West Groton, N. Y., August 31.—The honey season has been very good here, and scientific bee-culture is progressing. Old fashioned bee-keepers are amazed when they see the large quantity of honey we got from eight colonies of bees—over eight hundred and seventy-five (875) pounds.
I like the American Bee Journal very much. We should not have had near as much honey, if we had not had the Journal to read and study.—D. H. Coggshall, Jr.
Fulton, Ills., September 3.—Bees are doing very well here now, though the forepart of the season was not generally favorable on account of the drouth. Buckwheat is not yielding much honey. The second crop of red clover is in full bloom, and the bees are working on it very busily. This is the first season that I have seen bees do much on red clover, in this section, as the blossom is usually too large; but this year, owing to the drouth the heads are smaller. The different varieties of the golden rod are just coming into bloom, as also the wild aster; and the prospect is that the bees will do well until after we have hard frosts. Light frosts do not affect the aster. If acceptable, I will try to furnish some account of the doings, of the bees in this section, at the close of the season.—R. R. Murphy.
Genoa, Ills., September 9.—Please excuse my being thus dilatory in not making an earlier remittance for the Journal. This little amount I could have turned to very good account in other directions; yet, as I am circumstanced, I think that one volume of the American Bee Journal is worth three or four times as much to me as the same sum laid out in any other way at home. For had it not been for the Journal, I should long since have been as many of my neighbors are—“one that USED to keep bees.” I am aware that my location is not naturally favorable for bee-keeping, as we sometimes have two or three seasons in succession that are hard on the bee business; yet I am not inclined to give it up so. In 1868, I put twenty swarms into my kitchen cellar. Most of them had not one pound of honey on the first of January; but I made up my mind to try the winter feeding to my full satisfaction. I took off caps, cut a hole two inches by five through the honey board, which was half an inch thick; fastened cotton cloth upon the under side, which made a box large enough to hold all the food I wished to put in at a time. The food was syrup of good refined sugar. I took care that they were all ventilated according to the size of the stock; and as the temperature would change in a measure with that outside, I would regulate ventilation accordingly; and by constant attention they come out in the spring with the loss of only two swarms, besides two that became queenless. No more bees died than usual in wintering; and although the season last year was wet and cold, they managed to procure sufficient to carry them through the winter in tolerably good condition. But this spring and summer the drouth seemed to threaten them with starvation. We had no rain from the last of March till the first of July, with the exception of two slight showers that did not, either of them, wet the ground more than an inch deep. Notwithstanding, with the white clover, which put out some small blossoms and in moist places where not pastured, continued fresh, and some wild flowers, the bees kept along till the rains came in July. Then the clover and other blossoms came out quite fresh; so for a few weeks the bees gained a little and afforded some surplus honey. Now the buckwheat is in full bloom, and the bees seem to be taking time by the foretop, by improving each hour, shine or no shine. The hybrid bees, as well as the pure-blooded, appear to be exerting themselves to vindicate the superior merits of their ancestors; and although it may seem cruel, I stand ready, with open and greedy hands to receive their hard-earned stores, and furnish them with store-room to enable them to continue on another willing task. My eighteen acres of Alsike and two of melilot clover are entirely killed by the drouth. For three years I have not only had to contend with adverse seasons, but have been a target for friends and neighbors to pop their jokes at, for my persistence in such unprofitable business. But I had made up my mind to fight it out on this line; and by the assistance of the American Bee Journal, with its able and generous contributors, am confident that eventually I will come out all right. Though the season has been a hard one, I have now taken out honey enough to pay for all the sugar I have used and for the four volumes of the Journal, and have added one-third to the number of my stocks this season—while many old fogies of my acquaintance, who laugh at the idea of using patent hives or paying the trifling sum for the Journal, have lost some nearly all, and others quite all of their bees.—A. Stiles.
Sparta Center, Mich., September 7.—I cannot think of getting along without the Journal. I supposed that I was doing extremely well in the bee business, until I read Novice’s reports, which are surprising. I have kept bees four years, commencing with nine colonies in box hives. At the end of the first season, I had fourteen, all told. I buried them according to the plan recommended in Langstroth’s “Hive and Honey Bee,” and lost two. The second summer I had fourteen new swarms, making my stock twenty-six in the fall; but, as the season was a poor one, I had no surplus honey. I buried them in clumps, as before, and in the spring found three were non est. This was the spring of 1869. During the ensuing summer, I had twenty-four new swarms and nine hundred (900) pounds of surplus honey, and began to know something of the habits, &c., of bees. In the fall of 1869, I built a bee house for wintering, 10 feet by 20, outside measure, 8 feet by 18 inside. The walls were made by using two rows of studding, boarded up outside and inside of each row, leaving an air space between the walls, and filling between the studding with saw dust. This spring I had forty-six good stocks, and have obtained 2,194 pounds of No. 1 honey. I have now one hundred and ten (110) colonies, all but three or four in good condition for wintering. I have no Italian bees, as I wished to learn to manage and handle the blacks, before trying any that might require more skill. I use Langstroth’s “shallow things.” All except five of my swarms are in frame hives, and every comb is straight with not over sixteen square inches of drone comb to a hive. Sixty-nine of my queens are of the present season. All my new colonies were made artificially, except six. I made them by starting nuclei, and building up by taking comb, honey, and brood from strong stocks. I fed each colony a little syrup every alternate day from April 1 to June 1. Nearly all the surplus honey of this year is made from or gathered from white clover blossoms. Last year it was from linden or basswood.—I should like to know if Novice or others using the melextractor, have had any trouble with the honey fermenting after being canned. I have had several cans spoil. It assumed a reddish hue and became watery in appearance. I should like to know how to avoid losing any in future.—A. B. Cheney.
Winchester, Va., September 10.—This has been a good season for honey, but few swarms. I started in the spring with sixty-four colonies and have had twenty-one swarms. They will make a fine lot of honey. I use the Langstroth hive. Some of my neighbors that have ten or twelve old-fashioned box hives, think the Langstroth hive costs too much, but come to me every fall to buy honey. I have seven colonies of Italian bees. I think they are superior to the black bee, both for swarming and making honey. I obtained my queens of Mr. Henry Alley. I think he deserves great credit for sending pure queens and acting honorably with his patrons. My bees are not making any honey now, as there was no buckwheat sown in this part of the country. The most that we have to depend on in this country is white clover and blue thistle. We sowed one pound of Alsike clover seed in April, 1869, and mowed it for seed July 25, 1870. I thought it a humbug, but am agreeably disappointed. My bees worked on it from early morn till late at night. The farmers are much pleased with it, both for hay and pasture.—B. F. Montgomery.
It cannot be too deeply impressed on the mind of the bee-keeper, that a small colony should be confined to a small space, if we wish the bees to work with the greatest energy, and offer the stoutest resistance to their numerous enemies.—Langstroth.
[For The American Bee Journal.]