Poor Season but Fair Profit.—After selling my surplus colonies, I commenced the season of 1880 with 37 colonies in fair condition; increased by division and natural swarming to 63, and 12 nuclei. I reared 30 Cyprian and Italian queens; had 100 Gallup frames of foundation drawn out, and extracted 400 lbs. of honey. Estimating the increase at $6 per colony, and deducting the expenses, my income for care and labor is $250, or about $6.50 for each colony in the spring. I put 75 colonies, in fair condition (including the 12 nuclei), into winter quarters Dec. 8; some were short of stores, and all had poor honey. On March 1st I found 8 colonies and 4 nuclei dead—4 starved and 8 died from the effect of poor honey and long confinement. More of them are diseased and must have a flight soon or die. With the loss of stock already mentioned, and allowing for more to follow, the credit will be cut down to $3.50 per colony. The season has been the poorest I ever knew, but even $3.50 is a fair profit on the investment. White clover gave no honey; basswood lasted only 10 days, but yielded well; had it lasted 2 weeks longer I should have had an average yield of honey for the season. Without this flow of basswood honey, the bees must have been fed, but now they have enough stores to carry them through till spring. As the heavy snows have no doubt preserved the clover, the outlook for honey this summer is good. I hardly need say that I am pleased with the Weekly Bee Journal.
T. E. Turner.
Sussex, Wis., March 1, 1881.
Planting Buckwheat for a Honey Yield.—In answer to Mr. A. Hodges, on page 78, I will say that buckwheat is a peculiar plant about yielding honey. I have never known it to fail here in yielding enough honey for the bees’ winter stores, and usually very much more; in other localities in the same latitude, it cannot be relied on at all for a honey crop. It seems, however, that it never yields through the entire season in which it can be made to bloom. Quite a large amount of it is cultivated every season in my vicinity, much of it generally coming into full bloom as early as the middle of July, yet I have never known it to yield any honey earlier than the 1st of August, and very rarely before the 10th; but when it commences to yield honey, it does so profusely until the plant itself is ripe, or killed by frost. I would say to Mr. Hodges, or any one else intending the sowing of successive crops of buckwheat, that it is useless to sow any early in the season, to blossom before the 1st of August. I am intending to sow about 20 acres of it this season for my bees. I shall put the first crop of it in the ground about June 25; the rest about July 10. That from the last sowing will remain in bloom until frost comes, even if that is delayed later than ordinary.
O. O. Poppleton.
Williamstown, Iowa, March 9, 1881.
Local Convention Directory.
1881.Time and Place of Meeting.
April 2—S. W. Iowa, at Corning, Iowa.
5—Central Kentucky, at Winchester, Ky.
Wm. Williamson, Sec., Lexington, Ky.
7—Union Association, at Eminence, Ky.
E. Drane, Sec. pro tem., Eminence, Ky.
7—N. W. Ohio, at Delta, Ohio.
13—N. W. Missouri, at St. Joseph, Mo.
D. G. Parker, Pres., St. Joseph. Mo.
May 4—Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valley, at Cambridge,
Guernsey Co., O.
J. A. Bucklew, Sec., Clarks, O.
5—Central Michigan, at Lansing. Mich.
10—Cortland Union, at Cortland, N. Y.
C. M. Bean, Sec., McGrawville, N. Y.
11—S. W. Wisconsin, at Darlington, Wis.
N. E. France, Sec., Platteville, Wis.
12, 13—Texas Bee-Keepers’ Association, at McKinney,
Collin Co., Texas.
W. R. Howard, Sec., Kingston, Hunt Co., Tex.
Sept. — —National, at Lexington, Ky.
—Kentucky State, at Louisville, Ky.
Oct. 18—Ky. State, in Exposition B’d’g, Louisville, Ky.
W. Williamson, Sec., Lexington, Ky.
☞ In order to have this Table complete, Secretaries are requested to forward full particulars of time and place of future meetings.—Ed.
