crop 

 of honey, being but 6,400 lbs. of comb 

 honey and 4,450 lbs. of extracted. 

 Our Society is small, but it is grow- 

 ing. It is about 2 years old, and we 

 have excellent meetings. We have 

 some real enthusiastic members, and 

 have many more in this vicinity that 

 should join us, and they will be the 

 sufferers this time, for if they had be- 

 longed to the Society, and taken the 

 American Bee Journal they would 

 have been informed about the honey 

 market, and would have kept their 

 honey out of the early market, and 

 could then have obtained 18 or 20 cts. 

 per lb., instead of from 10 to 15 cts. 



Kissing Bees.— W. H. Coleman, an 

 attache of the Coimtry Oentleman, writes 

 as follows from Albany, o N. Y., on 

 Sept. 2, 1887 : 



Editor American Bee Journal : 

 — I have followed the " bee-kissing " 

 controversy with some interest, as I 

 reported the Albany Convention pro- 

 ceedings for the Country Oentleman and 

 so far as I have seen, the paragraph 

 relating to Mrs. Thomas did not ap- 

 pear elsewhere, although you appear 

 to have met it twisted into an extract 

 from a " AVoman'a Convention" re- 



port. As it was my first report of a 

 " bee " convention, and done in ordi- 

 nary long hand (brief notes after- 

 wards written out) I feared that 1 had 

 made some blunder either in state- 

 ment or figures, and was quite relieved 

 to find that Mrs. Thomas sustained 

 me, as you also did, earlier in the sea- 

 son, in copying a good part of the re- 

 port with, I think, only one trifiing 

 correction. But allow me to correct 

 one phrase in your remarks on Mrs. 

 Thomas' essay— applying the " two 

 years ago " to the reporter's account. 

 If you will look at the report you will 

 find the " two years " accurs in the 

 statement about Miss Creed's success 

 —not Mrs. Thomas'. 



[We cheerfully give the above cor- 

 rection, and hope this will explain 

 matters to the satisfaction of all.— 

 Ed.] 



Good Crops- Sundry ftuestions.— 



Wm. Cleary, Algona,(^ Iowa, on Aug. 

 29, 1887, writes : 



In northwestern Iowa we have had 

 plenty of rain since June 15, and crops 

 of every kind were never better. May 

 and the first part of June were too 

 dry for clover, so that when the bass- 

 wood came into bloom, bees had no 

 stores, but they then filled up the 

 brood-chamber and some in the supers, 

 the best colonies filling one and start- 

 ing the second, and they have been 

 storing some honey every week since. 

 Last week it was too cold and wet, so 

 they did not store much. I notice 

 that when the wind is in the north- 

 east, or east, they do not go out much. 

 I keep one hive on scales and it gained 

 4 lbs. on Sunday and Monday, from 

 buckwheat. They have not "worked 

 any on goldenrod for some cause, I 

 know not what. I have 35 colonies 

 and had a large swarm on Aug. 21, 

 and another issued on Aug. 27, which 

 went to the woods. I never saw bees 

 breed up so strong so late. I have 

 one colony that is filling the third 

 super, but many were so weak in the 

 spring that it has taken all summer 

 for them to build up, and some were 

 queenless and I had to give them 

 brood three and four times before 

 they got a queen to work. I do not 

 know the cause, only I suppose the 

 young queens were lost on their 

 wedding trip. Please answer the fol- 

 lowing questions : 



1. Will it pay to extract honey if it 

 will bring from 12J^ to 15 cts. per lb., 

 from the body of hives, and feed sugar 

 at 7 cts. per lb.? 



2. What per cent of the honey 

 gathered does California produce ? 

 Some say California controls the 

 price. 



3. Does sweet clover live from year 

 to year, or does it die after going to 

 seed ? 



4. Does hemp produce any honey ? 

 My bees worked on it some days from 

 morning till night, and thicker than 

 on any thing else, unless it is sweet 

 clover. I know they get lots of pollen 

 from it. 



5. Do bees gather any honey from 

 corn bloom ? 



