3S0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



AtJG. 



bees the middle of May, and watching operations 

 after the Italians hatch. Hence the swarm needs 

 bees of all ages, in order to make it capable of car- 

 rying on all the labors necessary to the establishing 

 of a new colony. And this is as I find it after close- 

 ly watching natural swarms issue for years. That 

 old bees go with the swarm, is easily proven by the 

 numbers in the swarm having their wings well worn 

 by hard work, as well as seeing manj' bees with pol- 

 len in their baskets, which were so eager to go with 

 the swarm that they did not stop to unload. That 

 J'oung bees go with the swarm, is proven by seeing 

 hundreds of bees, so young as to be unable to fly, 

 On the groun I in front of the hive just after a 

 swarm has issued, and the few that are finally able 

 to rise and lly, after a series of strokes on their 

 wings with their feet, soar off to find the swarm, 

 i'ather than to return to the hive. That the wax- 

 workers go with the swarm, is proven by the num- 

 bers having wax-scales on their abdomens, which is 

 Dot fotlnd on any of the bees of the ages given 

 above. Thus the swarm is complete with bees of 

 all ages; and if we wish to make swarms complete, 

 like a natural swarm, we should have It composed 

 of bees of all ages, as above. 



"But," says one, "all the old bees go with the 

 swarm, except those in the fields at the time the 

 swarm issues." Again I beg to differ; and as proof , 

 I would say that I have often shut up a hive as soon 

 as the swarm was out, so no bees could get out or 

 in; and upon leaving it shut ten minutes I found a 

 pint or more of old field-bees trying to get in. Now. 

 drive all these bees into the air with smoke, open 

 the entrance, and a squad of old bees will rush out 

 and go to the fields. Again, bees frequently swarm 

 us soon as the sun breaks out after a shower when 

 the bees are all at home, yet we find plenty of field- 

 bees at work from this hive as soon as it dries off so 

 the flowers secrete nectar. 



Once more, as proof that bees of all ages go with a 

 swarm, as well as that bees of all ages stay at home, 

 I will give an experiment 1 once tried. Early in 

 May I gave a black colony an Italian queen, and be- 

 fore any of the Italian bees had gone into the field 

 to work, they swarmed; yet 1 found the swarm 

 composed of nearly half Italian bees. Upon going 

 to the parent hive I found black bees quite plentiful. 

 This hive was allowed to swarm the second time, 

 and the second swarm was found to contain many 

 black bees, while there still remained at the parent 

 hive quite a number of black bees. Thus I ha<l 

 ample proof that nature designed that bees of all 

 ages should compose the swarm, in order that it 

 should be perfect in all its workings; and when I 

 read statements like the one at the beginning of 

 this article, I think that, if the writer would give 

 the subject under consideration a thorough investi- 

 gation he might have reason to change his mind. 



Borodino, N.Y., July G, 1883. G. M. Doolittle. 



Thanks, friend J). While it may be true 

 that old bees alone are not protitable to start 

 nuclei, we have found, in selling bees by the 

 pound, that all young and middle-aged bees 

 answer nicely. For several seasons we have 

 bought natural swarms (brought in by the 

 farmers) by the pound, but we soon discov- 

 ered they were not worth nearly as much as 

 bees shaken from the combs in the middle 

 of the day, while the honey-gatherers wei'e 

 in the fields. I should say the greater part 

 of a natural swarm consisted of bees capable 

 of field work . 



THE WESTERN HONEY - BEE ; liU- 

 <:ERNE, S^VEET CliOVER, BUCK- 

 WHEAT, ETC. 



ALSO SO.ME GENERAti THOUGHTS IN REGARD TO 

 HONEY- PfiANTS. 



'oJW-'^HO but Mr. Root has spoken of the Western 

 ^M honey-bee as an Italian? I inclose a state- 

 ment about bees, made by a woman in a 

 journal printed by a woman. It is cut from the 

 first issue of the Natiimal Dec Journal, edited by 

 Mrs. Ellen S. Tupper, in January, 1874, and I also 

 send a statement by Mr. Charles A. Jones. 



EXTRACT FROM BEE-KEEPERS' MAGAZINE. 



There are plenty of wild bees in our vast forests, 

 and wild honey is often brought to sell. The small 

 black bees are most common. There is a larger bee 

 with a yellow ring, more amiable than the black bee. 

 If I can do any thing with bees, I hope to be able to 

 get the Italian, in time, of which I have read a good 

 deal. Are they worth the money charged? 



Talladega Co., Ala. Mrs. Lucy Wilson. 



MR. .JONES'S STATEMENT. 



I was living in Decatur Co., Neb., in 1857, above the 

 Omaha Reservation. I found a swarm of bees en- 

 tering a tree at the ground. We cut the tree down 

 and carried the bees home in the log, and kept them 

 over winter. There was a linn-tree close to the oak- 

 tree which they were in, tilled full of honey wherev- 

 er there was room. We found the tree of honey 

 first, and no bees. This was in the spring of the 

 year. After getting the honey out of the linn, we 

 found the bees in tlie base of the oak-tree. The bees 

 were marked with yellow, very much as the hybrids 

 of the present day are. 1 have found several swarms 

 of bees like them, marked with yellr,w. We then 

 lived at the very front of civilization. Bees were 

 natives of the country, so far as we could learn. I 

 always found more honev with the yellow bees than 

 with the blacks. They cleaned the opening of the 

 trees where they lived, better than the blacks do. 

 There were about us manv pire black swarms, as 

 there Were of those marked with yellow. 'I'bree of 

 us made our livintr two >ears by trapping, and sales 

 of h<niey and tiees that we found in the woods. 

 These facts are known to my father and the rest of 

 my family, tniir in number. I found a swarm of 

 liees iti ilie spring of l^lil. near Rulo, Neb., marked 

 with yellow, out some were entirely black, as the 

 hyl)rids between the blacks and Italians are. In 

 Tt^xas I have found bees, but do not recollect any 

 yellow fmes. In Oregon there were no bees when I , 

 lived there. I have always been in the habit of bee- 

 hunting, and have found as many as si.x bee-trees in 

 a day since we have lived here. I have kept bees the 

 most of the time. I know it was the bodj' of the bee 

 that was marked yellow, and not the hair. 



Ch.\s. a. Jones. 



These statements show that like conditions pro- 

 duce like results, subject, however, to variations. 

 The circumstance related by Mr. Jones, of bees 

 leaving a tree full of honey, and going into one near 

 by, is only an extreme case, as is the one related by 

 Mr. Capps, of those that sucked the watery part of 

 the blood of the deer. " Bees do nothing invaria- 

 bly," said Mrs. Tupper, and experience confirms 

 what she said. I stick to this position worse than a 

 woman, 



lATCERNE AND SWEET CLOVER. 



A Mr. Johnson, of Utah, in the June number of 

 Gleanings, has recommended lucerne and sweet 

 clover, both for hay and honey; and your comments 

 on the subject are calculated to encourage people 

 to test their value by experiment. In Utah, the 

 merits of these plants are understood to vary with 

 the climate, and lucerne is not considered a good 

 honey-plant, except in the Avarmer parts of the Ter- 

 ritory, and then only when irrigated. For a full dis- 

 cussion of the sutjject, see Bcc-kecpers' Magazine, 

 July and November numbers, 1874. Every few 

 years some person re-discovers a plant that has been 



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