4' ii' 



(JLKANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 



hives were made with no bottoms except 

 the ground, they would never be troubled 

 with the moth miller. Now, it was to pre- 

 vent this very catastrophe that I decided to 

 have the bottom of the Simplicity hive the 

 same as the cover. When banked up with 

 sand and sawdust, as 1 have described in 

 the A B C, it not only absolutely prevents 

 the queen or bees from crawling under the 

 hive when you are extracting, but it pre- 

 vents toads, spiders, and snakes, and all 

 such enemies, from getting under. Our 

 first stands for bee-hives were made of a 

 wide board with a piece of scantling under 

 the back and front ; but when we used these 

 stands, during extracting time I used to go 

 around every night and poke out the bees 

 that had crawled under the hives and there 

 clustered. If I wanted hives as high as you 

 have them, I would set each one on a box, 

 or, perhaps, something like an empty hive 

 without top or bottom. I think bees can 

 build comb to advantage in the open air, on- 

 ly when the weather is mild and the cluster 

 of bees large. With our old hoop hive we 

 demonstrated pretty well the effect of thin 

 well-ventilated hives. Although the bees 

 will get along in them, we think it is not 

 profitable. 



REPORT FROM FLORIDA. 



So LBS. PER COLONY FROM ORANGE-BLOSSOMS. 



R. ROOT:— I see by May 1st Gleanings that 

 you are somewhat surprised at the yield of 

 honey from the orange-blossoms in Flori- 

 da, as stated by J. B. LaMontagne, pages 

 355, 356. It is as friend LaMontagne says. 

 You would be surprised to see how many bees are 

 at work on some of the large trees atone time; 

 and the honey, as he says, is very white and of a 

 fine flavor. I for one do not wish for any nicer. 

 My bees this year have gathered on an average 25 

 lbs. per colony from this source alone. The best 

 colony gave 48 lbs., all in 4& x 454 sections. The 

 above honey was all gathered inside of two weeks. 

 Bees did not work on it the first three weeks, on ac- 

 count of unfavorable weather. You ask if it is only 

 in a favorable season that they work this way. I 

 think not, as my average last year was 35 lbs. per 

 colony from this source. I have only a few bees, 16 

 colonies, at present, which may account for such a 

 fair average from this one source. My total aver- 

 age this year up to date is 42 lbs. per colony (spring 

 count), with gallberry and saw-pal meto to hear 

 from yet, both of which are just opening; bees will 

 be at work on them in a week or ten days. We gen- 

 erally get a good surplus from both of these 

 sources. 



The large green dragon-flies have been very 

 troublesome about the apiary the past three weeks. 

 They come by the hundreds, and destroy a great 

 many bees. They are so bad at some times that the 

 bees stop work altogether while they are around. 

 I have seen them dart right down to the entrance 

 of the hives and get a bee, when there would be a 

 pint or a quart lying out on the front of the hive. 

 1 call this pretty bold. A. F. Brown. 



Huntington, Fla., May 15, 1889. 



We are very glad to get so good a report 

 from the orange. I think if I were you I 

 would try to trap or poison those dragon- 



hies. It may be difficult to poison them 

 without poisoning the bees, but 1 think it 

 can be managed. I suppose your locality is 

 near large bodies of water. 



MOVING BEES TO ANOTHER LOCA- 

 TION IN THE SAME NEIGH- 

 BORHOOD. 



HOW TO DO IT, AND HAVE THE BEES STICK TO 

 THEIR HIVE. 



MDITOR GLEANINGS:— On page 347 friend Mil- 

 ler has an article on moving bees; but it 

 seems to me that both he in his article and 

 you in your foot-notes have overlooked one 

 of the most important factors in the problem 

 of how to move bees to a different location with the 

 least loss of returning bees. I refer to the fact, 

 that the more thoroughly bees, while being moved, 

 are shaken up, roughly used, confused, or " obfus- 

 cated," as the darkey calls it, the more inclined they 

 will be to mark their new location. The more 

 thoroughly they can be impressed with the knowl- 

 edge that something terrible is happening with 

 their home, the more thoroughly will they examine 

 the question of a new home when allowed to fly. Bees 

 that have been carried two miles in a buggy or 

 wagon, have of course been jolted more than if 

 carried only one mile, and more of them will mark 

 their new location. This whole thing can be test- 

 ed by removing some colonies during the honey 

 season half a mile or a mile from home, then carry- 

 ing others several miles away and returning them 

 to the same locations the first ones were taken to, 

 without having allowed them to fly; then observe 

 whether those that have been jolted the most and 

 furthest will mark their new location the best or 

 not. All such experiments should be made during 

 a honey- flow, as bees are much more apt to pitch 

 headlong out of their hives at such a time than at 

 other times. If I am correct in these views, then it 

 follows that your and friend Miller's deduction 

 (that the fact that bees that have been moved two 

 miles rarely go back, shows that bees rarely fly so 

 far when foraging) is not so fully proven as you 

 seem to think it is. My own observations have 

 caused me to have quite a decided opinion that 

 bees, especially Italian*, frequently range freely at 

 least four or five miles away from their home. 



There is another practical application to this idea 

 when making nuclei. Instead of carefully lifting 

 the combs with adhering bees into the nucleus hive, 

 I practice shaking the bees off the combs into the 

 new hive, while placing the combs in the hive, clos- 

 ing hive up quickly before many take wing, and 

 find that nuclei thus made retain many more of 

 their bees than if the operation of shaking bees off 

 the combs were omitted. Your apiarist is probably 

 making many nuclei this season, and you can easily 

 have him thoroughly test the value of this method, 

 and report. O. O. Poppleton. 



Havana, Cuba, May 21. 1889. 



Your suggestion is a good one, friend P.; 

 and I confess it never occurred to me be- 

 fore, that the further thev are moved, the 

 more likely they would be to take their 

 points before sallying out. We have al- 

 ready tried pretty thoroughly this matter of 

 shaking bees up and pounding on the hive 

 to make them (ill themselves with honey, 

 and in order to make them hold to their 



