1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



395 



brouglit to justice. As such a quantity 

 must be disposed of sooner or later, it seems 

 as it' it would not be a very difficult matter 

 to get hold of some clew to it. 



DO KING-BIRDS SWALLOW THEIR VICTIMS? A FEW 



FACTS WHICH SEEM TO PROVE THAT 



THEY DO NOT. 



Ill Gleanings I find, on page 29.5, a letter from L. 

 Williams, iii regard to the king-bird. My e.vperi- 

 ence is quite different from his. My observations 

 aie, that it catches the bee and holds it in its beak 

 and sucks the nectar from the bee, then drops it, 

 and is i-eady for more. I have kept bees for sever- 

 al years, and there are times during the season 

 when the bird is very troublesome. I have killed 

 hundreds of them, and watched them closely, and I 

 have taken the pains to open a larg'e number of the 

 birds, but I have never found a bee inside of the 

 bird, and I have shot them and opened them in- 

 stantly after seeing one with the bee in his beak. 

 The king-bird is the only bird that I take pains to 

 get out of my apiary, and I have sworn vengeance 

 on him. 



Bees in this part of the State this spring are not 

 in first-class condition. Some have lost heavily. 

 My loss is about 10 per cent, and T consider this a 

 good showing. I have on hand at this writing, 115 

 stands. Some are light, but the majority are in 

 very good condition, but are getting short of stores. 

 We are having a cold, dry, backward spring. 



W. A. WiCKHAM. 



Clermont, Iowa, April 21, 1887. 



A KING-BIRD STUNG TO DEATH. 



In Gleanings for April 1.5, page 295, L. Williams 

 writes, among other things, " King-birds, and why 

 queens disappear." Now, one of our children 

 found a dead king-bird near our apiary, with about 

 a dozen bee-stings in his breast and under his 

 wings. Wife cut it open and examined its crop, but 

 she found not the sign of a bee inside; but a few 

 seeds and stones instead was all it contained. 



J. R. Wilson. 



Carlisle Springs, Pa.. Apr. 19, 1887. 



Tlie tw^o reports above seem to indicate 

 that the birds do not swallow the bees so 

 that they are found in their crops. The re- 

 port in the A B C book, however, makes 

 them out exceedingly guilty. It is possible, 

 however, that they simply kill the bees and 

 squeeze out the honey, throwing away the 

 mashed-up bodies, so that none of these 

 things would ever be found in their crops. 

 I think the evidence is pretty conclusive 

 that tliey do kill bees. 



A FEW INTERESTING FACTS CONCERNING THAT CALI- 

 FORNIA SWARM FOUND IN THE OPEN AIR. 



1 observed in Gleanings, page tjOS, 188H, a cut of a 

 swarm of bees in the branches of a tree, and a de- 

 scription of it as belonging to Southern California, 

 and taken from a photograph sent you by a friend. 

 1 can give you the history of that swarm. In the 

 summer of 1883 a swarm of hybrid bees clustered on 

 the branches of a mulberry-tree standing on the 

 grounds of O. W. (^hilds, in this city. The bees 

 built three sheets of comb, nearly a foot long, the 

 first season, and came through the rainy season in 

 good order, though not protected in any way, ex- 

 cept by the foliage of the tree in the summer. The 

 next season they built th(! combs two feet long and 

 added an additional comb on each side of the origi- 



nal outer ones, filling the outercombs full of honey, 

 as could be readily seen, as they were not more than 

 twelve feet from the ground. Hundreds of people 

 visited the place at different seasons of the year, to 

 see the bees at work, and wonder how they could 

 prosper so without any care or protection what- 

 ever. The tree stood near Mr. Childs' carriage- 

 house, !Uid during the colder days of the third year 

 of their squatter sovereignty they began to trouble 

 the horses occasionally, and I was requested by Mi'. 

 Childs to take the bees away, if I desired to do so. I 

 accepted the otter; but before taking them down 1 

 had the photograph taken from which your cut was 

 made. I was about making ai-rangements to have 

 !i cut of it made, with the intention of making a lit- 

 tle money out of it; but your publication of it nip- 

 ped it in the bud. 1 can't imagine bow your friend 

 could have secured a photograph of it, as 1 arrang*- 

 ed with the photographer to have the exclusive 

 control of all his work on that subject, and spent 

 some ten dollars in money, besides time, in securing 

 the picture, and all I made of it was the bees that 

 Mr. Childs gave me. 1 took the bees out to my api- 

 ary in the San Fernando Mountains, and am work- 

 ing the stock for -increase, and 1 believe 1 ha\i- 

 some bees that will compare favorably with the 

 best imported bees that I have seen. In the honey 

 season they come quick and go quick, cany good 

 loads, and ai-e as prolific as the Holy Lands. 

 Los Angeles, Cal., Feb. 17, 1887. C. N. Wilson. 



I am sorry, friend W., if there was any un- 

 derhanded work about obtaining the photo- 

 graph. Is it not possible this was taken 

 from a photograph of another one strikingly 

 like the one you have mentioned? It would 

 be nothing strange if two colonies, similarly 

 located, should resemble each other. We 

 instructed the engravers to spare no expen.se 

 in making a nice engraving, and they fol- 

 lowed directions so completely that the cut 

 cost us, we believe, some thiity or forty dol- 

 lars. There might arise a question hei'e as 

 to the moral right of the picture. We were 

 an innocent party in the transaction ; but so 

 is a man who buys stolen goods of any man ; 

 yet the law permits the rightful owner to 

 take it when he can find it. Of course, you 

 are welcome to your photograph back again, 

 if you want it; but the nexti question is. 

 Who is the lawful owner of the engraving 

 that ccst us so much money? We are quite 

 ready to do what seems right in the matter. 



HOUSE APIARIES. 



Some will prefer and use house apiaries, and of 

 course all will want the best. I have used mine an- 

 other yeai' (as described in Gleanings, page 744, 

 1885, and page 105,1886.) I like it much, as it is so 

 handy. I do all my extracting, transferring, and 

 dividing, in it without any trouble from bees. I 

 find they sting less. My house does not heat up as 

 Mr. Clark says. 

 $3tj5 FOR seed from 1- acres of alsike sown. 



Farmers sow lots of alsike clover here. There is 

 more than 100 acres sown within two miles of my 

 apiary; one man took a load of alsike seed to 

 Adrian, a short time ago, that brought him f'M'y. 

 which grew on 1»' acres, and that was not all of the 

 crop. You are right as to the (juality of the hon- 

 ey from it. 1 like it the best of any, and most of 

 my customers the same. I obtained only about 600 

 lbs. of honey, principally comb honey. I had 11 



