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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1 



A DESUI,TORY TALK REGARDING THE SEA- 

 SON OF 1901. 



"Good morning, Mr. Doolittle. I was 

 coming over to see my son Charlie this morn- 

 ing, so I thought I would run in a minute and 

 see if I could coax you to sell me a colony of 

 bees next spring. That is, I want you to 

 agree to let me have one at that time if you 

 will." 



" I have not advertised bees for sale for two 

 or three years now, thinking that I would not 

 sell more, as I have got about the number I 

 wish, all on good straight worker combs, and 

 had concluded that I had better keep them 

 than to sell more at the prices quoted by oth- 

 ers, for the honey I sell from them each year 

 comes to more than double what bees are 

 quoted at. But why do you wish one of my 

 colonies? You have a good start with the 

 ten colonies you now have." 



"You know that red clover has blossomed 

 this year for the first time in from 15 to 20 

 years. That is, this year is the first time the 

 bloom has perfected in that time, and I have 

 watched, when working on my 200 -acre farm, 

 and I have not seen a single one of my black 

 bees at work on the red clover, but the clover 

 is just swarming all the time with your yel- 

 low bees, and they stick to the head one goes 

 on for a minute or two, as if they were getting 

 half a load from a single head." 



" But don't you know that it is said that 

 bees go but a mile or so for forage, and here 

 you are claiming my bees as working on your 

 clover, which is fully three miles from here? " 



" I can not help what is claimed ; there are 

 no yellow bees nearer me than yours are ; in 

 fact, I know of none others nearer than eight 

 miles. Did you not get honey from red clo- 

 ver before basswood opened, and then after it 

 was past ? If you did not, then I am deceived 

 in what I saw." 



" Yes, I knew the bees were at work on red 

 clover ; for with the 17th of June all desire to 

 rob stopped, and by the 20th honey was com- 

 ing in at a rate nearly equal to that from a 

 basswood yield. From that on till basswood 

 bloomed, I could leave a frame of honey 

 standing out in the yard all day and not a bee 

 look at it, except to gather propolis off the 

 ends of the top -bar to the frame, where the 

 bees often put in more than is agreeable. To 

 know that this was right I went to the fields, 

 red with clover, and, as you say, found them 

 swarming with Italian bees, while scarcely a 

 bee but those of the German variety was to be 

 found on the little white clover that bloomed 

 along the roadside." 



"But you have not told me whether you 

 got any honey or not in the section boxes." 



" Yes. I took off from some hives as many 

 as 80 one-pound sections of red-clover honey, 

 while the average yield was not far from 65 

 sections. Then basswood gave a fairly good 



yield, but I can not say just how much, as 

 many fields of the mammoth red clover were 

 still in bloom, not having been cut when bass- 

 wood was over, and the bees worked on those 

 fields from a week to ten days after basswood, 

 till the clover was cut for hay. This helped 

 very much, as it gave the bees a chance to 

 finish up those only partly filled from bass- 

 wood. From two colonies I have taken 176 

 completed sections, with an average yield of 

 about 145 sections from such colonies as were 

 not drawn on for queen-rearing. This is the 

 highest average yield I have ever made, ex- 

 cept in 1877, when the yield was 166 pounds 

 of comb honey." 



"That shows you why I wish a colony of 

 bees from you. From my ten colonies I shall 

 not get 300 sections, and that will be nearly 

 all from basswood, as the new swarms did not 

 get to work till about the time basswood blos- 

 somed, and the old colonies swarmed so much 

 that they have done nothmg." 



"Well, now }ou have touched something 

 not in your first idea, that it was the re-i clo 

 ver which made the difference. Had you not 

 allowed those old colonies to swarm them- 

 selves to death, so to speak, and kept your 

 original three colonies at the same number, or 

 not allowed them to increase more than to 

 six, at most, you would have been enabled to 

 make a much better showing, I am sure, with 

 your black bees. My increase at the out-api- 

 ary has been only one, and here at home the 

 count is only two greater than in the spring. 

 If you wish a good yield of honey from each 

 colony you will keep the bees together as 

 much as possible, for 60,000 bees in one hive 

 will produce very much more section honey 

 than will the same number of bees in three 

 hives ; or, worse still, the most of them di- 

 vided up in after-swarms, and in the parent 

 colony." 



' ' Do you pretend to say that you had any 

 colony which contained 60,000 bees during 

 the late honey-flow ? " 



"Yes. Those which gave the 176 sections 

 contained more, I calculate, instead of less." 



" On what do you base your opinion ? " 



"Bees live to be about 45 days old during 

 the working season, while the eggs laid by 

 the queen perfect into bees in 21 days, so that 

 we can figure two atid one-seventh genera- 

 tions coming on to where one generation dies 

 off. Many of my hives contained 800 square 

 inches of solid brood which would perfect in 

 time to take advantage of the red-clover 

 honey harvest, although, owing to wet cold 

 weather later on, this brood was not kept up 

 to produce the basswood workers I desired ; 

 and this had something to do with the larger 

 yield of honey from red clover. But as 

 brood-rearing sprung up as by magic as soon 

 as the cold and wet ceased, we can safely 

 count on about 700 square inches of brood, as 

 the average, to give bees which were available 

 during the harvest. And as each square inch 

 gives at least 50 bees, we have an average of 

 35,000 bees every 21 davs, and two and one- 

 seventh times that is 75,000." 



"Whew ! it does figure up, doesn't it ? " 



"Yes. And if we remember that many 



