November, 1912. 



American liae Journal 



or 1 inch bright, flat-head nails of 

 No. KS wire. There are other sizes of 

 bright wire nails, which, for different 

 purposes, are preferable to the cement- 

 coated ones. For instance, in mending 

 broken sections, a bright nail is much 

 easier pushed into the joint than one 

 of the other kind. One serious objection 

 to the cement-coated nails is that the 

 hammer often slips on the nail-head, 

 causing the nail to bend and mar the 

 wood, and not infrequently the thumb 

 of the left hand gets the deflected blow 

 from the hammer. For this reason 

 carpenters do not like to use cement- 

 coated nails. 



Probably the reason why so many 

 bee-keepers are said to use cement- 

 coated nails for the covers is that they 

 cannot conveniently get the bright 

 nails. I see no reason why supply- 

 dealers should not keep this kind in 

 stock, so that they could be furnished 

 when called for, and of any size that 

 might be desired by their customers. 

 As an illustration of the difficulty and 

 inconvenience of getting the bright 

 nails, I will say that I once wrote to 

 the H. P. Nail Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, 

 who referred me to their San Fran- 

 cisco agent, and this again referred me 

 t* a local dealer, with whom I was not 

 doing business, and who did not keep 

 such nails on hand, but had to order 

 them specially for me. 



In an old bee-supply catalog I find 

 the following bright, flat-head wire 

 nails quoted, and the number of wire 

 from which each respective size of nail 

 is made. These sizes of wire are best 

 for bee-keepers' use. The standard 

 wirt nails, commonly sold at hardware 

 stores, are thicker and will split thin 

 wood: 



FINE. FLATHE.A.D WIRE NAILS. 



Length of nails. SUeofwire. 

 % incli No. 21 



ij " " 21 



'A " '■ 20 



H ■• : i» 



« ■• I8 



H •• ;■ I8 



1 •• 18 



iH " ;■ n 



I'A •■ i6 



iH " ' 15 



2 ■' ■ 14 



i% •■ ■■ 13 



Independence, Calif. 



How Does a Bee Find its Way 

 Home? 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



Has it some subtle homing instinct 

 like a carrier pigeon, or does it merely 

 depend upon memory? If a colony of 

 bees be removed without any precau- 

 tion a distance of 10 rods, at a time 

 when they are gathering freely, the 

 likelihood is that all the bees that go 

 a-field will, upon their return, go 

 straight to the old location, and be lost 

 to the colony. If they are moved 2 

 miles or more, it may be that not a 

 single bee will return to the old loca- 

 tion. If the bee depended entirely up- 

 on instinct, why should it not find its 

 home just as readily at a distance of 2 

 miles as at 10 rods ? 



DISTANCE FOR S.\FE REMOV.\L OF BEE.S 



The practical side of this matter — or 

 at least a practical side — will be readily 

 seen when we try to decide how far a 



colony of bees must be moved so that 

 there shall be no danger that any of 

 the bees return to the old location. 

 Whatever the whole truth may be, we 

 are pretty safe to go on the theory that 

 the bees depend upon memory. After 

 a colony has remained in the cellar all 

 winter, it may be put on a stand -j or 10 

 feet from the old place without any 

 trouble, although in some cases some 

 of the bees will, after flying out, go 

 back to the old place. Is this because 

 of shorter confinement or because of 

 better memories ? 



All bee-keepers are familiar with the 

 fact that when bees take their first 

 flight in the spring, or when young 

 bees have their first play-spell, they fly 

 with their heads toward the hive, grad- 

 ually in larger circles, but still with 

 their heads toward the hive. By this 

 means they are trying to impress upon 

 their memories the appearance of the 

 hive and its surroundings. 



If a bee depends upon memory, we 

 shall find it reasonable to believe that 

 circumstances make a great deal of 

 difference about bees finding their way 

 home from any given distance. Sup- 

 pose colony A and colony B stand side 

 by side, and that .\ has been working 

 daily on a field a mile east, and that B 

 has been working on another field a 

 mile west. Now let both A and B be 

 moved a mile east. .A bee from A upon 

 going a-field finds itself upon familiar 

 ground, and when loaded up, what more 

 natural than that it should go straight 

 from the spot back to its old location, 

 just as it has done so many times be- 

 fore ^ But a bee from B, which has 

 never before been half a mile east of its 

 former home, upon loading up will find 

 itself on strange ground, and, depend- 

 ing upon memory, will have nothing to 

 lead it back to its former home. 



Contradictory as it may seem, we 

 may find in some cases that a bee 

 which has never been more than l;i 

 miles from home will readily find its 

 way back to the old location upon be- 

 ing moved 3 miles to a new location. 

 Suppose it has been working on Smith's 

 field of alsike IVz miles east. Then 

 suppose it is moved IK miles cast of 

 Smith's field, or 3 miles from its old 

 home. In starting out to forage, it 

 may happen upon Smith's alsike. So 

 it finds its way back to its old home in 

 spite of the 3 miles distance which it 

 has been moved. 



We are not so much to move bees a 



certain distance as we are to move 

 them to some place from which they 

 are not likely to go to any spot with 

 which they are already familiar. H. 

 Strodtkoetter reports in Leipziger 

 Bienenzeitung, that if he moves his 

 bees to a heather field about .5 miles 

 away before the heather is in bloom, 

 not a bee returns to its old home; but 

 if they are moved after the heather is 

 in bloom many bees return to the 

 former home. This he takes as proof 

 that his bees go -j miles for forage, but 

 incidentally it confirms some of the 

 views herein advanced. 



DO BEES FLY I.V A "bEE-LINE?" 



It setms like heresy to doubt that 

 bees always fly in a straight line. But 

 really do they ? Suppose a bee has 

 been in the habit of working on a field 

 of clover a mile directly west. Then 

 one day it finds no nectar in the clover, 

 but scouting half a mile to the north 

 from there it finds a field of buck- 

 wheat. If it depends upon memory, 

 will it not return home by way of the 

 clover-field, over a route which it 

 knows, rather than by the shorter 

 direct course that it does not know .' 



A case that happened years ago is in 

 point. Two nuclei were in a double 

 hive, the entrances both in front, about 

 6 inches apart. The hive faced east, 

 and the nucleus at the south side was 

 taken away. The bees that had been 

 in the south side, upon returning from 

 the fields entered the south entrance as 

 usual. In a panic they came out, flying 

 about and running about, trying fhe 

 same entrance many times. Finally 

 they crawled along tlie alighting-board 

 to the north entrance and were kindly 

 received by the nucleus in the north 

 side. When those bees returned from 

 the field after that, did they go in a 

 "bee-line "to their home? Not they. 

 For days it was laughable to see them 

 demurely entering the south entrance 

 and then just as demurely coming out 

 again and walking along the alighting- 

 board to the north entrance. They had 

 found the north entrance by going 

 into the south entrance, and then going 

 from there to the north entrance; 

 they remembered that way, and that 

 way they continued to go. If they 

 failed to use the " bee-line " in a case 

 where the " bee-line" was so easily to 

 be seen, would they use it in more 

 difficult cases .' 



Marengo, 111. 



Dr. Milleris 



Answers^ 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal or direct to 



Dr. C. C. Miller. Marengo. III. 



He does not answer bee-keepine Questions by mail. 



Two Plans lor Requeening an Apiary 



My bees are hybrids, red clover and 

 Banats. I wish to reaueen with goldens. 

 This last spring I bought and introduced 

 safely a tested golden Queen. 



First plan: Very early next spring I wish 

 to feed this colony to rear drones before 

 the other colonies do so. When crowded 

 with bees, and the first drones hatch. I will 

 take away the queen and start cells similar 



to the plan of layini; a comb on top of the 

 frames. When the cells are ready to hatch, 

 and about the time the colonies 1 wish to 

 requeen begin to have eggs in the drone- 

 comb. I aim to remove the old queens and 

 substitute the cells. Of course. I can use 

 some other colonies to rear queen-cells 

 from eggs taken from my breeder. 



Second plan; Later in the season, or after 

 the honey-flow. I can rear and introduce 

 virgins to colonies, and putting drone-ex 

 cluders at the entrances of all hives cor. 



