364 



THE MMERICMPi: BMB JQURNMI<. 



colony was in the same condition. I removed 

 the packins, placed in dry chaff, and the 

 live one did finely afterward, and began to 

 gather pollen from the willows by March 

 10. I will not remove the packing until the 

 bees begin to fan the entrances. The first 

 honey-flow will be from vine maple, and it 

 will soon be here. 



Qnecnless Colonies, STFamiing, 



«tc.— Wm. H. Graves, Duncan, Ills., on 

 May 14, 1888, writes : 



My loss the past winter was one-half— 40 

 colonies out of 80. Short of stores and too 

 many old queens was the cause. By having 

 no swarms last summer, comparatively 

 speaking, I had a great many old queens 

 which would not breed up strong to go into 

 the winter. I never before had so many 

 queenless colonies. April is a bad month 

 tor bees, so cold and cloudy. 1 have been 

 feeding my bees since April 1, every night. 

 I have just hived a rousing natural swarm 

 of Italian bees— from a colony that I had 

 fed strongly every night since the last of 

 March, to get early diones from them. I 

 have received two packages of the Chap- 

 man honey-plant seed. I gave one to a bee- 

 keeper friend, and planted the other long 

 ago. 



Honey-Plants in Bi-itisli Coliim- 



toia.— Russell Smithers, New Westminis- 

 ter, B. C, on May 14, 1888, writes : 



As far north as I am situated, here on the 

 Pacific Coast, my bees were working hard, 

 carrying in pollen from willows, as early as 

 March 7. Eastern bee-keepers may be in- 

 terested in the fact that skunk cabbage 

 flourishes here as it does there, and bees 

 patronize it just as freely. The prospects 

 for this year are good. White clover will 

 soon be in bloom, and this is our main re- 

 source. Can any one suggest the best 

 honey-plant for this climate— one that would 

 flourish on soil that is somewhat gravelly 

 and poor ? 



■White Clover I>ooi<s Promising:. 



— N. Staininger, Tipton, Iowa, on May 13, 



1888, says : 



We have had a great deal of rain here for 

 the past two weeks, and now it has turned 

 very cold. There was ice }^-inch thick on 

 the water trough. The bees come out, be- 

 come chilled, and die ; and there is a great 

 loss in brood. There is a loss of three- 

 fourths of the bees among the small bee- 

 keepers. I have 90 colonies, and the most 

 of them are in pretty good condition. Some 

 have from 6 to 8 frames of brood, and plenty 

 of drones flying now. I moved my apiary 

 from Denison, Iowa, to Tipton, on April .5, 

 without loss. I had put 101 colonies into 

 winter quarters, and took out the same 

 number ; 100 colonies were in the cellar, and 

 oni' colony was packed outside. I sold 7 

 colonies, and had 4 queenless ones that I 

 doubled up. There was not one comb 

 broken in all of them. White clover looks 

 fine, and 1 hope we will have a good crop of 

 clover honey. 



Poor Prospect for Honey Crop. 



—J. G. Nance, Gracey, Ky., on May 20, 1888, 



writes : 



I will give a brief statement of the situa- 

 tion here : The winter loss was very small ; 

 not over 5 to 10 per cent. The fruit bloom 

 was very full. The clovers (both white and 

 red) are badly winter-killed ; worse, in fact, 

 than I ever saw it before. The osage 

 orange (hedge trees) are now in full bloom, 

 and the bees are at work on them. Cherries 

 are now getting ripe. Apples and peaches 

 are as large as hickory-nuts. Our Congress- 

 man sent me some Chapman honey-plant 

 seed, but it has not come up yet. The 

 weather is very dry and cool, and the pros- 

 pects for a honey crop are very poor. 



Frnit Bloom.— Mr. Thos. C. Evans, 

 Brownsville, Minn., on May 19, 1888, re- 

 ported thus : 



I started last spring with 47 colonies of 

 bees, increased them to 77, and obtained 

 5,000 pounds of comb honey and 500 pounds 

 of extracted. I put them in the cellar on 

 Nov. 9, where they remained 176 days ; and 

 excepting 2 colonies which I took out to-day, 

 all are good condition. I lost but 4 colonies. 

 Two were robbed out, and the other 2 were 

 queenless. It is a very late spring, but I 

 look forward for good crops. Fruit trees 

 are just coming into bloom, and white 

 clover looks well. 



soui, and apple trees, strawberries and other 

 fruit are not yet in bloom. 



My brood-chambers takes frames 12x12 

 inches. Most of the hives have 10 frames, 

 but 6 or 8 were 8-frame hives, and those 8- 

 frame hives came out without an exception 

 light in stores and weak in bees, while ail 

 the lO-frame hives, which were not queen- 

 less, were strong in bees, but not quite all 

 heavy with honey. I wintered mine in a 

 light cellar, a la Hutchinson. Five win- 

 dows were not darkened, and the cellar was 

 used for fruit and vegetables, and visited a 

 dozen or more times each day. The ther- 

 mometer stood at from 34'> to 45° above zero. 

 The bees were dry, clean and healthy, very 

 quiet, and in excellent condition, with the 

 exception above spoken of. The losses 

 from all causes in this county will be from 

 H to X of all put in the cellars. 



Bees W^intcred in a Cave.— Henry 

 Stark, Plier, Wis., on April 16, 1888, writes : 



I commenced the spring of 1887 with 6 

 colonies (5 brown and 1 Italian). I got 12 

 natural swarms from that one Italian col- 

 ony, and 700 pounds of surplus honey. The 

 brown-German colonies gathered 350 pounds 

 each, and each cast one swarm. I put 14 

 colonies in acave the forepart of November, 

 and took them out on April 14 and 16, all in 

 fine condition. They all have from 20 to 45 

 pounds to spare. The rest I wintered on 

 the summer standsjpacked in chaff. 1 pack 

 my bees thus : Twelve inches from the 

 ground, 12 inches of chaff all around the 

 outside, 2 division-boards, 4 inches of chaff 

 between the hive and the division-board, a 

 device Ik' inches high, coffee sacking, one 

 sheep skin with 4 inches of wool on it, and 

 12 inches of chaff on top. I have never lost 

 a colony in wintering in this way. The 

 year 1887 was the best honey year X ever 

 saw. The temperature in my cave was 

 from 45° to 48= all winter. The bees were 

 in the cave about 163 days, without a flight. 



Prospects lor a tiood Honey 

 Crop.— H. M. Moyer, Hill Church, Pa., on 



May 12, 1888, writes : 



I have 57 colonies of Italian bees (blacks 

 are not worth keeping here). Last summer 

 I obtained 1,500 pounds of honey (mostly 

 extracted), and 24 pounds of wax. I fed 

 back about 500 pounds of honey. The retail 

 price of extracted honey is 12 cents per 

 pound, and of comb 20 cents. The prospect 

 is for a good honey crop. White clover is 

 our main source here. I commenced this 

 spring with 43 colonies. 



Bees in CSood Condition.— J. E. 



Walker, Clarksville, Mc, on May 16, 1888, 

 writes : 



I packed 21 colonies of bees on tlie sum- 

 mer stands late last fall, with 5 inches of 

 sawdust over the frames. They wintered 

 well, and less dead bees were thrown out 

 than 1 ever saw before. They carried in 

 the first pollen on March 15. I saw drones 

 on April II. They had a busy and a happy 

 time for two days on apple blossoms. All 

 the 21 colonies are alive to-day, and in good 

 condition. Many bees have died in this 

 part of the country. 



I>ate Season.— O. B. Barrows, Mar- 

 shalltown, Iowa, on May 17, 1888, writes as 

 follows : 



Bees wintered well in cellars in this 

 vicinity during the winter of 1886-87. They 

 bred up well for the white clover honey- 

 liow of 1887, which never came, but a four 

 or five days' dash of basswood enabled 

 those that were strong in bees to fill up the 

 brood-chamber tor winter ; but what few 

 divided their force by swarming, had to be 

 fed, or starve. There was no fall flow of 

 honey, and consequently they lost in weight 

 through September, October, and, in fact, 

 ever since. A colony that I weiglied on 

 Sept. 16, had lost 5 pounds by Nov. 19, when 

 I finished putting my bees into the cellar. 

 In the nexi 70 days, m the cellar, the same 

 colony only lost 2J^ pounds, and only 2 or 3 

 pounds since then. 



On April 6, wlien I put them out, they 

 carried in pollen from com and oats,ground, 

 freely, until April 22, when they left the 

 corn and oats for natural pollen. April was 

 pleasant and dry until the 26th, and people 

 prophesied another drouth, but suddenly it 

 changed, and commenced to rain on April 

 26, and it rained some every day for IB or 17 

 days, and for the last 22 days there have 

 been but 4 days that bees could fly freely ; 

 consequently in building up strong for the 

 honey crop, they are making haste slowly, 

 but possibly they may be in time for the 

 honey crop, for plum trees are just in blos- 



An rApiciiltiiral Connndriini.— 



James McNeill, Hudson, N. Y., on May 18, 

 1888, writes as follows : 



There is a conundrum that I would like 

 to propound to Mr. Doolittle, and it is this : 

 How does he manage to make his 9 Gallup 

 frames furnish all the room needed by "the 

 really good queen, one which will lay from 

 3,000 to 4,000 eggs a day ?" which he speaks 

 of on page 323. 



If I have fisjured correctly, each of his 

 frames of lO^jX lO-'/ inches contain 115 square 

 inches, and with SO bees to the inch, such a 

 frame would hatch out 5.750 bees, if filled 

 solidly with brood. Taking his lowest esti- 

 mate of a prolific queen— 3,000 eggs per day 

 —it would require 6:5,000 cells to furnish 

 such a queen with the necessary room, for 

 each cell is occupied for 21 days days before 

 it can be used a second time. 



Now, according to my figuring, it would 

 require very nearly 11 frames of the size 

 above-mentioned, to furnish 63,000 cells ; 

 and when it is remembered that nearly H 

 of these cells would be occupied with pol- 

 len and honey, I would like Mr. Doolittle to 

 explain why a "really good queen" would 

 not be very much cramped iu his 9-frame 

 hive. 



[Mr. Doolittle will, no doubt, be pleased 

 to answer the conundrum presented above, 

 at some future time.— Ed.] 



A Pocket Bictionary will be pre- 

 sented for two subscribers with $2.00. It is 

 always useful to iiave a dictionary at hand 

 to decide as to the spelling of words, and to 

 determine their meaning. 



m 



