_Marengo, Ill._, Aug. 30, 1870.
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Around among Apiaries.
MR. EDITOR:--As I have been visiting among bee-keeping friends, I will
give you a few lines that may interest some of your readers. The season
here has been very variable in the yield of honey from the clover
blossoms and also from honey dew.
I made a short visit to Hess & Co.’s apiary, some ten miles from Fulton,
on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, who have about one hundred and
eighty colonies. Their bees did not yield much white clover or basswood
honey, but did well on honey dew. The honey from the latter is very dark
and sticky, and to most persons is of poor flavor. Their bees did not
swarm much this season, though they are surrounded with all the early
flowering trees, such as soft maple and hard elm, willow, and all other
kinds natural to our soil, alike on the islands, bottoms, and uplands.
I next visited Marvin & Bros., of St. Charles, Ill. Their apiary numbers
one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred stocks. Their bees have not
done anything to speak of, and from appearance and prospects, they will
have to be fed to go through the winter. There was hardly any rain here
from the last of March to the last of June. White clover blossomed very
little, and Alsike was almost a failure from the drouth. It did not grow
tall enough to be cut for seed, where it did come into bloom. But
Messrs. Marvin are not discouraged. They think there is a good time
coming yet for bees, though it be not this season. They have some of the
great Rocky Mountain bee plant growing, but it has not done anything for
them since they have had it. It is now in full bloom, yet very seldom a
bee lights on it.
I also made a brief call on M. M. Baldridge, the secretary of the great
National Bee Hive Company, at St. Charles. His bees will likewise have
to be fed, to go safely through the winter, if fall pasturage do not
supply sufficient honey for their need. Mr. Baldridge is doing a
considerable business in manufacturing honey emptying machines, now that
the demand for beehives is over for this year.
I next visited Mr. Thompson, of Geneva. He is young in the bee business,
but quite enthusiastic. Although he lost all his bees last winter, he
was not discouraged, but tried again this season. Like most new
beginners, he increased his stock rather too rapidly, especially in so
poor a season as this has proved to be in that section generally. Bees,
however, did somewhat better at Geneva than at St. Charles, only two
miles away. At Batavia, the same distance below, the bees have done
moderately well. Let me remark here that the rains, throughout the West,
for the most part went in narrow streaks this season, especially in
June, sometimes not over half a mile wide. This accounts for the
difference in the condition of colonies in apiaries only a few miles
apart.
I called on Mr. Way, at Batavia, and took a look at his bees and honey.
He has a good supply of surplus white clover honey on hand, having been
fortunate enough to be within the range of one of the seasonable rain
streaks. The most of his colonies have honey enough to pass the winter
safely, if they should not be able to gather any more. I was told that
the good people of Batavia tried to get friend Way’s bees expelled from
the city limits, as a nuisance, for fear they might possibly sting
somebody!