AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



181 



CONVENTION DIRECTORY. 



Time and place of meeting. 



1891. 

 Sept. 3.— Susquehanna County, at So. Montrose, Pa. 

 H. M. Seeley, Sec, Harl'ord, Pa. 



Oct. 14, ]").— S. W. Wisconsin, at Fennimore, Wis. 

 • ^ Benj. E. Rice, Sec, Boscobel, Wis. 



In order to have this table complete, 

 Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting. — The Editor. 



North American Bee-Keepers' Association 



President— P. H. Elwood. ..Starkviile, N. Y. 

 Secretary— C. P. Dadaut Hamilton, Ills. 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddou ..Dowag-iac, Mich. 

 Sec'y and Manager— T. G. Newman, Chicago. 



Bee and tlonei] Gossip. 



^^' Do not write anything- for publication 

 on the same sheet of paper with business 

 matters, unless it can be torn apart without 

 interfering- with either part of the letter. 



Preventing- Swarming-. 



Mr. Thomson's remarks on page 120 of 

 the Bee Journal, for 1890, upon the 

 construction of hives, are both timely 

 and practical. He says that "swarming 

 must be prevented ;" but his advice re- 

 garding the manner of preventing swarm- 

 ing is too much like a blank. We wish 

 that Mr. Thomson, and other bee-keep- 

 ers, would give us, through the Bee 

 Journal, advice on this most important 

 question. O. & E. Clark. 



Greenleaf, Wis. 



Poor Honey-Flow. 



On page 107, H. Hine, of Sedan, Ind., 

 asks the following question : "What is 

 the reason that bees will not store honey 

 in the surplus boxes (which were put on 

 new) when swarms will fill the brood- 

 frames in less than three weeks ?" I 

 should say, because there was none to 

 gather. I had intended to make a report 

 on my new hive this season, but the 

 season has been so unfavorable that I 

 have not done so. Last year I made 8 

 hives, and transferred weak colonies 

 into a part of them, but the season was 

 so unfavorable that all the bees died 

 during the Winter, except 2 colonies, 



and they were very weak. However, 

 having good hives, and nice combs, as 

 fast as swarms issued I put them into 

 the new hives, and put on the sections, 

 and in no instance did they fail to go to 

 work within three days, and in some 

 instances on the same day they were 

 hived. I now have 10 colonies in those 

 hives, but the honey-flow has been so 

 poor that they only get about enough 

 for their own use. The hive has entirely 

 fulfilled my expectations. I use it for 

 comb-honey. For extracted-honey, I 

 use the Langstroth hive. There is no 

 secrect about my hive, nor is it patented, 

 and should any bee-keeper desire to 

 know anything about it, I will describe 

 it in the Bee Journal. 



O. P. Miller. 

 Glendon, Iowa, July 25, 1891. 



Decisions by the Higher Courts. 



What the bee-keeping interest needs 

 most to secure it on a rational basis, is a 

 few comprehensive decisions in its favor 

 by courts of last resort; and these will 

 be its greatest security in the future. 

 Then, when the advice of an attorney is 

 sought in any case of grievance against 

 bees and bee-keepers, the lawyer will 

 have these decisions to guide him in giv- 

 ing advice, and many annoying suits will 

 be averted. If the Bee-Keepers' Union 

 accomplishes no more than this, it will 

 have performed a great work. The 

 Union cannot care for mere grievances. 

 It defends bee-iceeping as a busiiiess, and 

 nothing else. G. W. Demaree. 



Christiansburg, Ivy. 



Black, Shiny Bees, etc. 



In reply to the. question of D. C. Leach 

 (page 118), American Bee Journal, 

 we would like to state that the black, 

 shiny bees he mentions are simply bees 

 that have lost their downy hair. These 

 bees are not sick nor suffering. Why 

 they are to be found more numerous in 

 one hive than in another, probably, is 

 due to the same cause that makes men 

 in one family bald headed, when those 

 of another preserve their hair late in 

 life. It is certain that bees which are 

 in the habit of pilfering and robbing 

 become bald much sooner than those of 

 other hives, owing, probably, to their 

 being caught by other bees and escaping 

 from them again after more or less ill- 

 treatment. There are many bee-keepers 

 who are of opinion that the so-called 

 nameless bee-disease is simply constipa- 

 tion, caused by unhealthy honey as food. 



