New Bedford, Mass., Oct. 6.—The season for bees has been remarkable. Commencing well, the dry weather soon made forage very scarce during the blooming of clover and basswood, so that by the first of September there was little or no surplus stored, and all the colonies were very light. But during that month, mostly after the fifteenth, the bees gathered honey as fast or faster than they ever do in this locality in June. It was obtained from the wild aster; and the stocks are now heavy and in fine condition for winter. Even now there seems to be no cessation of their labors. This is true of all the neighboring towns; nearly every hive in them having been examined by me during my professional drives.—E. P. Abbe.
[For The American Bee Journal.]
How May Progress be Taught?
Mr. Editor:—As the columns of the Bee Journal are made the medium of disseminating apicultural knowledge, by asking and answering questions, I have this question to ask in reference to the class of bee-keepers who use box and gum exclusively. How shall we reach these, and dispense the necessary knowledge among them? Let us endeavor to devise some effective means. Your Journal is doing the work as far as they can be induced to take and study it; but the number is comparatively limited. Many of these people, when they see an improved bee-hive, unconsciously exclaim to the owner, who happens to be a practical bee-keeper:
“Mr. B.—What do you call that?”
B. “That, sir, is a bee-hive.”
Q. “What do you have so many sticks in it for?”
B. “Those are what we call frames for the bees to build their combs on; each frame separately giving them the means by which the combs may be removed from the hive, for the purpose of making artificial swarms, furnishing honey from the rich to the poor colonies and strengthening weak ones.”
Here the querist exclaims in perfect amazement: “What will the bees be doing while you are lifting their combs out?”