THE FUN OF SEEING THINGS 



163 



A Wide Range of Estimates on Num- 

 ber of Bees. 

 Here is an illustration of the largest 

 swarm of bees of which I have ever 

 known. The cut was lent to Tiik 



mate of the number of bees and base 

 their arguments upon tbeir experi- 

 ences in weighing bees. The question 

 seems to be, what is the weight of such 

 a swarm? The reply from The A. I. 



HAS ANY ONE EVER HAD THE FUN OF SEEING A LARGER SWARM OF BEES? 



Guide to Nature by "Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture." The mammoth swarm was 

 the product of one queen on twenty- 

 four combs, and issued in June at the 

 apiary of J. W. Davidson, Yorktown, 

 Indiana. I thought I had had ex- 

 perience with some large swarms of 

 bees and I had heard fellow apiarists 

 tell of their experiences, but never 

 have I seen anything quite equal to 

 this. The illustration shows that it is 

 at least three times as large as the 

 average of very large swarms. Who 

 can even estimate the number of bees 

 here congregated? It seems as if 

 there must be well on toward a half 

 million, but how could one queen, even 

 if she had plenty of room, lay eggs to 

 produce that astonishing number? We 

 have always regarded 4,000 eggs a day 

 as high capacity, but that would give 

 only 120,000 for thirty days, and 360,000 

 for three months. It seems that we 

 must revise the estimate of the num- 

 ber of eggs a queen bee can lay. 

 ****** 



A copy of the above was mailed to 

 "Gleanings in Bee Culture," and they 

 regard it as far beyond a correct esti- 



Root Company was sent to Mr. David- 

 son and he writes as follows : 



Yorktown, Indiana. 

 To the Editor : 



In reply to your estimate of the 

 swarm would say stick to your figures 

 for the photograph does not do justice 

 to the swarm from the fact that those 

 bees were sprayed with water to hold 

 them until the photographer came four 

 miles to make the negative. Before 

 those bees were wet each part of the 

 cluster appeared larger than a nail keg, 

 and the whole looked like three bears 

 standing side by side. There were 

 at best as many bees on the ground as 

 are shown in the picture. The man 

 that made the negative had such a fear 

 of bees that he would not get close 

 enough to them to get all of the 

 swarm, and focused above those on the 

 ground. So you can see that the pho- 

 tograph does not do justice to the 

 swarm from two points. If this 

 swarm had been in one cluster it 

 would have been as large as a flour 

 barrel. I honestly believe that it 

 weighed fifty pounds. Mr. Root says 



