April, l&lil 



American Hee Journal 



is lyz miles to the top and probably as 

 much more to the foot on the opposite 

 side. I have caught and lined them 

 more than one mile beyond there and 

 they steer for my apiary, and are gone 

 a long time. 



In late fall, when there were no flow- 

 ers on which to find bees, I have often 

 made what I call a smudge (heating 

 honey and comb), and the bees would 

 come 1% miles, good looking Italians. 

 Could they see or smell the scent of 

 comb and honey? I have also hunted 

 bees many times in Florida, and I feel 

 sure some of the bees there were more 

 than 2 miles from home. There was a 

 Frenchman called Longo who kept a 

 hundred (.r more colonies, and I often 

 lined bees that flew in a straight line 

 for his apiary, at least 2 miles from his 

 place. I think perhaps Mr. Baldwin is 

 familiar with the locality I have just 

 mentioned, as it is on the south bank 

 of the Caloosahatchee river, some 2 

 miles below Alva. I have spent several 

 winters at Owanita, as I have a house 

 and grove there. 



Mr. E. R. Root's idea of sight, it • 

 seems to me, is a little overdrawn. In 

 my northern home it would be impos- 

 sible for bees to see over the hills and 

 mountains, but they evidently could 

 smell the fumes of the honey and comb 

 when heated. 



I have been interested in the flight 

 of bees for many years, as some queen- 

 breeders have contended their queens 

 would not mi-x except at only a short 

 distance. 



When I first had Italians there were 

 three apiaries in different directions, 

 but none nearer than 1}4 miles, and 

 two of them 2 to 'iyi miles, and their 

 swarms soon became mixed with Ital- 

 ian blood. If their queens did not meet 

 the drones from my yard, where did 

 the Italian marks come from ? No one 

 nearer than 8 or 9 miles had Italians. 



New Ipswich, N. H. 



[Mr. Wheeler is one of the original 

 subscribers of both the American Bee 

 Journal and Gleanings. He has kept 



bees since 1856, and a historical sketch 

 of himself was published in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal for Jan. 13, 1898. He 

 is therefore one of the pioneers, and 

 his experience is of value. 



There is a difference between the 

 flight of bees for nectar and the flight 

 of the sexes for mating. The drone is 

 stronger of wingthaneitherthe worker 



or the queen. Besides, when the two 

 insects take wing, it is only necessary 

 that each should travel half the distance 

 that separates them in order to mate. 

 So matings at 4 miles would only indi- 

 cate a probable flight of half that dis- 

 tance for either, though perhaps the 

 male would travel a little more than 

 the queen. — Editor.] 



Bee-Keepinc ^ For Women 



Conducted bv Miss Emma M. Wilson. Marengo. 111. 



A Successful South Dakota Beekeeper 



I have been a beekeeper since 1910, 

 and also a reader of the American Bee 

 Journal, though at first not a subscriber. 

 Your department has naturally appealed 

 to me most strongly. 



Early in the spring of 1910 we or- 

 dered two hives of bees from Rapid 

 City to be shipped to our nearest rail- 

 road point, Philip, and from there my 

 husband brought them the 40 miles to 

 the ranch on the top of a load of gen- 

 eral ranch supplies. The first half day 

 on the road was mid-summer heat, and 

 though he shaded the hives as well as 

 possible, the poor bees must have suf- 

 fered terribly. Honey ran from one 

 hive. The next morning he started on 

 in the teeth of a bitterly cold northwest 

 wind. When he reached home one 

 hive was a sticky mess, and we brought 

 it into the house to see what I could do 

 with it. It was a pathetic sight. Every 

 bee that still squirmed I bathed and 

 warmed and dried (of course, it seems 

 like a joke now). There were only 

 about a dozen of them that ever 

 crawled again, and though I sought 

 diligently I could find no bee that 

 looked as though it might be a queen. 



TYPICAL SCENE IN THE WILDS OF MAINE-MOOSEHEAD LAKE FROM 

 MT KINO-Photoby John H. Lovell 



I was anxious to find her to make sure 

 I could tell royalty when I had a 

 chance. 



At the time I was in the primer class 

 and had never been any where near close 

 enough to a beehive to touch it before. 

 I had stu lied a bee-book, however, un- 

 til I knew from pictures what I ought 

 to see. The spring of 1911 I started 

 with 2 hives, 1912 with 5, 1913 with 7, 

 1914 with 11, 1915 with 15, and this 

 spring I have 30. The first two years I 

 did not get any honey. They were dry 

 years even for this terribly dry coun- 

 try. In 1912 we got 264 pounds of 

 comb honey; in 1913, 450 pounds; in 

 1914, 1187 pounds of both comb and 

 exti acted, and last year 4000 pounds, 

 450 pounds of it being comb honey. I 

 aim to have only enough comb honey 

 to supply this immediate neighbor- 

 hood, as a 40 mile freight haul in a 

 lumber wagon over rough and hilly 

 roads is rather hard on the combs. 



It is a fine grade of honey, alfalfa 

 and sweet clover, and a case of the 

 comb honey which went in our county 

 exhibit to the State Fair, and it later 

 was entered by our county represen- 

 tative for an individual prize at the Tri- 

 State Fair in Sioux City, carried off 

 the first prize in its class. Of course, 

 we South Dakotans were much pleased 

 that a kind of honey that is universal 

 in this State should be able to carry off 

 honors over white clover and bass- 

 wood and the other fine honeys there. 

 The lonj rough haul that makes 

 comb honey so impossible for us makes 

 glass and tin honey containers expen- 

 sive also, so our problem was to find 

 a light container that would not be 

 bulky to haul out. That brought us to 

 the Aikin honey bags. We tried them 

 this year for the first time, and think 

 our problems are solved, as our honey 

 candies so quickly. In our cool Sep- 

 tembers it will candy in two weeks and 

 be real hard in a month sometimes. It 

 is beautiful when it is candied, too, 

 and has proven very popular wherever 

 we have offered it. 



Our bees were the first that succeeded 

 in this part of the State. They have 

 attracted considerable interest for that 

 reason. We use double-walled hives 

 and winter out-of-doors. My husband 

 and the rest of the men are far too 

 busy with the stock to give me any 

 great amount of help with the bees. 

 Not being able to depend on any strong 



