18 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



third of which was in the comb. This magnificent 

 triumph did not make me proud. I still nod wiien I 

 meet my skeppist neighbors, and (when no one else 

 is near) I sometimes even stop and speak to them. 

 No, I am not at all conceited, and to you, Messrs. 

 Editors, I come in all humility as a novice, anxious 

 to learn. 



Of course, I take the B. B. J., and in >,o. 544, page 

 462, 1 read a short article on which I should like to 

 say a few words. Under tlie heading, " Wonderful 

 Work of Bees," we are told that it requires 3.750,1 00 

 bee-loads to make a single pound of honey! Fig- 

 ures like tliese take away (he l)reath of a novice, 

 and set'him to "figure it out." I suppose tliere are 

 cases on record of English bee-keepers, during 

 heavy flows of honey, obtaining .S, 4, or 5 pounds of 

 honey in a day from one liive. Mr. Koot, under 

 "Basswood," says that his Isiggest yield was 43 

 pounds in three days— or over 14 pounds a day ; and 

 Mr. Doollttle, in note 13, says that he got 66 ponnds 

 in 3 days— or 32 pounds per d;'y 1 will deal with 

 this last extreme ease— probnbly the largest yield 

 on record. Supposing the fljiures to be correct in 

 "Wonderful Work of Bees," tlie number of jour- 

 neys to and from the hives to store these 22 pounds 

 would be 83,.500,000. Griinting that on tliese days 

 the bees would work full i>ower for 15 hours, that 

 would require 91,666 bees per minute, or 1572 per 

 second, to go into the hive, and tlic same iiumltei' to 

 pass out. Again, assuming that eacli bee lakes 

 only 15 minutes to gather and deliver its load, and 

 (never resting) makes 60 journeys in tlie day, then 

 the actual number of bees required to gather the 23 

 pounds of honey would be 1,375,000, weighing about 

 275 pounds, or nearly 20 stone, exclusive of the 

 young bees not leaving the hive, and the drones ! 

 Truly, it makes a novice's mouth to water to think 

 of a swarm of bees heavier than a sack of wheat 

 and bigger than a feather-bed ! 



As I do not think for a moment that friends Root 

 and Doolittle would make their statements unless 

 they were absolutely true, and as I am quite sure 

 that there never was a colony so large as the one 

 figured above, I fear we must look for the error in 

 "Wonderful Work of Bees," especially as there is a 

 manifest mistake in the statement that 62,000 clover- 

 flowers yield a pound of honey, which is carried 

 away by 3,760,000 bees, so that to clear one clover- 

 flower of its nectar 60 bees must each carry away a 

 #full load. 



Maj- I suggest, that perhaps it would be nearer 

 the mark to say that "to gather a pound of honey 

 3,750,000 clover - flowers must be visited by 62,000 

 bees " ?— in this case, the latter part of " Wonderful 

 Work of Bees" would require to be much modified. 

 —J. W. Wilson, Revf><lnj, Bostoii, Nin\ ,?<S', JS!f>. 



[Although we have, by a sliglit inadvertence, laid 

 ourseh'es open to the poking of a little legitimate 

 "fun" at our expense by printing tlie newspaper 

 cutting referred to as it appears on p. 462, we do not 

 quite regret the "slip" made, bec.iuse it has shown 

 us that some readers, at least, are sufficiently alive 

 to the absurdity of the statements regarding l)ees, 

 which usually go tlie rounds of the newspaper 

 press, to decline swallowing tlieni witlujut thougnt 

 or consideration of any kind, as so many do. Asa 

 matter of fact, the paragraph in question was in- 

 tended to appear "quoted "—as is usual witli news 

 and cuttings— and also with an expressive (?) follow- 

 ing the title. The omission of these marks, of 

 course, entirely conceals our dislielief in the story, 

 which we had set down as an unusually strong 

 " penny-a-liner." If we could venture to think that 

 the same wide publicity would be given to what ap- 

 pears in our pages this week on the subject as was 

 accorded to the oft'eiiding paragraph in question, 

 we might say, "All's well that ends well;" but that 

 can scarcely be hoped for. truth being so frequently 

 less acceptable than fiction. In any case, the fact 

 of our being "pulled up"— as we have been in the 

 above two amusing communications — may serve as 

 an' explanation why so many of the press cuttings 

 (kindly sent by correspondents who "think they 

 may be of some interest to bee-keepers") find their 

 way into the waste-paper basket.— /i.'d.s. B. B. J".] 



[On page 61 of our August J uvknile Glkan- 

 INGS. for 1883. E. E. Hasty, of Richards. O., 

 gave some interesting experiments on weighing 

 bee-loads. The results of many tests sliowed 

 that a light bee-load weighed about 1 grain; a 

 full bee-load (that is, from a bee that drops 

 down at the entrance) was from l^.j to 2 grains. 

 There are 7000 grains to the pound avoirdupois; 



therefore, according to Mr. Hasty 's calcula- 

 tions, it would take from 3.5(1) to 7000 bees tO' 

 carry a pound of nectar. We believe this at- 

 tempt of Mr. Hasty was the first and only one 

 at v/eighing bee-loads; and in the light of sub- 

 sequent experiences we believe it to be tolerably 

 accurate. It shows how wide of the facts was 

 the newspaper clipping. It is somewhat re- 

 freshing to us Americans to know that reporters 

 sometimes tell big yarns in England, as on this 

 side of the pond.] 



THAT SKUNK. 



K. FRANCE TEI.I.S US HOW TO CATCH AND KILL 

 THEM WITHOTT GETTING INTO TROUBLE. 



Oh that skunk 1 What about it'? Why, it 

 has been aft<>r my bees. The 36th of November, 

 my son, N. France, and myself went out to fix 

 in the straw to our last yard of bees. When 

 we got there we found skunk-tracks in the 

 snow. It had been to every hive in the yard. 

 From two hives he had worked the bees out at 

 a great rate, and. to all appearance, it had been 

 coming there every night for a long time; in 

 fact.it understood how to get the bees out of 

 the hive and eat them. Of course, it must be 

 killed. Newell tracked it home to its hole, 

 a quarter of a mile. We had no traps with us, 

 so we had to go home and let it work until 

 we could come back again; and as the next day 

 was Sunday we did not go back again until 

 Monday. Then Newell took eight good steel 

 traps and went and set them all for the skunk. 

 As 1 was an old trapper, I gave him instructions 

 how to set them. To save trouble after it was in 

 the trap, he was to cut a sapling large enough 

 so the skunk could not move the trap toward 

 its hole; then, after setting it in the mouth of 

 the hole, he was to fasten the trap to the sap- 

 ling and drag it back the whole length of the 

 chain, so the skunk could not get down into the 

 hole with the trap. 



The next morning I went with Newell to dis- 

 pose of the game, We found it in the trap all 

 right, caught by the fore foot, and it was down 

 in the hole the length of its body. We pulled 

 on the sapling slowly for a couple of minutes, 

 when the skunk came out of the hole and took 

 a look at us. We gave it time to make up its 

 mind that we were not going to fight with it; 

 then we pulled the pole, top end first, toward a 

 creek, about 30 rods away. We went slowly at 

 first until the game got used to it. We got it to 

 the creek, and dragged it into a deep hole of 

 water. When it was in the water, all it thought 

 of was to get out; but the trap held it there, 

 and it was soon drowned without raising any 

 smudge. 



As I am an old trapp(>r. and have had to handle a 

 great many skunks, and I see that quite a large 

 number of our bee-men are troubled with them, 

 you will excuse me if I make a few remarks 

 about handling the animal. In the first place, 

 I don't think that one skunk in fifty ever mo- 

 lests the bees; in fact, this one that we have 

 just killed is the only one that has ever disturb- 

 ed our bees, to our knowledge; and I believe 

 that I could detect him as quickly as any other 

 man. and I am just as ready to kill it as any 

 man when I prove him guilty of mischief, 

 either with the bees or poultry, or in other 

 ways doing damage. But I won't condemn 

 the whole tribe because I have found one in 

 mischief. The average skunk' is a friend to the 

 farmer. It gathers bugs and grubs all summer, 

 and makes nearly all of its living from those 

 pests of the farmer, and so I won't hurt the 

 much despised skunk unless I know it is in 

 mischief. When we find one is doing damage. 



