TTH® MMEMIC'MJH: BE® J&V^mMRI^. 



251 



were going in and out, upon im- 

 mediately felling the tree, I was much 

 surprised t() find that there were only 

 a handful of bees, which were engaged 

 in cleaning out the hollow, prepara- 

 torj' to the swarm's taking possession. 

 I soon found that it did not jjay to cut 

 bee-trees during swarming time, as 

 not half of the trees cut at this time 

 will be found to contain swarms. 



Upon a certain occasion, one of my 

 neighbors told me that a swarm of my 

 bees had taken possession of the gable 

 end of his house. Upon examination 

 I found that the bees were going in 

 and out through the siding, but from 

 the inquisitive manner in which thej' 

 were crawling into every hole they 

 could find, I concluded that they were 

 looking up a place to locate, and not 

 wishing to lose a swarm of bees, I 

 went home, when I found a large 

 swarm clustered on a tree, and hived 

 them, and they did not trouble the 

 neighlior afterward. 



One of my neighbors told me last 

 winter that he secured 17 swarms in 

 one season, by placing emptj' hives in 

 trees. Now if bees do not look up a 

 future home, there must have been a 

 great many swarms of bees flying 

 through the air, to have accidentallj' 

 found so many of those empty hives. 



Winter Temperature and Ventilation* 



In Mr. Tyrrel's article, on page 25, 

 he says that temperature and ventila- 

 tion are the most impoi'tant factors in 

 the wintering problem, all else being of 

 minor importance, as matters over 

 which we have no control, such as 

 honey-dew, improper food, etc. I 

 think that Mr. Tyrrel is putting it 

 pretty strong, when he says that 

 honey-dew, improper food, etc., are 

 of minor importance. My experience 

 has proven that bees with stores of 

 good, ripe honey, will winter under 

 most unfavorable conditions ; while 

 with stores of poor honej', and honey- 

 dew, they will not winter well under 

 the most favorable conditions of tem- 

 perature and ventilation. 



Again, I cannot agree with Mr. 

 Tyrrel, as to our having no control 

 over the kind of food which our bees 

 shall have for winter stores. The ad- 

 vanced strides of modern bee-culture, 

 together with the improved manner of 

 manipulating hives, places it entirely 

 at the option of the apiarist, whether 

 his bees will have honey-dew or some- 

 thing better for winter stores ; and for 

 my part, I expect to see to it that my 

 bees tlo not have honey-dew for winter 

 stores in the future. 



If Mr. T. had said that all those 

 bees, during his experiments, had the 

 same kind of stores, it might prove a 

 gi'eat deal in favor of a lower tempera- 

 ture for cellars ; but if his bees with 

 stores of good honey wintered well at 



28° to 30°, and again on stores of 

 honey-dew did not do well at a tem- 

 perature above 42-, it does not f<jlIow 

 that 28° to 30O is the right tempera- 

 ture. I have always considered the 

 matter of food a very important factor, 

 and in conducting experiments it 

 should always be considered. 



The temperature in my cave never 

 goes below 40-, nor above 43°, no 

 matter what the weather is outside, and 

 the cave did not cost ten dollars. 



Osage, Iowa. 



'K5g;TaTg5HTgtIIT»II8;;;gSigTYT^ 



CONVEXTIOIX DIRECTORY. 



Time and Place of Meeting. 

 Stark Countv, at Canton, O. 



Murk Thomson, Sec, Canton, O. 

 ■Union, at Menki. Iowa. 



Mrs. J. K. Pryor, Prea., Dexter. Iowa. 

 -Central Michiean, at IjansiriK, Mich. 



W. A. Barnes, Sec. DeWitt, Mich. 

 -Eastern Indiana, at Richmond, Ind. 



M. i>. Reynolds, Sec, Williamsburt:. Ind. 

 -Des Moinea County, at Burlington, Ii)wa. 

 John Nau. Sec, Middletown, Iowa. 

 Darke County, at Anannia. O. 



J. A. hue. Sec. Union City, Ind. 

 Marshall Co., at Marshalltown. Iowa. 



J. W. Sanders, See., LeGrande, Iowa, 

 —Texas State, at Greenville. Tex. 



B. F. Carroll, Sec, Blooming Grove. Tex. 

 Susquehanna County, at New Milford, Pa. 

 H. M. Seeley. Sec, Harford, Pa. 

 Welland County, at Welland, Ont. 



J. F. Uunn, Sec, Ridgeway. Onl. 

 Keystone, at Scranton, Pa. 



Arthur A. Davis. Sec, Clark's Green. Pa. 

 Cortland Union, at Cortland. N. V. 



W. H. Beach, Sec, Cortland, N. Y. 

 -Nashua, at Nasliua. Iowa. 



H. L. Rouse, Sec Ionia, Iowa. 

 -N. W. Ills. & S. W. Wis., at Rorkton, Ills. 



D. A. Fuller, Sec. (Iherry Valley. Ills. 

 —Colorado State, at Denver, Colo. 



J. M. Claik, Sec, Denver, Colo. 



^T" In order to have this table complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meettnKs.— Bd. 



1868. 

 Apr. 1 I.- 

 Apr. 14.- 

 Apr. 21.- 

 Apr. 21.- 

 Apr. 24.- 

 Apr.27.- 

 Apr. 21,- 

 May 2, 3, 

 May S.- 

 May T.- 

 May S.- 

 May S.- 

 May 19. 

 May 22, 

 Aug. 14. 



g gfgg jgg g gg yygggTggwggiigngrryy 



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Cemented IJee-Cellaps. — C. H. 



Dibbern, Milan, Ills., on March 31, 1888, 

 says : 



In reply to Mr. .Jolin B. Lindle, on page 

 18.'), I will say that I liave used exactly such 

 R bee-cellar us described by me on page 41. 

 Duruijf the last ten years I have stored, 

 every winter, from 100 to 180 eoloides of 

 bees in it, and I have not lost to exceed 2 

 percent, in winterhig. The present winter 

 will be no exception, as the bees appear to 

 be in fine condition. 



Finding: tlie i^iieen, etc.— Frank 

 Waring, Philipsburg, Pa., on March, 38, 

 1888, writes : 



This Is how I now find queens after all 

 other niethoils failed : I procure an empty 

 hive like the one with the bees in, move 

 the old hive back a lew feet, and put the 

 empty one on the old stand, with a drone 

 and queen trap at the entrance, so that all 

 the bees have to pass through the zinc. X 

 then take a frame out of the old hive, and if 

 I do not see the queen, I shake enough of 

 the bees in front of the new liive so that 1 

 am aure the queen is iwt on tlie frame ; 



then I put the frame into the new liive, 

 cover it with a cloth, and proceed with 

 another frame in the same way. It I get all 

 the frames into the new hive without find- 

 ing the queen, I find her trying to get in 

 through the perforated zinc. 



Last fall 1 had 14 colonies of bees, and 

 now 1 have 13, one having frozen to death 

 early in the winter. They were wintered 

 on the summer stands, and are all in good 

 condition. One strong colony had a hive- 

 entrance l'.ixl3 inches, and is in splendid 

 condition now. Yesterday I started the 

 bees on rye meal, and to-day they worked 

 on it with great vigor. Bees were flying ia 

 as great numbers as during a honey-flow in 

 ndrtsnmmer. I have one colony of pure 

 black bees, and the rest are of all degrees 

 up to nea/rly pure Italian. 



Oood Prospects — HItc Stan- 

 dards.— D. P. Barrows, Nordhoff, Calif., 

 on March 21, ISSS, saj's : 



The season has opened very favorably, 

 and the prospects are very fair for a good 

 year for bees. There was very little honey 

 last year, but our hees are doing very well, 

 and the majority are well supplied witii 

 honey. My bees have not swarmed yet, 

 but 1 am looking for them to do so soon, 

 as there are a great many drones about the 

 apiary, and in many hives. Will someone 

 suggest a good standard for which to place 

 hives on ? 



Experience in llec-Keeping:. — 



Walter B. Boutwell, Lowell, Mass., on Mar. 



18, 1888, writes : 



I began with 1 colony, increased it to 3 

 the Hr.-t year, and the next year I Increased 

 them to 8 colonies: the next year I increased 

 them to 13 colonies. I have lost all but S 

 colonies. I had a swarm issue on Aug. 30, 

 which was very late, but I thought I would 

 try to save it. I hived it on comb founda- 

 tion, and it gathered some honey before 

 frost came; so I put it into the barn cellar, 

 in a window, so that the sun would shine in 

 very warmly. I fed it with one-pound sec- 

 tions of honey in the window, and it carried 

 the honey into the hive ; it wintered in that 

 way, and in the summer it built up so as to- 

 make a very strong colony. I can sell a 

 great deal of honey in Lowell for 30 cents a 

 pound. There is not much honey in that 

 town now. 



Properly Caring' foi" tUe Bees. 



—J. W. Sanders, Le Grand, Iowa, on March 

 33, 1888, writes : 



I prepared my 04 colonies for winter last 

 October, by strengthening the weak in 

 stores from those that had enough and to 

 spare, and putting in division-boards. I 

 made a record ot the condition of each col- 

 ony, by giving the age and quality of the 

 queen, number of frames, strength of the 

 colony, and amount of stores. This I have 

 in my apiary r^gister, and also on a tablet 

 which is tacked on the front of each hive, 

 where I can see it at any time when in the 

 bee-cellar. 



On Ni)V. 19 and 21 I put all the bees into 

 the cellar, where I intend to have them re- 

 main until about the time willow and maple 

 are ready to bloom. The temperature of the 

 cellar has been fnim 86° to 43» the most of 

 the time since they were put in. A few 

 times I had to use a little stove in order to 

 keep the temoerature above freezing, when 

 it was 20= to 30= below zero out-doors, and 

 perhaps a high wind. Such weather will 

 some times alfect cellars here, and I find it 

 a good thing to have a thermometer in the 

 cellar. March IS was a very warm day, being 

 00" in the shaile, but about .')0= in the cellar, 

 and the bees were more restless than at any 



