and larvæ with syrup for neighbor H. I feel quite sure you will find a great part of that 400 lbs. stowed away in the broodcombs, from what experience I have had in a similar line.-Thanks for your kind concluding words; and when you write your father, send him that Dec. No. with this one, and I will give you a couple of extra ones. REPORT FROM GEORGE GRIMM. THE MAN WHO WINTERS HIS COLONIES BY THE HUN- began to wonder if he hadn't got into my bees. Or is it because my bees are so much crosser than those of other people? Yet they were so exceedingly gentle during the whole season that I thought I had discovered a new trait in their character. Then, I could handle them with no smoke; now, you could blow smoke, cinders, and hot air at them, and they would simply "go for you." But tobacco smoke will make them sensible (don't give them too much, or it will make them insensible). By using a little tobacco smoke they can be handled with ease at any season; and for the fall of the year I advise its use, notwithstanding any conscientious scruples some people (possibly friend Root is one of them) may have against the weed. But I tell you I have one HOUGH my report is not a very brilliant one, colony upon which even tobacco smoke (unless libyet I am well satisfied with my season's work. erally given) has little effect. He is a terror to the About 200 per cent net on the capital invest-hens at all seasons of the year-and to careless vised is not a bad gain. Last winter left me 392 colo- itors too-a "simon-pure" hybrid. Yet I wish my nies; but though my loss was less than 10 per cent, 612 colonies were all like that hive. He gave me 108 the remainder, after the ordeal they had passed lbs. comb honey, and increased to seven, always through, could not all be in good condition. The de- raising his own queens, and the young swarms have mand for bees was so great and so urgent, that al- now at least 60 lbs. of honey to spare. Nor was this most before I knew it I had sold 248 of my best colo- in my best location. nies. This left me but 144 - and, of course, the poorest of the lot. The season opened up with the best prospects for a honey crop, and I began to wish that I had back the good strong colonies that I had sold. Finding several parties not far distant, whom the past poor season and the trouble of last winter had entirely disgusted with the business, eager to sell out, I bought the weak, half-starved, and partly queenless remnant of their stocks at a bargain, and was enabled to face the new season with about 190 colonies; or, perhaps, I had better say, nuclei and colonies. Anticipating a good demand for bees next spring, and having a large number of hives and about 2000 combs on hand, I determined to increase as much as possible. I divided them up into five apiaries. At home I started some 80 small nuclei to raise queens. Myself with one assistant did all the work. Nov. 19th to 21st, my bees were put into celJars 60 colonies. Two were left outdoors. Ninetenths were supplied with young queens during the season, and all have a good supply of honey. Oct. 1st I returned from a trip to northern Dakota. Not a cell of brood was to be found in any of the hives. What feeding I did was done after that time. The colonies are, as a rule, of medium strength, and present a good appearance. I believe they will winter well. I increased by dividing; but, don't ask me how. There are too many ways, each adapted to its peculiar circumstances. It depends upon the time of the season; the flow of honey; your expectation as to its continuance; the strength of the colony; whether they are hauled to a different location; whether there are queens at hand to introduce; and, I suppose, often upon simple notion. And, though considering every thing, one is likely to make mistakes or miscalculations for which he feels like kicking himself afterward. By the way, friend Root, will you please tell me how you manage your bees about Oct. 1st to 15th, or thereabouts, without using tobacco smoke, and protector too? When I got home from my northern trip I started as usual with my rotten-wood smoker to make examinations. My examinations were not very extended or very minute, and I suppose-upon cooler reflection, it was cowardly for me to run; but I didn't stop to consider at the time, I thought of Satan in the swine, and Does it pay? Well, I should say so! 200 gond swarms can be bought for $1490. In a poorer year than this, an average surplus of 50 to 100 lbs. per hive, and an increase of 50 per cent, would not be extraordinary. The increase would easily pay for expenses, and 10,000 to 20,000 lbs. honey at 20c would be better than 4 per cent on U. S. bonds. Or take my case this year: 190 not good colonies; increase, 422; prospective loss during next winter, 10 per cent, or 61 colonies (but I am certain 5 per cent to 8 per cent will be the limit), leaves a balance of 381 in spring at $7.00 per colony is $2527, and honey $300, gives total gross gain, $2827. My expenses were between $500 and $600; leaves balance of at least $2227. If I estimate good colonies worth $7.00, my 190 were worth on an average not more than $5.00. It is not hard to do twice or three times as much with good colonies as with poor ones. I think we'll stick to the business a few years more, even though every winter should equal the last. GEORGE GRIMM. Jefferson, Wisconsin. Friend Grimm, I suspect the reason your bees are so cross at the dates you mention, is because they cease gathering honey at that time. Our hard tussle with stings comes in July, when the basswood ceases; and at such times it does seem as if they were possessed of the very spirit of evil. The way we do is to use the mosquito-bar tents, and be very careful about leaving a drop of honey anywhere. After a few days they get accustomed to it, go off to the corn-fields after pollen, and finally settle to the boys in regard to the bright visions down to pretty fair behavior.-Now a word friend Grimm shows up on paper in regard to the profits of bee culture. It is all true, every word of it, and I am quite sure bees will do all he mentions, in almost any locality; but the sad part of it is, that the owners won't do all he mentions or implies in any locality. The average boy or man can not be intrusted with 200 colonies of bees. I know you all think you can; but you are no good judge of your own self. Look at some neighbor of yours who is a bee-keeper on a small scale, or a man unused to handling much property of any kind, and think over in your own mind what the result would be if he were to run in debt for 200 colonies. He would let them starve, swarm out and go to the woods, get the hives full and hang out in idleness, and possibly, too, because he had some other work on hand that would hardly bring him 50 cents a day, when with the bees he might realize several dollars a day. Failing in this, he would swap them off for some useless truck. What I mean is, that such would likely be the result with one who was not equal to the responsibilities of such an apiary. It would be like giving him a steamboat or train of cars to run. But if he should build up 200 colonies, little by little, without going into debt, the case would be far different. Friend Grimm would perhaps handle 1000 colonies safely. I might possibly 200; in fact, that is just what I am trying to do now. My friends, how many do you suppose God can safely intrust to your care? If I am not mistaken, he is testing your trustworthiness in that respect just now. He that is faithful in few things shall be made ruler over many things. T QUESTIONS ABOUT CALIFORNIA ANSWERED BY E. GALLUP. HERE is but about two cents per pound difference between the poorest quality of extracted honey and the very best, in the San Francisco market; and as we can raise the poorest quality every season, and on an average the best quality only every other season. I have come to the conclusion that there is more money made from the poorest quality. I learn that the Chinese purchase considerable quantities and ship to China, and two cents in price is an item with them, and not quality. At Downey City is a good place to locate an apiary for lowland honey, as the land is moist, with water from 5 to 25 feet from the surface. It is 100 moist for grapes for profit. Splendid fields of alfalfa, which the bees work on when in bloom, are here. The products are corn, hogs, cattle, barley, English walnuts to perfection, apples, pears, peaches, etc., and mostly without irrigation. This alfalfa gives us about ten full crops in the year in this climate. I have located my bee ranche on a stock range where there is no fruit - only chickens, hogs, horses, cattle, and sheep, with several hundreds, perhaps thousands, of acres of swamp on one side, that is green, and produces flowers the entire year; close to the ocean, and no fear of miasma or unheathfulness. The willows commence to blossom in December, and continue until about the first of March. It is 8 miles from Santa Ana, and 10 from the fruit ranche. Santa Ana, Tustin, and Orange, are situated about equal distances apart, in the form of a triangle (3% to 3 miles), and I am situated about centrally from the three places. That is the first ranche. There are nine churches within three miles; railroad, schools, and as good and enterprising, kind, neighborly a class of citizens as there is anywhere in the known world. We are 13 miles from the Santa Clara coal-mine, where coal is $5.00 per ton, and 10 miles from the steamboat landing (Newport harbor;) so we have the advantage of railroad and ocean for freight. Goods of most kinds are a trifle higher than east; land from $20.00 to $1000 per acre; people from the Eastern States coming in by the carload, and usual ly settling in communities. Every kind of fruit, vegetable, or grain, that will grow anywhere on the face of the globe, will grow here to perfection. The most beautiful homes that can be imagined; roses in bloom the entire year; lemons from the blossom to the ripe fruit, in all stages of growth, at any senson of the year. There, Mr. Editor, if you will be kind enough to publish the above, it will save me a wonderful sight of repetition, and answer a great many questions. Santa Ana, Cal., Nov. 12, 1881. E. GALLUP. I wrote the following for Gleanings in Bee Culture, Medina, Ohio. That, as you know, is a land of Purithere might compromise me as a man of veracity tans and Quakers. Fearing that its publication with that interesting class of people, I thought it best to start it from nearer home, where we have a plenty of people of my own lk. If you think it worthy of a place in your paper, please publish it, with this explanation as a caption. Since I have been a reader of Gleanings, you have, under the above heading, given two accounts - one 1rom Mrs. J. Hilton,and the other from Merry banksthe first doubtless true, as it is written by a lady; but the other is apochryphal, name and all. From these readings, as Mark Twain's Sandwich storyteller. would say, your correspondents or readers know nothing at all about what a real and genuine rampage of bees means, and, consequently, have no true conception of such a situation. I shall bere leave this noted story-teller, and adopt the words of the immortal Burns: But this that I am gaun to tell, A well-to-do farmer lived in Logan County - no matter in what part nor when who had a son who had for a long time been in bad health. The Allopathies had failed to cure him, and he had been induced to try the botanic, or Thompsonian persuasion. So, one morning early he began the practice by taking a large dose of lobelia, which, it was said, operated finely more than once. He did not throw up his boots, but he never could tell just how sick he was. In the midst of an extreme paroxysm he heard forgetting his sickness, and going to the door, he a great noise, for which he could not account; and saw in the garden four horses, hitched to as many plows, running and kicking at a fearful rate. The drivers and others were trying to stop the horses, but in vain. The sick man seeing the imminent danger from the pointed steel of the plows, where men and horses were mixed up in such a hurleyburley, ordered all to leave the horses to themselves. Bees filled the air as if a large swarm was on the wing, and they made war against every living thing that made its appearance. The negro plowman bad to the field. When called to their breakfast, they got out early to plow a vegetable garden before going left their horses to graze on the blue grass of the walks, with a little black boy to mind them. Some on a lilac in the garden, where they had been hived, days before this the bees had swarmed and settled and the hive had not been removed. The boy said, The bay mare rooted the hive over with her nose," and here the melee began. It seemed that the other bees, and there were several hives, regarded it as a free fight, and pitched into it with a will; and one would have supposed, from the confusion, that, besides the horses, every turkey, chicken, dog, puppy, cat, kitten, pig, and person, black and white, near the premises, had received one or more stings, except such as kept closed doors. You will say that this was much of a rampage in the bee line, and so it was; but I am not done yet. Three of the horses were hitched by only one trace each to his plow, and soon got loose, jumped the fence, and took to the woods. Not so with the mare that turned over the hive. She was hitched by both traces, and made two or three rounds in the garden, after the others had jumped out, before she would try the fence. She went over clear, but the plow hung against the fence, which was a strong post and railing. She jerked loose, however, and made for the stables. At this time the sick man's youngest brother, a boy about ten years old, was seen running in the same direction, fighting bees, and squalling at the top of his voice. He was called to open the gate for the mare. Instead of opening the stable-lot gate, he opened the yard-gate and the mare dashed in and made for the house. She passed through the porch and entered the sick man's room. The first damage she did was to dash his bowl of lobelia behind the fire. She then ran her head under the head of his bed, and drew it nearly to the middle of the floor. She kept up a continual kicking with both hind feet at once. Several of her kicks came very near to a new clock; and to save the clock, the sick man forced her around. She then directed her heels to a large glass-door press, filled with glass and queensware. Two or three kicks demolished the doors, and the most of the contents of the press. She was then forced out, and jumping the yard fence she ran into a stable where she put her head under the trough and continued to kick for about a quarter of an hour. When the bees had cleared the field, which they did effectually, they returned to their homes, and all was calm except the stings they had inflicted. No lives were lost. The mare was the worst used of all. She was covered with whelks from her nose to her tail; but, after a few days, she took her place before the plow. The old gobbler was very badly used, and looked crest-fallen and shame-faced for some days, when by degrees he assumed his wonted self-importance, and, hoisting his feathers, went on gobbling as usual. Now, Mr. Editor, if any of your correspondents can beat this, and tell the truth as I have done (except perhaps in some minor details), let him do it, else let him hereafter hold his peace about bee rampages. I had almost forgotten to say, that the bee scrape proved a specific against the effects of lobelia. The sick man did not think of his lobelia for more than an hour afterward, and has not taken a dose of that drug from that day to this. He, however, got well, and attained the weight of 200 pounds, and he very often writes for his name,T. N. L. As our friend has ommitted to append a moral, I will suggest this:- Don't leave horses "nosing" around bee hives while you are getting breakfast. BEES AND GRAPES IN CALIFORNIA. B Y the letters I receive, items from California must be interesting to many of your readers. The question has been repeatedly asked, Why not locate an apiary in the valley, where becs can gather forage the entire year? In the first place, the honey is inferior to mountain honey; and in the second place, bees destroy large quantities of fruit, such as figs, peaches, and grapes. I know one man here who kept his bees in the valley this season until the fruit began to ripen, and then moved them into the mountains. His product was about 100 lbs. to the hive in the valley, and 30 lbs. each in the mountain (9750 lbs.), which he sold at from 7 to 8 cts., right at home. He had 70 or 75 stands. But there is considerable trouble and some expense in moving. Our grapes here are probably as sweet, and perhaps sweeter, than in any other portion of the globe, and bees make sad havoc among them. It will not do to tell a California raisin-maker that bees will not injure grapes: he knows better, positively. WILD BEES IN CALIFORNIA. There are wild bees all through the valleys; but where it is thickly settled they are usually found and taken up. Still, new swarms are often found and hived in nail-kegs, old boxes, etc. They build on bushes, bunches of cactus, and in all conceivable places. I found another good swarm on a two-year old peach-tree, and hived them the 3d of October. They were evidently intending to stay, as they had commenced raising brood. I expected to have to feed them, but they have kept right on building comb, storing honey, and raising brood. Bees are found on bushes here that evidently have been there two or three seasons. The thermometer ranges in our coldest weather at from 44° to 50° in the morning, to 78° at noon; occasionally it gets lower, but not often; and since I have been here (three years) we have averaged about five rainy days in the year. The most of our rains come in the night. One man found a swarm on a willow bush. The comb was about two feet long, horizontally, and one foot perpendicularly (6 sheets). You see, they built Langstroth style. It was an old swarm. I found one swarm in an owl's-nest in the ground; two in badger holes; three in squirrel holes (all in the ground), and I have not spent two hours hunting. I stumbled right on to them. Now, the above will explain why bees can be picked up all through the valley at from 50 cents to one dollar per stand. E. GALLUP. Santa Ana, Cal, Nov. 14, 1881. COMPARATIVE HARDINESS AND LONGEVITY OF WORKER BEES FROM DIFFERENT QUEENS. A NEW FIELD FOR INVESTIGATION. RIEND ROOT:- I, too, have been experimenting with my bees. I am an ABC scholar with three years' schooling; have studied Quinby, A B C, Prof. Cook, L. C. Root, GLEANINGS 3 years, A. B. J. do., and yet I have not seen the first word written in reference to the longer life of one queen's -- worker bees over another. Every one wants a prolific queen one that will keep the hive full of brood. Doolittle says, "Have the brood so it comes out to the side-bars of the frames; even the cells bordering on the bars at both sides and top should have brood in them, and do not stop short of this. If you have queens that will not keep the hive filled with brood like this, replace them with those that will." That, of course, is just splendid, and what we all try to have. But suppose the life of those bees is from 15 to 25 days; it will take all the honey they can gather to rear the brood, without giving us any surplus. Right here is where my experiment comes in. From the tested queens received from you I chose one for queens; another for drone-rearing. Introduced them into No. 3 and 10,- two very strong black colonies,- the former for queens, the latter for drones. This spring, 1881, I commenced stimulating with flour candy. On examination, about the middle of Feb., I found them about of equal strength rather the more black bees in No. 10; brood in two frames of each hive; gave a 1-lb. lump of flour candy on top of the frames, and returned the packing. March 8th, again opened the hives; found brood and eggs in 5 frames of No. 10; in No. 3, 4 frames not quite so well filled out with brood and eggs. Ten days later, the 18th, I overhauled them again. No. 10 had every available cell in the 6 frames filled with brood and eggs, while No. 3 had only 4 frames fairly filled, and a small patch in the 5th (both colonies were wintered on 6 Quinby standing frames). I began to think that I had made a mistake, and that I ought to have taken No. 10 for my queen-mother. I gave No. 10 an empty comb, and closed up No. 3 as it was. April 1st I examined them again. The comb given to 10 was filled out to the wood on every side; the hive literally full of brood; but it didn't seem to me there were bees enough for the amount of brood that had been hatched, while No. 3 was running over with bees, and at no time had more than twothirds the amount of brood. Here, then, was a study; could No. 10 be more industrious, and have more workers in the field? I will watch this thing a little closer. I find this entry in my diary, April 12th: "No. 3 hanging out as large as my head; no sign of crowding in No. 10; No. 10 still ahead in amount of brood." There seemed to be more dead bees in front of 10 than there were around No. 3. The thought struck me, that perhaps the bees in No. 10 were less hardy than those of No. 3, and the cold showers and winds were killing them off as fast as they were hatched; I'll give them a trial, and see which will stand confinement the longer. I took two 5x5 section boxes, cut some old tough comb from a frame filled with honey and pollen, and filled my boxes, leaving a half-inch space at the bottom for the bees to pass around the comb. It was arranged the same as your section-box shipping-cage, only a tin door on one corner to put in my bees and rake out dead ones. I now caught 50 young bees from each hive, put them into the cages, and placed them on a table in the honey-house, a foot or so from the window, and waited results. The 4th morning I raked out 3 dead bees from No. 10; the 8th morning there were 13 dead from No. 10, while No. 3 had lost none yet. The 19th day I raked out the last bee in No. 10. No. $ had lost but 11 bees; the remainder were as lively, and, to all appearance, as fresh as ever. I turned them loose, and think most of them made their way into some of the hives. Here, then, was the trouble; the bees in No. 10 were less hardy, and died with old age about as fast as the young bees hatched out to take their place; no wonder that they were not as strong in numbers as No. 3. I now took No. 3 for a standard, and tried the bees from 4 other colonies the same way, and invariably found that the colonies that gave the best results in honey produced workers that were the longest-lived. Perhaps you will ask, What does all this amount to? It amounts to this much, anyway: It's not always from the most prolific queen that you get the best results in honey. H. A. MARCH. Fidalgo, Whatcom Co., Wash. Ter., Nov. 2, 1881. We are very much obliged to you, friend M., for the details of your experiment, although I am a little inclined to think No. 10 had a touch of the modern spring dwindling; for where bees are affected with this, it is very hard indeed to make them stand confinement any length of time. We have tried this in shipping bees in the spring, which had wintered over, and even the young bees hatched in affected colonies. Be it as it may, it is an important point; and if the bees from a certain queen will stand confinement better than others, it is exactly these bees we want to send out with queens. We once had a hive of gentle Italians that could be put into a cage with any strange queen, and they would never molest her. Now, if we had a strain of bees that were so tenacious of life they would hold on to it, as a queen does, for instance, together with this other quality, do you not see what a grand thing it would be? WHAT I DIDN'T DO. AND THE UNREALIZED POSSIBILITIES. DIDN'T make forty colonies out of one this season; no, sir, I didn't. I got my mouth made up for just that; and why I didn't succeed, I'll awfully," presently tell you. I wanted more bees " and was too spunky to buy 'em-if not too hard up - and having left one colony of those on Gallup frames that were in fair condition, and withal of a very prolific strain of bees, I resolved to take some risks in pushing them to the very utmost. If I can make ten good strong nuclei of them by the last of June, thought I, why, then I can rise to twenty by the last of July, and double again and reach forty during August. During September I wish to build them up to proper strength to winter-feeding them lots of honey, and keeping it out of the way of the queens with the extractor, if such means should be. necessary to prevent brood-rearing from coming to a halt. As I just remarked, the thing didn't go through according to programme. I got the ten colonies in June very nicely, and also the twenty in July; but at about that point the wheels kind o' got fast in the mud: too many colonies would spend a whole month getting a laying queen, Early in Aug. ust a long pull of sickness, preventing me from making any more divisions, brought the scheme to a final stop. Had it not been for this I most likely would have made the forty nuclei, in spite of the queen-rearing mishaps, but would have had to unite some of them again probably. Some more might stored a little section honey, 17 lbs. in all. Also three have been made well enough, as some of the colonies colonies of queen-killers and cell-tearers that went to ruin while I was sick might have been saved. The highest point I reached was 21 colonies; have now 18 of them packed for winter; but one of these is in a ruinous condition from a drone-laying queen. I gave no brood or laying queens to this stock of which I demanded such large increase. A few queencells and virgin queens from outside stocks were given when more convenient, this being considered a trivial matter; in fact, I think that hardly any of these were used except in the contrary colonies that destroyed them. On three occasions I took brood from them to help outside stocks in need, but paid them for it again afterward. Empty combs and combs of honey were given without stint, as the colonies that died last winter left me more than I knew what to do with of the latter. Now, dear Novice, I want to pile upon your broad shoulders a good share of the blame of this failure, claiming that it was largely owing to HERESY IN OUR BEE-BIBLE. I want the same expurgated, expunged, and ex kicked-out right away. On page 26 of ABC (Artificial Swarming) you teach us to have queen-cells built at stands where the queen and part of the bees have been carried away. If I mistake not, the same idea is encouraged in other places in A B C. By sad experience I find that at such stands the unsealed queen-cells get notches torn out of them, and the sealed ones get holes torn in them. Why, the bees which were carried away keep coming back daily for a week. Coming fresh from a hive that has a queen, they of course resist the cell-building efforts of their comrades which were left queenless. I think it reasonable to infer that they also eat up the royal jelly, and tumble the royal larvæ roughly about in the cells, although I did not watch close enough to catch them at it. After awhile the holes would be mended up, and things go on very much as if nothing had happened; but surely we can not rely on such ill-used young queens turning out well. I had better success where the cells were built at a new stand, and the queen left behind at the old one. Of course, the desertion of the old bees is somewhat injurious, but not so bad as discord and violence. I feel confident that the better way is to take away the queen only, without mussing up the colony in any way, then to carry away all, or nearly all, the frames together when the cells are capped, then to divide into nuclei just before the first queen hatches. If I had known this much last spring, and my health had not failed, I think I should have had my forty colonies all nicely in pack this very minute. I vote for the adoption of this plank in our bee platform:For the rearing of good queens, it is necessary that the bees be unanimous in wishing for a queen; and there is no reliability in the result where bees not in sympathy with queen-rearing efforts are coming in every hour. As to queens from too old larvæ, they can be headed off by looking in just before the time for cells to be capped, and destroying any that are capped prematurely. Many thanks, friend IIasty, for the particulars of your experiment, which certainly does you credit, for it is one of the largest results ever reported, in the way of increase from a single colony in one season. If all those bees had been sold at the regular price of $2.00 per lb., it would have been, I imagine, a pretty large result in dollars and cents. In regard to your criticism of the plan I have given in the A B C, I would say that it teaching beginners a plain and simple way is intended, primarily, for the purpose of of artificial swarming, and not as a regular plan to be followed by the expert when he is trying to see how many stocks he can build up from one in a season. It is used only in increasing the number of colonies, and very seldom in the regular work of getting queencells by the quantity.I have never noticed the trouble you mention with queencells, but have sometimes, in introducing queens, had them balled by bees which I supposed had come in from the removed colony. Thanks for kind criticism. I presume that you are well aware, that some stocks behave quite differently from others, under the same circumstances. CHERRIES, AND WILLOWS AS HONEY- A branch thought, suggested by my forty-colony experiment, is, that the possibilities of big yields of honey have not been fully worked up to yet. It would be quite possible to have a colony to start with twice as strong as mine was; and in a favorable spring, dividing could be begun a month earlier than last spring. Thus 20 colonies, twice as strong as my 20 were, could be made by the last of June in- ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT VISITING OUR ESTABLISHstead of the last of July. In one month more it would not be unreasonable to expect them to begin to work in sections. Now it happens, sometimes, in this region of Ohio and Michigan, that the best run of honey in the year is late in the fall. With colonies started as above, 50 lbs. each would not be impossible, aggregating 1000 lbs. of comb honey as a year's fruit of one colony. Another thing I didn't do: I was going to re-queen most of the apiary with the progeny of my favorite queen. I chose the double-barreled method of rearing cells putting a tight division-board in the middle of the colony, and continually shifting the queen from side to side. The partial failure of this plan I attribute to the same cause as the abovetoo many bees from the side which has the queen, going in on the side where cells should be built. Per haps total failure would be nearer the correct word to use. I occupied the time of one of my precious colonies for the whole season, preventing them from making any surplus honey, and to-day I have to show for it only eleven colonies, queened with that family of queens. MENT. SEE in Chas. Kingsley's advertisement that he says, "The black Tartarian cherry is very hardy.” This is not true; in fact, it is right the reverse. While it may be hardy in Tennessee, it will not stand the winters above 40 ̊, and very often kills down to the ground at 38°. The advertisement might lead some one in the North to buy trees, and be disappointed. I know whereof I speak, as I have had them in my nursery, and had them winter-kill. I indorse nearly all Doolittle says about the willow; at least, it is true in my neighborhood. The pussy, or tassel willow, blossoms very early, and I have seen each tassel entirely covered with bees. They never seem to carry off much pollen on their legs from it, and still they seem to be loaded. Golden willow is quite a honey-producing tree, but blossoms later, and I have never noticed the bees on them as much as the pussy willow. Gray, white, or fence willow, is about the same as the golden, while the pussy willow is low, bushy, almost a shrub in growth. The golden and gray willow grow to be large trees, especially the golden.' We have in our town golden-willow The proof just given, that 1000 lbs. is possible from trees 20 years old, 9 ft. in circumference. The gray one colony, will make the actual result of my bee- willow will do to set 1 foot apart in low places for keeping this year look a little small. I think, how- fence, and will stand cutting back to 5 and 6 feet in ever, that I have done very well. I have just been height; equal to Osage orange. Golden willow will looking at the record of the strength of my colonies not stand such severe treatment. We use it for ty. last spring. May 6th was the lowest point. Four ing up nursery stock. It is tough, pliable, and grows frames from the heart of a good colony in the height in long slim withes. I have watched bees very close of the season would carry more bees than the strongly on the golden willow (and we have lots of it), but |