Kansas Bee-Keeper from Columbus, Kansas • 1

tf "fit Sf I H. SCOVELL V- ANDEESON, Pub, COL ZJJtf US, KANSAS, MARCH, 1881. Volume Number II Austin, Texas, March 1st, 1881. I send you a clipping from the Galveston Our Texas Letter. no.

2. I have just received the Kansas Bee- Keeper. I think it presents quite a busi (Tex) News. I send it as a curiosity. The experience of a bee keeping M.

of 50 years practice. You may publish it if you how they have sheltered and located their bees. I would be pleased also to know how much surplus honey they can produce, and by what method, as we never get too old to learn. Yours, C. J.

Hosteller. EastLynne, Feb. 28, 1881. It is not because bees can not be induced to work as long as honey is to be found. Our experience is that bees will gather ness-like appearance.

Its general get-up is very neat, and it will be appreciated by wish, I wrote an answer to which appeared in the News of Feb. 27th. the bee keepers. It ought to go into the hands of every farmer in the land, in fact J. G.

Taylor. BEE CULTURE IN TEXAS. any one living in the country or in small towns would find more or less profit in a For the Kansas Bee-Keeper. Wintering Bees. "There was a time when I was very enthusiastic on this subject.

I thought the cellar was a. place that would winter bees as safely, and with as little risk, as a person could winter his animals in his yard with plenty of feed. I felt bo confident after I had wintered several times in the cellar, that I would have been willing to insure bees put in a good frost-proof and dark cellar, for a very small per cent. But, alas that time is no more. Success is not always to be depended on I discovered in the course of time, and I think I have discovered something more and that is that it is not the place nor the hive that forms the essential element ot successful wintering.

A good strong and healthy stock of bees, honey as long as there is a drop to be had. The Black Bee Defended Antecedent ew stands of bees-if they only knew how Xhe 8ecret of ettin ood vielda of surt)ius I -COO lO UU 1L. and Habits of the Busy Little Worker. (To The News ,) Bkb Ridge Cottage, Near Grapeland, honey lies in knowing that every hive has a good laying queen, and in having the hives My bees have done exceedingly well. I have eight colonies in hives, and four well filled with bees at thebeginning of the Houston county, February 14, 1881.

Seeing an article in the Neivt a short time since, three-frame nuclei, all of which I left on surplus honey season. By surplus honey season we mean the time when bees can headed "Bee Culture in Texas," I wish their summer stands, and they all come through the winter just as good as I could have wished. I was sure they would, on space in your columns to defend the little gather more than they need for the breeding department, and store the surplus iu black bee, which the writer so abused. The the frames or boxes above This surplus with sufficient honey, will winter almost account of my peculiarly- good locatiou. I am protected on the north and west by bush covered hills, and my hives get the benefit black bee is a native of Africa.

The first discovery made of the black bee was in the year 1342. In May, 1410, a small hive left anywheie and in any winter. But if win honey flow does not last, as many suppose, from the time the flowers begin to bloom in the spring until they are killed by the frost of the sun almost as soon as it rises. tered out in a severe winter, like the one just past, it will be necessary to have hon the southern coast of Africa and struck a I don't think there has been a single in the fall; but, in moat localities, is limit due course for Cuba. In the same year ey enough in the combs they cluster on to week in which there was not a day or two 1410, in the month of November, a hive of carry them through the winter.

In fact on which bees could fly, and that is one of ed to 15 or 20 days, aui iu different localities comes at different seasons of the year, corresponding with the time of blooming bees was found in the mountains of Cuba. they must have honey enough immediately the great points in keeping bees healthy. In the year 1572 the black bee was very nu Have them so that when a fine day does above the cluster, for in very cold weather they will not move sideways, but will die merous in Cuba. The next year, 1573, they and the kind of plant from which the honey is to be gathered. With us the surplus come they can hve a fly, and if the sun nearlv all emigrated in the direction of with one end of the frame full of honey, if North America.

The first black bee that can shine on them awhile so much the better, I think. it is a long hive like the Langstreth. There honey harvest begins about the first of September and lasts from 15 to 20 days. In this short space of time we had single fore, the only important feature of a hive My bees began bringing in pollen on the was ever seen in America was in the swamps of Louisiana, iu the year 1575. This is fair proof that this was the same bee that left Uuba.

for there were several hives za oi jj eDruary ana Dy tne nrst weelt in colonies gather 150 pounds of surplua for wintering out doors, is to have deep frames not less than a foot, and if they were two or three inches more, it would the hives were bo full that thebeea honey. would hang out on fine days, and LLad to found in one colony. make a safer hive for out door wintering put on supers to give them more room. Right here was the first instance we have Another fact to which I attribute the But there is ho "hive that will winter bees ut doors or in, unless they are healthy and of the black bee being handled. He fought strength and general good condition of my desperatelv for a few years, but carefu supplied with a sufficient store of food.

To make bee keeping profitable, we must know to within a few days of when the surplus honey flow begins and Then get the bees and they will get the honey. We will have more to say on this subject at some future time, and, in the mean time, will not some of our correspondents give us a few thoughts on the subject. colonies is mat early last tall 1 was very handling proved a perfect success. From Fruit and honey dew has played havoc particular to see that every colony had that time up to the present time the black with the bees in this section. Prof.

Riley good queen and sufficient winter stores. No bee has been a favorite with bee-raisers. once recommended the horticulturalist3 of bee journal should ever cease to remind bee find by experience the black bee ia worth more than any other bee. They can make keepers that their bees should be well sup Missouri to poison bees to protect their vineyards, but he was not aware that the plied with stores for winter use. True, it's more honey than any other and at the grape juice they were gathering was as an "old song," and a great many will say, same time can live on one-third less than fatal a poison as could be given them any other bee.

They are fine workers, pro "tell us something we don't when even now many a ones bees are starving to Grapes, honey dew, apple pomise and de tect their hives better, and live longer. In aying fruit of all kinds are the pest of death. I think bees should be well sup the apiarian. Wherever they are to be found moth, toads, ants, birds, roaches and plied in the fall and not disturbed during fact, they can live and thrive where other bees will starve to death. If my bees (the black bee, for I would not have any other kiad) happen to be robbed too close I feed the winter, except in very fine weather.

I have noticed considerable grumbling all other predatory insects, including pat ent hive venders, dwindle into insignifi among bee keepers at having partly filled them. They will live through the winter cance in comparison to the first named on most anything. I feed on boiled corn enemies to successful bee keeping. The potatoes, bread, mush, turnips, pumpkins sections left over. They arc valuable and ought to be worth half as much as filled and finished ones to any bee keeper, but tec-tions that are partly capped should fee un first bring diseases which, as yet, baffles Fifty Pounds Average in a Poor Season.

Your sample copy of the Kansas Bee-Kkepkr received. Enclosed find 2 stamps for same on trial three months. I am taking Gleenings and A. B. J.

I have 14 colonies in Langstroth hives, all alive, some weak (only 2). It. has been a very hard winter on bees I am wintering mine oa their summer stands chaff packed. This is a neighborhood of "box hive men," still adhering to the old custom. I can get as many colonies as I want every fall from the neighbors who brimstone their bees.

Sold most of my honey, last season, readily at 20 cents in one pound sections. It was a poor season for honey here. Mine did well enough. I had 60 pound average comb honey. I am in hope3 this winter will have one good effect, if nothiug more, and that is to deeide the best manner of wintering.

Wm. II. Gram. Duncan, March 3d, 1881. slops from the dairy, dried apples or peach the most experienced and scientific apiar es boiled down, or old wet Drown sugar ians of the country.

With nothing in the capped and extracted, otherwise they may mixed with dough. Anything of the above way but thejatter, almost any ordinary be finished up unevenly. My honey in one kind will keep the black bee through th bee keeper, with a few grains of common sense, can succeed. winter. I have seen my bees five miles from home; they are not-afraid to leave But as winter has passed it might be wel pound sections took the first premium a our state fair last fall.

Truly yours, J. G. Taylor. Austin, Texas, March 1st, 1881. to say a few words in relation to spring home like most bees.

My bees seem to know me; they will fondle around me when I am management. The first thing to do as soon as the weather will permit is to go through all the hives, cleaning out all dead bees and about them. 1 have now on my premises 385 hives in fine condition. I have got them Not too Old to Learn Editor Bee-Keeper. Inclosed please find thirty cents for sub rubbish in the bottom of the hive and see so completely under my control that all whether they have honey enough to.

carry have to do is to make gums cr hives and scription to Bee Keeper, hoping thereby them through till they can get a supply set them up above the hives, so when a new to learn something about the keeping of from the field. If not. you will have to bees, as 1 have been keeping bees for more hive comes out they go in to a new box gum or hive, as you are a mind to call them than twenty years a few at a time only feed all that are short. Also, you want to in square boxes, sometimes something on see if they have a laying queen, and if not Will anybody show me any other bee that top to get surplus honey, but never receiv supply them with one, or a frame of brood will do as much? I have been handling ed enough to pay me for my trouble the black bee for nearly fifty years, and find Many times they have been hanging on the outside of the hives for months, without from another hive, unless they are very weak and have got the dysentary, in which case you might as well throw the bees out them to pay better than any others. The black bee has, on an average, 365 bees to A Good Report from Texas.

Enclosed is 30 cents. I want the Kansas Bee-Kekper for this year. I have twenty-two choice stocks pure Italiau and Cyprian bees The Cyprians have from three to five frames hatching brood. Are doing well, gathering some honey aud pleuty of polen. Bees are in fine condition all over the country.

There are about 3000 stands in the county. The largest apiary is three miles from me. 75 colonies, all blacks B. E. Carroll.

Dresden, Texas, March 1st, 1881. filling top boxes. At present I Lave quite a number jn movable comb hives and wil and put the hive away for future use the hive. Each bee will make, on a aV iry wnai can ao with them, i am confident that if bee keeping wps thorough erage, a half pound of honey every year Some hives Aye the dysentary and recover but a long continuance of that disease is So a man can tell what he is You can take at least one half from them, then sure to lead to foul brood. When you dis cover that, one of two things you had bet ly understood so that bees coulu induced to work as lonn as there was any liouey to be found, it would be a profitable business, as they board themselves.

In sample copy of Bee-Keeper your correspondents tell us they will have plenty to keep through the ter do: move all the affected ones four or five miles away, or burn them. N. C. Jambs Brakes, M. D.

winter..