The Season in Massachusetts.
After reading the various accounts in the Journal as to how bees have done in other parts of the country, I think it will not be out of place to let its readers know what has been going on in Massachusetts, or rather in a part of that State.
About May 20th our bees commenced to collect honey rapidly, and from that time to June 7th, honey was very abundant, and I never saw bees put into the hives and surplus boxes faster. From June 7th until July 1st they did very little. In fact we had then ten days in succession when no honey was collected; and by the 1st of July pasturage failed altogether, as it generally does here in New England. I never knew bees to put honey into boxes later than July 12th, and that for only one year, since I have kept bees.
Perhaps it will be new to some of the readers of the Journal to know the fact that bees do not collect honey here, in Essex county, as a general thing, later than the first week in July; and this season they did not work later than the last day of June. Very little honey was put into boxes between June 7th and July 1st. Had the season held out as it gave promise in May, honey would have been plenty in Massachusetts.
I have a few hives that did very well, considering how short the honey harvest was, and to let some of your readers know that Alley can raise honey as well as queen bees, I enclose a short report that was intended to be shown to the “Honey Committee,” at the Essex County Fair; but as I was the only person who exhibited bees or honey (except four small boxes by Mr. Gould, of Ipswich,) I did not submit it. Of course Alley got the highest “premium,” under such circumstances. I suppose if I say that the stock that did best was in one of Alley’s hives, some one will think that this article is meant only for an advertisement. Well, I cannot help that; so here goes for the report, and all who do not want to believe it, can accommodate themselves in that line, and I will find no fault. I do not, myself, believe more than only just what I think is true, even when I see it in the A. B. J.:
Hive No. 1, filled sixty-eight 2½lb. boxes, and cast one small swarm. The honey was sold at thirty-five cents per pound, box and all. Weight of boxes and honey 170lbs.; weight of the sixty-eight boxes empty 34lbs.; net amount of honey stored 136lbs., which, at 35 cents per pound,
| is | $47 60 |
| One young swarm | 3 00 |
| Whole amount | $50 60 |
Hive No. 2. This was a stock transferred from a box hive to a movable comb hive, May 26th, 1870. It filled thirty 3lb. boxes, and the honey was sold at thirty-five cents a pound, without including the boxes. Net amount of honey stored 75lbs.; which, at 35 cents per pound, is $26 25
Hive No. 3, filled two 15lb. boxes, and cast two swarms. The first of these swarms filled a new hive, from which I have taken twenty-five pounds of honey, and it now has enough to winter on, without feeding. The second swarm I used to rear queens, and it was worth five dollars to me.
| Value of first swarm | $7 00 |
| Value of second swarm | 5 00 |
| 55lbs. of honey at 35 cents per pound | 19 25 |
| Whole profit from Hive No. 3 | $31 25 |
The profit from these three hives is one hundred and eight (108) dollars.
I omitted to say that I took twenty-five pounds of honey from Hive No. 2, as late as August 20th. That hive now has honey enough to winter well.
Since September 20th, the bees have put in a considerable amount of honey, but not in surplus boxes. Even my nucleus hives put in enough from September 20th, to keep them—making a saving to me of twenty-five (25) dollars.
If other bees in this vicinity have done as well as mine, few colonies will starve in this county next winter. My article is getting long. I will stop just here.
H. Alley.
Wenham, Mass., Oct. 3, 1870.
Virgil recommends the hollowed trunk of the cork tree as a hive, than which no material would be more admirable, if it could only be easily and cheaply procured.
[For the American Bee Journal.]