DOWAGIAC, MICH., Sept. 12--We have had just half a surplus honey harvest, here, this season. Since I have been in the bee business, I have learned that the surplus harvest depends entirely upon the clover and basswood blossoms, in this vicinity; which is probably the case all over the State. When we have a wet season clover fails, but basswood produces well; and when a dry season, _vice versa_. Reverses from abundance to starvation take place within a few miles of each other. I am located now in the midst of clover and basswood, together with the best spring and fall pasturage I have ever seen. After losing seven-eighths of my bees last winter, you can easily guess the condition of the remaining six colonies. Four of them were merely skeletons, and the other two very inferior stocks. Yet, with the aid of a three cent feeder of my own invention, (which works to perfection,) and one and a fourth dollar’s worth of sugar, I have succeeded in marketing five hundred and twenty-three (523) pounds of box honey; and with the aid of old combs have increased my stock to twenty-two (22) colonies, all strong and heavy--too heavy I fear, for their own good; and I have as yet no emptying machine. This, I think, is doing very well (see Langstroth’s “HIVE AND HONEY BEE,” page 177) for a bee-keeper of only two years’ experience.--I came near forgetting to mention that I have Italianized all my new stocks. I use top-bar hives mostly. Am using four or five frame hives on the sly!--J. HEDDON. WINCHESTER, IOWA, Sept. 13.--The season of 1870 has not been any of the best here, nor of the poorest either, as swarming and honey gathering has been moderately good. The American Bee Journal well deserves the support of bee-keepers.--I. N. WALTER. ROCHELLE, ILLS., Sept. 17.--This has been the poorest season that we have had here for some years. I got only five new swarms from forty stands, and merely one hundred pounds of honey. Since the buckwheat came into blossom the bees have done well. They will average about fifty pounds to the stand; and that is doing very well, in such a year as this has been. Alsike clover is now in blossom, and the bees are working very busily on it.--R. MILLER. BREESPORT, N. Y., Sept. 20.--My bees have done well in gathering honey, this season; but gave me no swarms during swarming time.--J. H. HADSELL. OSKALOOSA, IOWA, Sept. 28.--I have one hundred and ninety colonies of bees that have done well this year, and are in fine condition for winter. I stored away one hundred and twenty-nine colonies in my cellar last fall, and the same number came out in good order in the spring. I sold them off to about one hundred, from which I came on to winter with the above number (190), principally Italians.