330 



October, 1913 



American ^ee Journal 



treated with sulphur or carbon dioxide, 

 it is much better not to ship combs at 

 all except during the colder months 

 of the year. When shipments have to 

 travel by freight they are so long on 

 the way that very often the entire con- 

 signment becomes devoured by the 

 moth before destination is reached. 

 Another such experience as the above 

 would likely cause the postal authori- 

 ties to bar old combs from the mails. 



A Little Gain in Gathering and a 

 Big Gain in Surplu.s 



Not infrequently one hears it said: 

 " My bees gathered twice as much this 

 year as last," or " Some of my colonies 

 this year gathered four times as much 

 as others." This shows carelessness 

 of expression or else wrong thinking. 

 It is nothing uncommon to get twice 

 as much surplus from the same apiary 

 in one year as in another; and it is 

 equally common to find in the same 

 apiary colonies which store four times 

 as much surplus as others; but prob- 

 ably very few have ever had twice as 

 much honey gathered in one year as in 

 another, and still fewer have had four 

 times as much gathered by one colony 

 as another in the same season, or in- 

 deed in two different seasons. 



The truth is that there is carelessness 

 as to discriminating between what a 

 colony gathers and what it stores as 

 surplus. And the probability is that 

 not every one has any clear idea of 

 the great difference there is between 

 these two things. If we were to get 

 down to the bottom thought of a great 

 many, it would be something like this : 

 " The honey a colony gathers is stored 

 as surplus. Come to think of it, of 

 course 20 or 30 pounds of it is used as 

 winter stores ; but the little that the 

 bees otherwise devote to their own use 

 is a negligible quantity." Instead of 

 this, the amount of stores consumed 

 in winter is much the smaller part of 

 the entire year's consumption. Adrian 

 Getaz computes that it requires 200 

 pounds of honey to support a colony 

 for an entire year. So if a colony 

 stores 50 pounds of surplus, it must 

 gather 200 pounds plus the 50 pounds 

 of surplus, or 250 pounds in all. In 

 other words, the 50 pounds of surplus 

 is only a fifth of the whole amount 

 gathered by the bees. That 200 pounds 

 is a fixed charge upon the business — 

 an " overhead charge," as business men 

 say — and it must first be taken out be- 

 fore any surplus can be reckoned. 



With these views in mind, it is easy 

 to see that to double the amount of 

 surplus stored it is by no means neces- 

 sary to double the amount of honey — 



o"" nectar, if you please — gathered by 

 the bees. The same may be said about 

 increasing to any other degree. 



Let us do a little figuring. Suppose 

 we have a colony that in a given sea- 

 son is capable of storing 100 pounds of 

 surplus. To do this it must gather 200 

 pounds plus 10 pounds, or 210 pounds. 

 Then suppose we requeen it with a 

 queen of stock capable of gathering a 

 little more nectar — say 10 percent more. 

 Instead of gathering 210pounds merely, 

 it will gather 10 percent more than 210 

 pounds, or 231 pounds. As it requires 

 only 200 pounds of that for its own 

 quota, it will store the other 31 pounds 

 as surplus. That 31 pounds is 210 per- 

 cent more than the former 10 pounds. 

 So by increasing the efficiency Id per- 

 cent we increase the surplus 210 per- 

 cent. In other words, by getting the 

 bees to gather a tenth more, they will 

 store as surplus a little more than three 

 times as much. 



If we operate with a colony storing 

 more at the start, the figures will not 

 be so striking. For instance, if we 

 have a colony storing 50 pounds of 

 surplus (being obliged to gather 250 

 pounds in order to accomplish this)^ 

 and we then change queens so as to 

 get it to gather 10 percent more, it will 

 then have 75 pounds left for storage, 

 or an increase of 50 percent. But al- 

 though the proportionate increase is 

 not as large as in the former case, the 

 absolute gain is more, for we now have 

 a gain of 25 pounds as against the 

 former gain of 21 pounds. Similarly 

 it will be found in all cases that the 

 more our colony lays up in supers in 

 the first place, the greater will the ab- 

 solute gain in surplus be with an in- 

 creased efficiency of 10 percent in 

 gathering. 



There are probably hundreds of cases 

 in which the proper change of queens 

 would increase the efficiency not only 

 10 percent, but 20 to 40 percent. Then 

 there are other cases where the chance 

 for improvement is less. Take a strain 

 of bees that averages one year with 

 another 50 pounds of surplus per col- 

 ony, requiring the gathering of 250 

 pounds. Suppose a change of queens 

 increases the gathering efficiency 5 

 percent. Then the bees will gather 

 12>^ pounds more, and every ounce of 

 that I2K pounds will go to swell the 

 surplus. So by getting the bees to 

 gather only a twentieth more, we can 

 put a fourth more money into our 

 pockets. 



" Well, what of it ?" do you say. This, 

 that if every bee-keeper realized fully 

 what a large amount of increase in his 

 crops would result from a little in- 



crease in the efficiency of his bees, he 

 would make it one of his highest aims, 

 if not his very highest aim, to improve 

 constantly by every means in his power 

 the gathering quality of his bees. 



c. c. M. 



Away Down South in Dixie 



In September number of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal Dr. Miller criticises 

 the bee-keeper who gives a report of 

 his honey crop but fails to state 

 whether the number of pounds of 

 honey he got was extracted, bulk comb, 

 or comb. 



Yet in the face of it all, Mr. J. J. 

 Wilder, in the Dixie department, this 

 number, tells that his crop for the year 

 will be two hundred thousand pounds. 

 We happen to know that it is a little 

 comb, a little bulk comb, and a tittle ex- 

 tracted. Yet if we did not know this, 

 Mr. Wilder might well be excused for 

 this little slip. Any man who can 

 state that he has harvested two hun- 

 dred thousand pounds of honey in a 

 single season has a right to report it 

 as he chooses, be it comb, extracted, 

 strained, separated or what not. 



Tico hundred thousand founds^ nearly 

 seventeen thousand gallons ; enough 

 to spread honey one-sixteenth of an 

 inch deep all over a pancake made in 

 a one-hundred-and-eighty-acre skillet 

 — nearly seven carloads of swettness. 

 One engine could hardly pull it across 

 the divide over into California, where 

 the medium-sized bee-keepers are. 



What is more, we are told in the 

 same department that Mr. Wilder isn't 

 through yet; just fairly begun. More 

 out-apiaries are to be started, more 

 skillets added, more cars filled. Hats 

 off to Dixie and the man who is mak- 

 ing it sweeter. 



I 



Decoy Hives 



Very few if any of our readers are 

 unacquainted with the practice of de- 

 coying ducks by means either of tame 

 birds or of wooden decoys. Yet how- 

 many have ever thought of applying 

 the principle to a swarm of bees ? 



We wish to call the attention of our 

 readers to the article in this issue by 

 Dr. A. F. Bonney, entitled " Decoy 

 Hives." Although he modestly as- 

 sumes that the veteran bee-keeper can 

 profit Gut little by the description, yet 

 we are inclined to believe that there 

 are many, even among .those, who do 

 not realize the value of such hives 

 scattered in and about an apiary. 

 Swarming time is a busy time for the 

 bee-keeper, and swarms are apt to be 

 overlooked or allowed to escape in the 

 rush of other apiary or farm work. 



.Aside from the fact that these decoy 



