300 



THE MMERICSP* Wmm ja^RIfMIr. 



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COaiTElVTIOSf DIRECTORY. 



1888. Time arid Place of Meeting. 



May 5.— Susquehanna County, at New Milford, Pa. 



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

 May 7.— Welland County, at Welland, Ont. 



J. K. Dunn, Sec, Ridgeway, Ont. 



Mays. 



-Keystone, at 8cranton, Pa. 



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



May 8.— Cortland Union, at Cortland. N. Y. 



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



May 19. — Nashua, at Nashua. Iowa. 



H. L. Kouae, Sec. Ionia. Iowa. 

 May 22.— N. W. Ills. & S. W. Wis., at Rookton, Ills. 



D. A. Fuller, Sec, Cherry Valley, Ills. 

 May 31.— Wia. Lake Shore Center, at Kiel, Wis. 



Ferd. Zastrow. Sec, Millhome, Wis. 



Aug. 3. — Ionia County, at Ionia, Mich. 



H. Smith, Sec, Ionia, Mich. 



Aug. 14.— Colorado State, at Denver, Colo. 



J. M. Clark, Sec, Denver, Colo. 



Aug. 27.— Stark County, at Canton, O. 



Mark Thomson, Sec, Canton, O. 



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

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetings.- Bd. 



«« «ga ! »» »»M«»«»«l«Ht»l«««!»gTTYT 



good, normal condition), well covered with 

 bees, and containing honey, larvse and eggs 

 young enough to produce queens, or under 

 four days old. Place these in a hive, parti- 

 tioning it off with a division-board to a suit- 

 able size. Place this new colony on the old 

 stand, tirst removing the original colony to 

 a new location. The bees in the new hive, 

 finding that they have no queen, will form 

 embryos, and rear new queens. 



Then two or three days before the young 

 queens emerge, place the embryos in the 

 queenless hives, and those needing new 

 queens. Care must be taken to have the 

 hive warm and tight, and the bees well pro- 

 vided with honey. 



When all the colonies are supplied with 

 queens, leave an embryo in the " queen- 

 nursery," and you will thus have the queen- 

 less colonies remedied, and a new colony 

 besides. 





Pollen from Skiink-Cabba^e.— 



G. M. Doolittle, Borodino, N. T., on April 

 19, 18S8, writes : 



The first pollen was gathered to-day from 

 skunk cabbage, which is our earliest pollen- 

 pioduoer. The mercury is at 48°, so that 

 very few bees are flying, and when the sun 

 goes under the clouds, these pollen-laden 

 bees fall to the ground and stay until the 

 suu again comes out and warms them up. 

 One day the last of March, the mercury 

 went up to 58°, which gave the bees a fine 

 flight ; otherwise it has not been to 50° this 

 year. 



Bees Wintered Poorly.— C. W. 



Baker, Martinsville, Mo., on April 13, 1888, 

 writes : 



1 began the winter with 12 colonies of 

 bees, unprotected on the summer stands, 

 except that I banked the snow around them 

 when there was enough to do so. Three 

 colonies are all that I lost, and two of them 

 werelate swarms. But almost all of the 

 bees in this country are dead, or at least 75 

 per cent, of them. 



Many Colonies Iiaxe Starved — 



Thos. C. Stanley, Boyleston, Ills., on April 

 21, 1888, writes : 



Last year 15 cases (about 300 pounds) was 

 our crop of honey from 2.i0 colonies, Sf)ring 

 count. Perhaps there was a barrel or two 

 of extracted honey, liad we taken it out, but 

 we never count it. Many bees are starved 

 out through the country — 1 should say .50 

 percent. I always keep a supply of honey 

 on hand for such seasons, and consequently 

 suffer no loss from that cause. But there is 

 a cause from which we have lost heavily 

 for three years. 



swarmed, and it was a very large colony in 

 time. They were there for five or six years. 

 He would go up and sweep the room out 

 once a week. They built the comb all over 

 the hive, and the frames to the floor, and 

 loaded them so heavily that one day it fell 

 to the floor in a heap, losing the bees and 

 all. My brother built a room of the same 

 kind two years afterward, and had the same 

 misfortune, and lost his bees in ^lie same 

 way. 



Where 1 now live the water in 1884 was 10 

 feet deep in my yard and garden, so it is 

 not a very good place to keep bees in my 

 cellar. I have had one colony in the garret 

 for two summers, in a sectional frame hive ; 

 but it is too much labor to go up two long 

 stairs to see them, so I shall move them 

 down to my bee-house that I have been 

 building for them. The room is 7)4 feet 

 wide, 20 feet long, and TJ^ feet high. I do 

 not see why they should not do well in it, 

 as I can pack them well for winter. 



:^ot Overstocked -wltk Bees.— J. 

 T. Caldwell, Cambridge, Ills., on April 19, 



1888, says : 



Bees have wintered in poor condition in 

 this part of the country, and we will not be 

 overstocked with bees this year. • The pros- 

 pect for a good honey season is not promis- 

 ing, to say the least. White clover was 

 nearly all killed by the drouth last season, 

 and unless we get much rain our crop will 

 be a failure. Last season I obtained only 

 40 pounds from 200 good colonies. 



Storing' Pollen — Alsike Clover. 



—J. H. Stanford, Cherokee, Iowa, on April 



12, 1888, writes : 



I am happy to report that my bees have 

 survived the terrible blizzards of the past 

 winter, and are now gathering pollen from 

 maples and willows. My new bee-cellar, 

 built according to Dr. Miller's instructions, 

 has proved to be a success so far. The tem- 

 perature of the cellar has not varied more 

 than 4° this winter, and at no time above 

 38°. I planted six acres of Alsike clover 

 last spring, but very little of it lias come up, 

 as it was very dry here last summer. Can 

 any one tell about Alsike clover seed grow- 

 ing the second year ? I know that white 

 clover seed will lie in the ground for two or 

 three years, and then grow. I increased my 

 bees from 12 to 39 colonies in 1887, extracted 

 775 pounds of honey, and took off 50 pounds 

 of comb honey. I sold the extracted honey 

 for 13J,< cents per pound, and the comb 

 honey for 20 cents a pound. 



Ionia Co., Micli., Convention. — 



Harmon Smith, of Ionia, Mich., the Secre- 

 tary of the Association, sends the following 

 report : 



The adjourned meeting of the Ionia 

 County Bee-Keepers' Association was held 

 in the office of Oscar Talcott, at Ionia, 

 Mich., on April 18, 1888. It was called to 

 order by Chairman J. H. Robertson, with 

 Harmon Smith acting Secretary. Seventeen 

 members reported 929 colonies put into win- 

 ter quarters last fall, and a loss of only 43 

 of that number in wintering. 



After deliberation and interchange of 

 views on various matters, Mr. Robertson 

 introduced a printed constitution, practically 

 agreed upon at the March meeting, which 

 was adopted. Copies of it may be had of 

 the Secretary, upon paying a membership 

 fee of 25 cents. 



The following officers were elected : 

 President, J. H. Robertson ; Vice-Presi- 

 dents, A. H. Gurnsey and Wm. H.Penny; 

 Secretary, Harmon Smith ; and Treasurer, 

 Oscar Talcott. 



After a profitable and pleasant exchange 

 of views amnong the members, the conven- 

 tion adjourned to meet at Ionia, on Aug. 3, 

 1888, with a request to all the bee-keepers of 

 the county and vicinity to meet with them, 

 and bring in full reports of the summer's 

 products, and become members of the 

 Association. 



Sletiiod of Rearing' 0"*^«'t'*'~D. 



P. Barrows, Nordhoff, Calif., on April 17, 

 1888, writes : 



On page 252, Mr. G. Grouse asks how to 

 Tear queens. I would suggest this method, 

 which I have used, and have seen used, with 

 satisfaction : 



Take two or three combs from an Italian 

 colony, or as nearly pure as possible (pro- 

 viding the colony is strong, and the bees in 



Keeping Bees in Houses.- J. H., 



of Ohio, on March 6, 1888, writes thus about 

 houses for bees : 



In an article by Mrs. L. Harrison, on 

 page 57, she says that all attempts at keep- 

 ing bees in houses have been failures, with 

 one exception, which is pronounced a suc- 

 cess, and that is ' patented.' I do not know 

 what kind of a house she can mean. 



When I was young and at home, my 

 father used to keep from 4 to 6 colonies in a 

 shed (open in front only), in the old-fash- 

 ioned liox-hives, 14x14 inches, and 2 feet 

 high. He kept them thus for many years, 

 until high water once destroyed them all. 

 After that he built a room in the gan'et 

 about!) feet square, putting the hives on a 

 frame IS inches from the floor, and taking a 

 brick out of the wall for an entrance to the 

 hive. 



The hive was a three-section hive, each 

 section 14 inches square by 10 inches deep. 

 He would take oft' one or two top sections 

 each year, and fill one or two milk pans 

 with nice, white honey. They never 



Xliat Ontario Convention. — Dr. 



A. B. Mason, Auburndale, O., writes thus : 



" O wad some power the gif tie gie us 

 To see oursels as ithers see us, 

 It wart Irae mony a blunder free us. 

 And foolish notion." 



When I saw the above quotation in one 

 of Mr. W. F. Clarke's articles in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Jottf.xal last summer, while 

 criticising Dr. Miller's position in regard to 

 the desirability and practicability of bee- 

 keepers getting the control of a limited 

 area as pasturage for bees, I thought, " O 

 how I do wish some power would take 

 some of the egotism out of some writers, 

 and lead them to make Burn's words their 

 most earnest prayer, and that it might be 

 heard and answered." Evidently it is 

 " possible for a man to misunderstand him- 

 self," or tlie above lines would not have 

 been penned by Burns. From his writings, 

 I have no doubt that Mr. Clarke speaks the 

 truth when he says, " I can afford to be 

 pooh-poohed, and 1 rather enjoy the fun of 

 tormenting prejudiced unbelievers." In 

 reading the report of the Ontario Conven- 

 tion (see page 72),I thought it was unusually 

 good, and since reading Mr. Clarke's criti- 

 cism, on page 104, I have re-read it, and now 

 it seems better than it did at the first read- 

 ing. If the report is a "lopsided affair," I 

 hope some one will give us an equally good 



