284 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



and returning the queens, or giving the 

 colonies others after they have been a 

 few days without unsealed brood; or I 

 let them have queens out of the cells they 

 have built. If, occasionally, in examin- 

 ing the colonies, I find cells started, I 

 treat them the same way without waiting 

 for actual swarming. 



Between the honey season and the win- 

 ter there is a little nectar gathered every 

 day, except in very dry seasons. That 

 quantity increases materially when the 

 goldenrods and asters bloom, but there is 

 never enough to furnish any surplus, and 

 very often not enough to winter the 

 colonies. 



During that period there are plenty of 

 weeds and flowers of all sorts along the 

 .fences and in the fields after wheat and 

 oats are harvested, in the pastures and 

 other places; but they yield very little 

 honey; and, as a rule, only in the early 

 morning. This must be due to the fact 

 that the ground is too dry to admit the 

 formation of the nectar, for, occasionally, 

 if an abundant rain comes, there is some- 

 thing like a flow of hone}' for a few days 

 after. 



The result is that the more bees there 

 are in a colony, the more flowers will be 

 visited, and the more honey brought in; 

 in fact, while the strong colonies will 

 gain some in population and stores dur- 

 ing that period, the medium ones will 

 only sustain themselves and the weak 

 ones will lose, if they don't get robbed 

 by the others, which happens occasion- 

 ally. The result is that, by the time winter 

 sets in, the difference between the large 

 and the small colonies will be greater 

 than it was at the close of the honey 

 harvest. 



During the winter the difference be- 

 comes still greater. The strong colonies 

 will eat proportionately less, lose a less 

 percentage of bees, rear some brood, and 

 when spring comes they will be very 

 much stronger in proportion, begin brood 

 rearing in earnest much sooner, and be 

 ready to enter the surplus apartments in 

 full force long before the weaker colonies ■ 



can even recover their lost strength. 

 Do you wonder that I am such a strong 

 advocate of the large hives and larger 

 colonies? 



If this state of affairs were a purely local 

 one, I should not have written this con- 

 tribution; but it applies in its main 

 characteristics to the whole country south 

 of the Mason and Dixon line, except 

 Florida; there are differences, of course, 

 between one locality and another. The 

 further south we go the shorter is the 

 winter. Then, below this section there 

 is the cotton, while, on the other hand, 

 the sourwood does not exist in the low 

 plains. But, nevertheless, the general 

 features of the Southern States' honey 

 production remain the same. A few 

 months of honey season during which 

 nectar can be gathered from different 

 sources, but in a very irregular manner, 

 some sources yielding this year, and some 

 other yielding the next year, necessitat- 

 ing the keeping up of the colonies to 

 their full strength during several months. 

 Then the late summer and fall season, 

 with yery scant yielding of nectar, dur- 

 ing which the strongest colonies have a 

 decided advantage over the others. 



Other sections of the country are under 

 different conditions. In the Northern 

 States there is a definite honey season of 

 a few weeks from white clover or bass- 

 wood, or both, the swarming taking place 

 at the beginning of it. Some of these 

 have, besides that, a honey flow from 

 buckwheat later in the season; and, in a 

 few localities, there is also a fall flow of 

 considerable importance. 



In Colorado and other Northwestern 

 States, they have two distinct flows. 

 Through some correspondence with a 

 prominent Colorado apiculturist, I have 

 learned that one difliculty with them was 

 that during the first honey flow the bees 

 -were filling the brood-nest with honey 

 and curtailing the brood, with the result 

 that at the time of the second flow, the 

 immber of field bees was considerably re- 

 duced. 



