806 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Dec. 19, -.9(11. 



cups, and so swarming conditions go on rapidly. TliR colony 

 not having become stronjr enouijh to go out freely into sections, 

 the conditions for swarming develop the more rapidly, and 

 much swarming and little honey results. 



Let me make a contrast. Suppose a honey-flow comes 

 with a rush, and in about 5 or 6 days the hrood-chamber is 

 full. This, with the great activity and overburdened honey- 

 sacs, crowds the bees to the supers. It is a fact, that colonies 

 that will not touch super-work with a slow flow, in a more 

 rapid flow but other conditions equal, will go right into the 

 sections. Here also is another fact, when the flow is too weak 

 or slow to cause the colony to enter the super, a few more bees 

 added will accomplish the result. If this be true, then we can 

 understand how I may get a medium or fair crop when some 

 one near me, not taking advantage of the stimulating features 

 that may be applied to advantage in this locality, would not 

 have any marketable honey. 



I know that my part of Colorado, and some other parts, 

 too. do have these slow, tedious honey-flows. While in the 

 white clover and basswood regions apiarists have rapid spurts 

 of honey-flow, in which one or more supers will be filled in as 

 many weeks, and even very much less time, we here find our 

 super-work going much more slowly. I find that for one flow 

 that will fill two supers in a month, there are several that do 

 less. I also find that a colony that swarms, and new swarms 

 as well, do not one in five, nor more than once in five years, 

 give me a profitable yield. Swarming colonies, to be i rofit- 

 able, (e.xcept to sell the increase to prospective apiarists at big 

 prices), must be doubled, or hived in contracted brood-cham- 

 bers. So true is this that I say, emphatically, the person pay- 

 ing $5 a colony for bees, and then allowing the bees to swarm 

 and not practicing some method of contracting or doiibline: 

 colonies to get. strength, cannot make the business at all profit- 

 able. 



I want to repeat and empasize, that when the honey-flow 

 is slow and intermittent, very much more skill is required in 

 management if one gets a fair product, both in finish and 

 quantity. As intimated hereinbefore, as the flow is slow or 

 weak the colonies must be of greater strength, both to get 

 them to work in the supers at all, and to get quality and finish. 

 A rapid, full and steady flow ca\ises wo'-k to begin more evenly 

 through a super, and not only to be begun, but to go on I'egu- 

 larly and evenly ; but. in contrast with this, when the flow is 

 weak and nectar coming in slowly no matter whether the slow 

 work is caused l)y a weak colony or a lack of nectar, the work 

 is of a very irregular and unsaiisfactory character. The re- 

 sults are so marked that in the hands of an expert apiarist 

 these weak flows may be made to i.roduce good, marketable 

 honey that brings fair to good prices; while in the hands of 

 those not learned in the science, the product, if marketaole at 

 all, must be a drug upon the market and at bottom prices. 



I do not write thes(^ things to keep people from going into 

 the business, but that when they do go in they do it more care- 

 fully and intelligently. People entering the business and upon 

 business principles, and handling it in a way to succeed, need 

 be no detriment to others in the business ; but to rush in and 

 fail, injures not only themselves, but others dependent upon 

 them, and the general public, and damages very materially 

 others in the same business. If a failure affects solely the per- 

 son making it, then the good-will towards others and desire 

 that they be kept from snftering and distress, would be the 

 only reason why we need concern ourselves about the mat- 

 ter; but the person making a failure makes it harder for 

 others, in several ways. A failure in any enterprise leaves 

 the person failing less able to buy other products — he is less of 

 a help in a community, hei-ause he has not money nor ability 

 to make a community prosperous. Usually, a business failure 

 leaves the one failing unable to pay all his bills, and these un- 

 paid bills cripple and injure others in their business 



Just no* I have in mind a man who this past summer en- 

 gaged to take care of a lot of bees for my neighbor. He came 

 to me to buy hives, and was sure he wanted .5i>, for, said he, 

 " There are .oD colonies and they will all swarm at leastonce.'' 

 He did not have the money, but would pay September I. I 

 suppose he intended to sell honey to pay for the hives, and had 

 great visions of the income he was to get from those bees. 

 The time is now six weeks past the date at which he was to pay, 

 and payment not made. 1 do not think his crop of honey will 

 pay even the expenses for supplies, while he has nothing for 

 time and trouble, and this, too, when I persuaded him that he 

 would best not buy more than 2.i hives instead of the .tO he 

 wanted. He did not use even the 'Ih. 1 am out the cost of 

 25 hives. The man owes me the price of them, and has no 

 crop to pay it out of; the little honey he has will not 

 bring a living price in any market ; and the owner of the bees 

 gels nothing on the capital invested. 



I could have handled those bees at a profit to both myself 



and the owner, but, handled as they were on altogether a 

 wrong and unscientific basis, several people are the worse off 

 because of the unbusinesslike procedure. Those bees have not 

 profited either the owner or the manager, and they have used 

 a part of the pasturage that would have been beneficial to me 

 and to others. Larimer Co., Colo. 



Moving Bees Short Distances. 



W 



3V C. P. DAD.\NT. 



: 20 colonies of bees no 



OULD it besafe to i 

 wait till I pack them for winter ? I h ii 

 feet north and 20 feet east.— John T. V a 

 October 17, 1'Wl. 



fould I better 

 ;o move them only 20 

 N, Johnson Co., Iowa, 



As there are many such enquiries, I will give my manner 

 of moving bees, and the reasons for it, in more detailed form 

 than in the private reply I gave to Mr. Paitin. 



When we move our bees, we must hear in mind the instincts 

 and ha'iits of the worker-bees. At its first flight, out of the 

 hive, the young bee takes a survey of its location by flying in 

 circles slowly and carefully, evidently to examine all surround- 

 ing objects, and these first flights of young bees, which always 

 take place early in the afternoon of a warm day, are well known 

 to apiarists, because usually several hundred, and sometimes 

 several thousand, bees thus take flight almost at the same 

 hour, and their actions somewhat resemble those of the robber- 

 bees that circle about to recognize the spot where they have 

 found honey. But the robber-bee is restless and hurried, and 

 to a certain extent feels ashamed and acts more or less sneak- 

 ingly, while the young bees have a contented, peaceable flight, 

 like the actions of a being whose conscience is at ease, and 

 whom nobody pursues. 



At the second flight, the young bee still looks about, but 

 with much diminished care, as it feels more sure of its location. 

 After that, the worker-bee strikes out like an arrow, without 

 looking behind. Its flight is so nearly straight that the ex- 

 pression. " take a bee-line," is equivalent to saying, "take a 

 straight, short course over hills and valley." 



When *e move our bees it is important that we should 

 remember this. If the hives are moved during cold weather, 

 so that before they take a flight they have had time to forget 

 the slight disturbance; or, if we move them during warm 

 weather so carefully that they do not realize that anything is 

 wrong, we may very positively expect that when they issue out 

 of the hive they will do as usual — take a bee-line without stop- 

 ping to look back. If the hive has neen changed in position a 

 shortdistance,.they will vainly seek it on the old spot, and will 

 wear themselves out in a short time, unless one of the hives is 

 within reasonable distance, when some t.ees may find it and 

 will attract the others by tjie drumming of their wings. But 

 many will get lost, and if the wrong hive is entered many will 

 be killed. 



If, on the other hand, we take pains to let the bees know 

 that the hive is being moved, by closing up the entrance and 

 leaving it closed quite a while after the hour when they might 

 take flight during a fairly warm day ; if we handle the hive 

 somewhat roughly while they are thus confined, and do not re- 

 lease them till they have all been warned that something is 

 wrong ; if we also give them a few pufts of smoke when releas- 

 ing them, and if they are enabled to take flight at once, 

 and look over the ground, it is quite likely that the most 

 of them will fully realize the fact that their location has been 

 changed, and we may rely on their natural intelligence to 

 find the spot again. And as many of the bees do not take 

 flight at once, even after a rough shaking up, it is well to 

 leave with them a reminder of their change of location, so that 

 when any bee goes to the door, it may at once realize that 

 things are not what they were. This reminder we put in the 

 shape of a board leaned up against the hive, in front of the 

 entrance, so that tlie bee may be prevented, at the start, from 

 flying in a "bee-line," toward the fields. This obstruction, of 

 course, causes the worker to look back and investigate, as soon 

 as on the wing, and the new location is thus more sure of be- 

 ing noticed. 



Yet in spite of all these precautions, some bees may hover 

 about the olds ot and insist on going into a cluster, especially 

 if any empty hive or box is left when^ their home stood. 

 Should any great number thus congregate, they may be given 

 to one colony at night-fall, and with this colony they will be 

 sure to remain. 



But if the above-given instructions are carefully followed, 

 no bad results need be feared. As a matter of course, this evi- 

 dences the necessity of moving the bees at a time when they 

 can still fly, and during such weather as will not be likely to 

 chill them if they remain longer than usual on the wing, as 



