530 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



in the brush; then when tbe bees found that there 

 was no place for them but to go back to their hives, 

 and nobody or nothing- to pick on, they went back; 

 and before noon the moved bees were working-, 

 bringing- in pollen and honey as well as they were 

 the day before, and 1 haven't been able to see any 

 difference in them since, and I don't think there 

 was a pint of bees lost in all. Had I left a box, or 

 something for them to cluster in, 1 know the result 

 would have been different. 



May 1, 1888, 1 moved '.» stands of bees about 20 

 rods. I moved them in the night time. The next 

 morning a great many of them came back, loaded 

 with honey and pollen. They began to get cross, 

 and ] gave them a large box to cluster in, and that 

 made them peaceable; before night the box was well 

 tilled with bees. Fully half of the nine stands had 

 returned. That night I carried them back, but they 

 would not stay; and after carrying them home 

 three or four times 1 got tired. The moved stands 

 were so weakened by the loss of bees that they 

 didn't recover to be of any use to gather honey for 

 th ret- weeks. Now, had 1 not given them that box, 

 all would have been well in a few hours. 



Bees always know the way back to the place they 

 start out from in the morning, just as well as they 

 know the way back to a certain tree or plants in 

 bloom and yielding honey. Hut they are not going 

 to leave their old location and stick to the new, if 

 you give them any show, some colonies excepted. 

 San Bernardino, Cal., Feb. 2, 1889. R Powell. 



I am greatly interested in the experiment 

 you mention, for it certainly was an experi- 

 ment, and one on quite a large scale. I was 

 well aware that the bees could be made to 

 lind their hives where they had been moved 

 tor only a few rods ; but I did not suppose it 

 possible that the bees of a whole apiary 

 could be made to go a quarter of a mile. 

 The point you mention, where you state 

 that they know where their home is, as well 

 as they know where a tree is that yields 

 honey, is very ingenious, and I am not sure 

 but you are right about it. Suppose, how- 

 ever, your neighbor had hives of bees near- 

 er to you than the new location a quarter of 

 a mile distant. In such a case the bees 

 would probably go into your neighbors' 

 hives, or into any neighboring hives, may 

 be into trees, or cavities in the rocks, if such 

 happen to be near, so the plan is somewhat 

 risky. In my experiments of years ago, in 

 giving bees a flight in a greenhouse, I ex- 

 perimented quite a little in moving the 

 hive to different parts of the room. The 

 bees were working on a tray of meal. I 

 moved the hive away and then watched to 

 see their surprise when they did not find it. 

 After flying about, wearied and perplexed, a 

 while, they would go back again to the meal, 

 and sometimes gather and pad a little more. 

 Then they would start again, and go 

 like a shot to where the hive had always 

 stood ; but when baffled and discouraged 

 again, they would go to the meal. Finally 

 one bee, in circling about, came near enough 

 to the old familiar home to get sight of it. 

 lie instantly dropped at the entrance, and 

 with his wings raised a loud call. In a lit- 

 tle time his comrades joined him, and then 

 what a rejoicing there was ! After that, 

 none of them had any trouble, or trouble of 

 only short duration, The point you make 



is, that, instead of giving them a box or 

 some combs to cluster on, we should give 

 them nothing of the kind at all. Well, in 

 such cases I have known them to cluster on 

 a bush, and hang until they died. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE SWARMING IM- 

 PULSE. 



FRIEND HASTY GIVES US SOME FURTHER SUGGES- 

 TIONS IN REGARD TO THE ABOVE. 



in S to the matter on page 445, friend Root, I 

 a think you have chastised brother Miller 

 V enough for this time, and I won't get after 

 fc him any more. In fact, it is hardly in order 

 for the schoolmaster to whip the offender 

 awhile himself, and then say to the other boy, 

 " Billy, now you come and pound him for a spell." 



Friend Miller has the idea correctly, except that 

 he has limited it a little. I wish it to include the 

 queen as well as the workers. Wait a moment be- 

 fore crying "Nonsense! " at that. The queen is in- 

 deed lighter, smaller, and laying less rapidly at the 

 time of swarming than before. She does not like 

 to extrude eggs and throw them away; and the 

 check of egg-production, although it causes the 

 ovaries to decrease in size, causes at the same 

 time the blood to assume a peculiarly euriched 

 character. She, as well as the workers, is " loaded 

 up," as you express it, but, carrying the load in a 

 different place from usual, she feels engorged and 

 restless. Also, I wish it to include not merely the 

 larval food in process of secretion by the workers, 

 but also the elements in the fluids of the bee that 

 supply material for larval food. 



The experiment of returning a swarm after tak- 

 ing out the sealed brood, and returning unsealed in 

 the place of it, is interesting, but conclusive in one 

 direction only. If the swarm comes out again it 

 can still be said, "This expedient would have pre- 

 vented the swarming impulse from getting started, 

 but is not sufficient to eradicate it after it is fully 

 inflamed. You are able to prevent your daughter 

 from wishing to run away with a young scamp, if 

 you attend to the matter in time; but after she has 

 fully resolved to do so, you may be unable." Let 

 us keep a general lookout in all directions, to see if 

 we can ever detect the swarming impulse getting 

 started among bees who are fully employed, or a 

 little overworked, at brood-rearing. Experiments 

 in the other direction may be worth trying. Many 

 report apiaries that give only three or five or ten 

 per cent of swarms. Let two or three of the steadi- 

 est colonies in such be selected, and take away the 

 frames of eggs before larval food is put in them to 

 any extent. Give them sealed brood, or newly 

 emerged bees enough to fully compensate the loss 

 they sustain, and see what the result will be. If 

 other things are favorable to swarming, I feel pret- 

 ty sure they will swarm very soon. Unfortunate- 

 ly, it is here possible to claim that dissatisfaction 

 and annoyance caused the swarming, and not the 

 " loaded-up" condition of the bees. 



Perhaps the theory also explains why bees so gen- 

 erally swarm when the first batch of queen-cells is 

 capped. Royal jelly is supposed to be nearly 

 identical with the white food put in the worker 

 cells just about the time the eggs hatch. When 

 there are few eggs hatching, the workers avoid en- 

 gorgement by crowding- great masses of this food 



