=Correction.=--In the BEE JOURNAL for March 16, page 85, the number of my colonies is given as 25; it should be 85. So far as I can learn they are in good condition. I winter them in the cellar. I have been handling bees for 6 years. Osage is a growing city, and will consume all the honey produced in this locality. There are about 500 colonies of bees in Mitchell County, and I will do my share in supplying the market with honey. CHAS. FOLLETT. Osage, Iowa, March 21, 1881. =Good Enough.=--My bees wintered well. I only lost one out of 92 colonies. Some have lost all they had; others 2/3, etc. The spring is backward. As yet we have had but few days that bees could fly. W. H. HOWLETT. Union, Ky., March 22, 1881. =Using Old Combs.=--Is it not dangerous to use combs with dead brood in from defunct colonies? Is there not danger of getting foul brood started? I have a good many of them, and I am undecided whether to melt them up or save them. The losses here have been fearful. I do not think there are 10 live colonies in Dixon outside of my apiary, and I have lost ⅓. Those lost were packed in dry chaff, as Prof. Cook’s Manual directs, in Langstroth and Simplicity hives, while Root’s chaff hive has come out ahead, only 2 or 3 hives of this kind have failed, out of about 30 chaff hives in use. There were as many as 10 or 12 different apiaries in and near Dixon, and I can count 8 of them now that are all dead; the most of them were small, containing from 6 to 30 colonies each. And the end is not yet. Those yet alive may die soon unless spring opens at once. B. F. PRATT. Dixon, Ill., March 27, 1881. [It is hardly possible there is a great deal of dead brood in the combs to be removed. We should not hesitate, if the brood is dry and shrunken, to place the combs in strong colonies; but if the brood is putrid and ropy, and sticks to the cells, we would not wish to use them, as it is easy to imagine the possibility of foul brood or other diseases arising therefrom. If, as we suspect, your combs are filled with starved bees, you can easily remove them by adopting the plan recommended in the Weekly BEE JOURNAL of March 16, page 86. Mr. H. T. Collins gives his method in this number of the JOURNAL.--ED.] =Never Give Up.=--Bees are nearly all dead. A long winter is the cause, of course. “Never give up” is and must be our motto, but we must learn not to venture too far without experience to back us. N. J. LONGSDON. Byron, Ill., March 26, 1881.