1889 



GLEANINGS IN REE CULTURE. 



529 



nearly all of the while (only now and then a pleas- 

 ant day appearing), till June V.'.. At this time there 

 was little in the hives save eggs, some nearly mature 

 brood, and a hive pretty well tilled with young bees 

 which had hatched from brood which was in thecells 

 on May 25, tor brood-rearing was partially kept up 

 for about a week after it began to rain. With J une 

 12th came warm weather with sunshine; and as the 

 raiuy weather hud brought on the white clover to 

 an unusual extent, all colonies were as "busy as 

 bees " in gathering the nectar which now began to 

 be secreted by the clover, while the brood in the 

 egg and larval form exceeds at this writing (June 

 18) any thing I ever saw before. Now, if our friends 

 Miller, Hill, and Knot were correct, that the accu- 

 mulation of larval food was what caused swarming, 

 the bees should not think of swarming now (but 

 should have done so about May 28, when there were 

 few or no larvae to feed); for now there are appar- 

 ently two larva- to "one food," yet some of the 

 strongest colonies have eggs in the queen cells, pre- 

 paratory lo the issuing of swarms in the near fu- 

 ture. 



While the outlook before us is not good for hon- 

 ey, iua-mucb as the brood which should have been 

 in the hive, but was not, between May 20th and 

 June 10th would have been the bees to gather our 

 honey from basswood, still this poor outlook for 

 honey has given a chance to prove the fallacy of 

 this theory, that a surplus of chyme is the prime 

 cause of bees swarming. How much easier for 

 Dr. Miller to accept friend Hasty's words on page 

 460 (" how can young people be prevented from try- 

 ing to set up a new domicile?") as applicable to the 

 cause of swarming, rather than try to make out 

 that there is some other cause for it than that im- 

 planted in the bees by the Creator of all things! 

 Only as man interferes with the normal condition 

 of the colony to so great an extent that their plans 

 are all frustrated, can swarming be kept under our 

 control; and, as I said on page 4150, I believe that 

 such frustration is against the best interests of the 

 apiarist who is working for comb honey. Friend 

 Cook thinks that I am too positive (Gleanings for 

 June 1st, page 44ti) in answering query 125. I would 

 ask friend Cook if we who believe in the Master's 

 teachings have not a right to trust him to a posi- 

 tive extent, when he has said, " Shall not the Judge 

 of all the earth do right '( " If I can not be positive 

 here, I have no assurance that there is any thing 

 positive in this world. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., June 18, 1S89. 



Now, old friend, my observations do not 

 quite agree with yours, as given in the 

 above. 1 have seen black bees a great many 

 times start queen-cells about swarming 

 time. After the queen-cell was well along, 

 an egg would be found in it, and then the 

 milky food. Perhaps I may say I have nev- 

 er seen very much natural swarming with 

 the Italians ; but I have a great many times 

 found the first indication of a queen-cell 

 (that is, the first that my eye caught hold of) 

 was an accumulation of milky food around 

 a small larva ; and when Adair, years ago, 

 suggested that the bees, at least sometimes, 

 put this milky food around a certain small 

 larva, just because they had no other place 

 to store it. I began from that time forward 

 watching for instances to corroborate his 

 theory, and I have found a great many of 

 them. I think I could take you out into our 



apiary now, and find just such cells ; and in 

 24 or 48 hours more a queen-cell would be 

 built around it. Another thing, our weak 

 colonies here in Medina do not swarm. Our 

 corn does tassel out when it is about so old, 

 as you say ; but we have never had the 

 swarming mania with us to such an extent 

 that colonies that only half filled their hives 

 sent out swarms. We have often read of it, 

 I know, but it does not occur here in our lo- 

 cality. In regard to the peculiar state of af- 

 fairs during the past few weeks, it is just as 

 1 should have expected. The bees could not 

 get out of the hive and gather honey and 

 pollen, therefore they did not have enough 

 milky food to feed the larva 1 , to say nothing 

 of piling up some of it to start queen-cells. 

 Most truly does the Judge of all the earth 

 do right ; but one of the most righteous acts 

 of his, as it seems to me, was leaving this 

 universe for man to improve, and supple- 

 ment nature. Instead of letting the calves 

 have all the milk, we by artificial means 

 take the milk from the cows ourselves; and' 

 in a like manner we take the other good 

 things he has placed within our reach. Be- 

 sides, we improve the cows, and improve 

 the strawberries, and make Nature do a 

 thousand other wonderful things she would 

 never have thought of doing without our 

 help. The above are simply A. I. Root's 

 views. He may be wrong and you may be 

 right; but, more likely still, the truth may 

 be somewhere between us. 



MOVING BEES SHORT DISTANCES. 



HOW A CALIFORNIA APIARIST MOVED 75 COLONIES 

 34 OF A MILE SUCCESSFULLY. 



Tfa AST January I bought 75 stands of bees, and 

 IS) rented a location where they were for three 

 cl&T years, with the privilege of moving my other 

 ■"" apiary on the same ground; but I preferred 

 to locate my bees further up the cafion, a 

 quarter of a mile to the north. The first week in 

 January I moved my apiary of 90 colonies to said 

 canon, a distance of 8 miles. Now, my 75 stands 

 stood where they were when I bought them; and to 

 move them two feet a day for a distance of a quar- 

 ter of a mile, through a winding narrow road up 

 the canon was more than I cared to do; so I went to 

 work and fixed every thing ready a day or so before- 

 hand; then about sundown I shut them up iu their 

 hives and commenced to move my bees. I moved 

 them all that night to where I wanted them. After 

 I got through moving the bees I set to work to 

 make the old location look as strange as possible by 

 clearing every thing away that was movable. 

 About 8 o'clock next morning bees were flying 

 thick about the old location. 1 kept watching them, 

 and soon found they were taking possession ot an 

 empty hive about 50 yards away. I secured the 

 empty hive and carried it into the honey-house; 

 but not before I had been severely stung by the 

 bees; then they tried to get into the honey-house; 

 but they had no show but to go back to their hives in 

 the new location, which they did, but not before 

 showing meanness, for they got on the war-path. 

 They kept my wife in the house with doors closed, 

 and I was kept in the honey-house watching them 

 and thechickens, but it didn' t last long, for the chick- 

 ens gave them the right of way, and hid themselves 



