476 



T'HB MMERieilEf BE® JOlffRKSI,. 



Measuring' Comb Siirtace.— J. 



H. Weidman, Riverside, N. J., on July 6, 

 18S8, writes : 



In answer to the editor's remarks on page 

 419, I would state that X discovered the 

 gievous error soon after I had sent the arti- 

 cle ill question, but uot in time to prevent 

 its appearance in print. But I was in the 

 wrouji only in calculating the number of 

 cells to the square inch of comb surface, for 

 the fact remains that a square inch of comb 

 (which means a square inch of comb sur- 

 face, as square measure is surface measure, 

 and cannot be anything else), contains 27 

 cells, and that a frame 10J^xlO% will con- 

 tain 230 square inches of comb, or of comb 

 surface ; and by taking 27 cells to the square 

 inch, we get the true capacity of the frame, 

 6,210 cells. Now 1 claim that this is the 

 only proper method of calculating the ca- 

 pacity of comb in a hive, and my remarlis in 

 my previous article apply to this matter, 

 with the exception of the error Already 

 noticed. 



[The error of Mr. Weidman has been cor- 

 rected several times by others, and now by 

 himself. This will dispose of the matter at 

 present. The error was very apparent at 

 first sight.— Ed.] 



I take the best and destroy the others. Now 

 if there is number of thein, I cut them all 

 out but one (leaving the best one), and put 

 them in a cell-hatcher, inserted in one of 

 the colonies that has cast a swarm. As 

 Italians are apt to swarm without matured 

 queen-cells,! am always ready with matured 

 cells or virgin queens to give the old colony 

 as soon as they have cast a swartn. 



The way I put cells into the hive is as 

 follows : With my finger I scratch the 

 comb down to the division wall, a spot a 

 little larger than the cell, and stick a pin 

 through the fringe of comb at the top of the 

 cell, and through the comb in the frame, so 

 that the cell hangs into the place I have 

 scratched out ; they will soon fasten it so 

 that the piu may be removed, and leave the 

 cell fast. I leave four frames with the 

 swarms that I work for comb honey, usifig 

 starters 2 inches wide, if they have not 

 frames enough of brood to leave 4, after 

 taking away -3. I use a frame 10>oXl7}2 

 inches. 



Supporting a 4jrood <>anse. — T. H. 



Kloer, Terre Haute, Ind., on July 9,1888, 

 writes : 



My bees have not produced one ounce of 

 honey, and have not a day's supply in the 

 hives now. They are weak, having lust 

 half the old bees and all the brood by star- 

 vation between June 10 and June 20. There 

 was no white clover, and linden furnished 

 otily a living. Although 1 am heavily in- 

 volved, and in great financial distress, 1 en- 

 close $1 00 as my annual dues to the Bee- 

 Keepers' Union, so as to hold up the good 

 cause. 



Pleurisy-Root and Bucktviieat 



Honey.— Jacob N. Becker, Oakfield Cen- 

 tre, Mich., on July 8, 1888, says : 



Bees are not doing much in this locality. 

 White clover was plentiful, and is gone, 

 but there was no honey in it. The bees just 



fathered enough to keep up brood-rearing, 

 have 120 colonies, and they are over-run- 

 ning with bees, but not one swarm has 

 issued. They are gathering some honey 

 from pleurisy-root and tnilk-weed at pres- 

 ent. Basswood is budded for bloom, and 

 there are 100 acres of buckwheat sowed 

 within bee-range of my apiary. 1 shall look 

 for some honey from that source. 



that we had good, warm weather during 

 plum and apple blooming (of wiiich trees I 

 liave several hundred), and so the beefi be- 

 came strong again, and are all in good con- 

 dition now. 



Clover did not yield much honey, or 

 rather none, and linden will commetice to 

 bloom in a few days ; if no honey comes in 

 then, there will be poor prospects for honey 

 in this neighborhood, because the islands 

 are still covered with water, and the fall 

 flowers will have little chance to grow and 

 to bloom before frost. 1 had abnut 3,000 

 pounds of comb honey last year, and 1 shall 

 be satisfied if I get half that atnount this 

 year. Still we cannot tell, and have to hope 

 for the best. 



Overstocking a liocality.— 6. A. 



Adams, Perrysburgh, 0., on July 10, 1888, 

 writes : 



A few of us began keeping bees here in 

 188.5, but there were not many colonies kept. 

 When we began, Mr. Puhl, of Momence, 

 was the only extensive bee-keeper in the 

 vicinity. Since then, a Toledo man has 

 planted an apiary within 10 rods of tny 

 farm, and last year his 200 colonies took all 

 of my fall pasturage. They have taken all 

 tny raspberry honey this spring. My bees 

 have no chance against siicli numbers. This 

 spring 40 colonies of this apiary were taken 

 one mile south of mine. The other is Ij.i 

 miles east. 1 live in the town, and the bee- 

 keepers are thus surrounded by the apiaries 

 of this man, who does nut own a foot of 

 land in the county. He will kill bee-keep- 

 ing in this neighborhood. I can get along 

 with ignorance by teaching, but now am I 

 to fight greed ? Can the Bee-Keepers' 

 Union devise any method ? We small bee- 

 keepers in Perrysburgh would be rejoiced 

 if a remedy could be provided. 



[That is a hard matter to adjust. Dr. C. 

 C. Miller is the man to grapple with ques- 

 tions of territorial right to the nectar in the 

 flowers ; and he may have something to 

 suggest on the matter. We should think, 

 however, that the intruder would see that 

 he was overstocking the locality even for his 

 own bees, and remove the bees further 

 away. For one thing is certain, if your 

 bees can get nothing, his are in the same 

 condition, for if the nectar was there they 

 would all get a share of it.— Ed.] 



managing S'n'arms, etc.— -T. M. 



Herrick, Woodstock, N. T., on^ June 30, 

 1888, writes : 



The last winter was the hardest here that 

 we have had in many years, fully 20 per 

 cent, of all the bees having died, and the 

 spring was backward and cold. I put 33 

 colonies into the cellar, atid left 2.5 on the 

 summer stands. I lost in all 17 colonies ; 

 but things are booming now. Honey fiom 

 clover and vervain is coming in as fast as I 

 ever saw it. I have had 23 swarms, and all 

 is going well. 



fhandle swarms in the following man- 

 ner : First, it is best to get 8 frames of 

 brood in the colony, or as near it as possible 

 before swarming, then when the swarm 

 issues, 1 take out two-thirds of the brood, 

 and all the bees that are on the frames, and 

 put into another hive, taking all the queen- 

 cells ; or, if there are cells on all the frames. 



Fine Harvest Expected— Hiving 

 S-»varms.— E. T. Smith, Bowling Green, 

 Mo., on July 9, 1888, writes : 



White clover has bloomed but little here, 

 but the fields are now covered with young 

 clover, just beginning to bloom, and 1 am 

 expecting a hne honey harvest. My colo- 

 nies are building up, and are beginning to 

 be very strong, the honey-flow being suffi- 

 cient to encourage increase, but not suffi- 

 cient for surplus. 1 started in the spring 

 with 8 colonies, and I now have 16. In hiv- 

 ing swarms 1 adopted the Heddon method 

 in part, to prevent increase ; that is, 1 move 

 the old stand and put the new one in its 

 place. The result has been, that I have 

 had only one swarm from each of those 

 colonies. I allowed one old colony to re- 

 main, and hived the swarm in a new place, 

 and that colony swarmed three times. In 

 hiving my swarms, I went contrary to Mr. 

 Hutchinson's advice, given in his little 

 book— that is, I hived them on combs, left 

 from the previous year, and I have never 

 seen colonies build up faster. I am satis- 

 fled that Mr. Hutchinson is right, an1 the 

 result would have been as he says, if the 

 honey-flow had been good, but with such a 

 season as this has been, I think that the 

 empty combs area great help. Our season 

 is excellent, and crops of all kinds are very 

 fine. 



Strong Colonies and I>rotvne<1 



Bees.— Chas. H. Wiele, Stoddard, Wis., 

 on July 5, 1888, writes : 



This has been the hardest spring on bees 

 here, that I have witnessed in the last 27 

 years. I put them out of the cellar on Apri 1 

 13, with the loss of but one colony out of 80. 

 Two swarmed out the same day, it being 

 pretty warm. They almost immediately 

 began to work and carry pollen, and were 

 strong and lively, but it did not last very 

 long ; wet and chilly weather set in, and 

 then it could not be called " spring dwind- 

 ling" any Tuore, but "spring killing," 

 They would fly over on the islands of the 

 Mississippi, and the water being high, they 

 would drop right into it in returning, and 

 drown by the thousands. A person could 

 just dip them up by the handf uls along the 

 bank. Of course the colonies became so 

 weakened tliat I expected to lose the most 

 of them ; I had to double up 26, and the rest 

 pulled through well enough. It was well 



Alsike Clover on Dry l.and.— 



Eugene Secor, Forest City, Iowa, on July 4, 

 1888, writes ; 



I have sowed Alsike clover seed a couple 

 of times within the last ten years. On dry 

 laud I fear this is not going to prove a very 

 proHtable crop for either hay or pasture. 

 It does not stick like common white clover, 

 and does not grow large enough to take the 

 place of red clover. But a couple of my 

 neighbors sowed Alsike on wet land a year 

 ago in early spring ; the land was such as 

 produces only wire grass. Open ditches 

 had been cut the year previous, taking off 

 all the standing water. On this kind of 

 land they tell me it is a success- standing 

 up in the wild grass 1.5 to 20 inches high, 

 and growing luxuriantly. 



^Vorking on tlie Il,indcn, etc. — 



S. Burton, Eureka, Ills., on July 5, 1888, 

 writes : 



1 notice on page 444, Mrs. J. B. Curlee 

 says that the Chapman honey plant will be 

 ill bloom in a few days ; that it is 4 feet 

 high, and has large balls on it, looking like 

 the wild thistle. It is not like mine. My 

 plants are from 5 to 7 feet high, with balls 

 on them, and has no resemblance to the 

 wild thistle. There are from 30 to 50 balls 

 on a stalk. It began to bloom on July 1. 

 The bees are busy on it all the time. I have 

 had 14 swarms up to this date. The linden 

 is in bloom now, and the bees have had a 

 lively time for the last two days. The 

 white clover is not coming on as last as I 

 expected it would, but we had a good rain 

 last night which will help it out now. 



