84 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



year they worked about a day and a 

 half on it, when a cold rain began, the 

 blossoms were frozen, and the bees were 

 compelled to remain in the hives. Even 

 with uniting and feeding, T have never 

 been able to get a hive booming full of 

 bees by locust bloom. I produce ex- 

 tracted-honey, and my experience is that 

 the bees will not go into the sections and 

 build combs, unless there is a good 

 honey-flow, and then they will store 

 honey in surplus comb,*if the flow is only 

 a little more than they require. I have 

 had Italians for fifteen years, but it is 

 hard to keep them pure. After the 

 honey-flow from clover is over, I take 

 the purest queen (she is generally the 

 best), and put her in the worst mixed 

 hybrid colony, and give all the other 

 dark ones capped queen-cells from this 

 queen. By doing this every year, the 

 bees cannot get very black. Up to three 

 years ago I had to feed my bees every 

 Fall, as there was no Fall pasturage, 

 but for three years it has been getting 

 better every year, and last Fall the 

 brood-chambers were so full in some of 

 the hives that I had to take some of the 

 full frames out, and replace them with 

 half-filled frames from other hives. I 

 can only account for this Fall honey- 

 flow by the fact that a swampy place 

 about two miles from ihy apiary has 

 become filled with purple asters. The 

 honey is very dark, with a red tinge, 

 and granulates very badly. 

 Lancaster, Pa. Thos. Thuelow. 



Hive Covers. 



If nothing else could be found that 

 would keep the water out of bee-hives, I 

 would use cast-iron covers, made just 

 the same as covers or weights are made 

 for snap flasks, except that there should 

 not be any hole in the top, and make 

 them a little lighter, with a flange of 1 

 inch on each end. Thus, you have a 

 hive cover that will last 2,000 years, 

 and never leak, check, nor warp out of 

 shape, and it will not be necessary to 

 put stones on the hives to prevent their 

 blowing over. Cast-iron is. cheap, and 

 very durable if well painted. 



Osakis, Minn. Mark D. Judkins. 



Excellent Crop Prospects. 



Bees are swarming too much,, but 

 basswood will be in bloom in a few days, 

 and the prospects are good for an excel- 

 lent crop of honey. 



H. H. ROSEBROCK. 



Owatonna, Minn., July 6, 1891. 



No Good White Clover Honey. 



Complaint is being made by most bee- 

 keepers of the dark honey stored by 

 bees during the past month, but this is 

 atan^nd now, as a few days of cool 

 weather has checked honey-dew com- 

 pletely. The honey-dew this season is 

 very dark, of rank flavor, and quite 

 useless. Owing to the early prospect of 

 white clover being plentiful, great 

 preparations were made for section 

 honey; but, alas! those white sections 

 are filled with honey-dew. A good 

 article of white clover honey will be 

 hard to find in this locality. 



Jno. Nebel & Son. 



High Hill, Mo., July 3, 1891. 



Self-Hivers. 



I have tried Alley's self-hiver on two 

 occasions, and it would not work. The 

 queen went up into the top box all 

 right, but neither she nor the drones 

 would go down into the lower box. Mr. 

 Alley says he will guarantee the self- 

 hivers to hive 99 swarms out of 100, 

 but I do not believe they will hive a 

 dozen swarms out of 100. My bees are 

 doing well now, and are booming on the 

 alsike and white clovers ; basswood will 

 be in bloom in a few days, and there is 

 a large area sown to buckwheat in my 

 vicinity, so the bees will' have good 

 pasturage until frost comes. Bees in 

 this part of the State wintered well, but 

 some colonies Spring dwindled after 

 they were taken from the cellar. 



D. B. Cassady. 



Litchfield, Minn., July 4, 1891. 



Honey from Heart's-Ease. 



Last year my honey crop was 4,000 

 pounds from 60 colonies. Spring count. 

 I put 79 colonies into Winter quarters 

 last December, and took out. 78 colonies 

 in good condition this Spring, two of 

 which I sold, leaving me 76 colonies, 

 and at this date, June 30, I have 113 

 colonies. They have built 500 new 

 combs, but where will they get the 

 honey to fill them ? The bees did well 

 on fruit-bloom ; then white clover began 

 to bloom about May 1, and for a few 

 days honey was quite plentiful, but the 

 heavy rains commenced, the bloom 

 increased, and the honey decreased. 

 There wag plenty of white clover, but 

 only nectar enough to keep up swarm- 

 ing. I have not taken a pound of comb- 

 honey, and very little extracted. Bass- 

 wood began blooming on June 27, but it 



