226 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



ous aud uninterrupted nectar-flow within 

 two miles of the hive during the whole time 

 in which a bee lives, I think that a single 

 bee might easily gather one ounce of honey, 

 which would take only 16 bees to gather one 

 pound, or 1600 to gather 100 pounds. And, 

 if this were so, then 16,000 bees would be 

 able to gather 1000, so you will see that the 

 reason our thousands upon thousands of 

 bees do no better for us than they do lies 

 right here in the field." 



"Surely, I can not gainsay that. But 

 the bees must live out of what they gather, 

 must they not?" 



"Certainly. And I calculate of that 

 amount it takes at least one-fourth of that 

 gathered to supply the wants of the colony 

 during the time a single bee is living; and 

 unless the nectar is thicker than we get it 

 here it would take 3 pounds of this nectar 

 to make one of honey. So, then, we should 

 have 750 lbs. of honey as the product of 

 16,000 bees during their lifetime, with an 

 uninterrupted flow of nectar. While this 

 might be possible, there are two tilings 

 which make it improbable, the first being, 

 as already spoken of, that the honey-flow 

 does not continue long enough, aud, while 

 it is on, it is interrupted more or less by 

 unfavorable weather; and the second is, 

 that the yield would not be sufficient within 

 two miles of the apiarjs where many colo- 

 nies were kept, so that the bees could work 

 to the best advantage." 



"Where did you get any such idea of the 

 amount a single bee might gather in its life- 

 time?" 



"In one of my many experiments, con- 

 f ducted some years ago, I had a colony 

 which, on May 25th, I estimated to contain 

 4000 bees of field-working age. This esti- 

 mate was gotten by counting the bees on a 

 given surface of comb, and then dividing 

 the amount of comb covered with bees by 

 the space counted, when the quotient was 

 multiplied by the number of field -bees 

 counted on the first surface. The next day 

 was a fine one, and apple-bloom was yield- 

 ing nectar as well as I ever knew it to. At 

 7 A. M. the bees began to go to work, and 

 at 8 A. M. I found that, on an average, 60 

 loaded bees were going into the hive each 

 minute. One was caught and killed, which 

 I found, upon dissecting, had a fair-sized 

 drop of nectar in the honey-sac. By a care- 

 ful estimate and weighing I found that it 

 would take about 3600 such bee-loads to 

 make a pound, so I concluded that 4000 bees 

 were good for the gathering of one pound 

 of nectar each hour, besides caring for the 

 interior of the hive as to what was there 

 needed. Before a bee had left the hive in 

 the morning I had weighed the same so 

 that I could tell when night came how much 

 nectar the colony had gained. They work- 

 ed right along at the average rate of 60 per 

 minute till 4 p. m., when they began to 

 slack up, and at 5 p. m. all had quit work 

 for the day, as the sun went behind clouds 

 soon after 4 p. m. I now weighed the hive 

 again, saying, as I did so, that, if my es- 



timate was correct, it should weigh 8 lbs. 

 more than it did in the morning." 



' ' How near to the amount did you come? ' ' 



"I found that it weighed 8 lbs. 9 ounces, 

 thus showing that my estimate was not far 

 out of the way. But what was a great sur- 

 prise to me was that, when weighed the 

 next morning, I found that the 8 pounds 9 

 ounces gain of the day before had gone 

 down to 3 lbs. 12 ounces, thus showing that 

 the nectar just from the flowers was riot all 

 honey by any means." 



"I suppose this set you trying to secure 

 apple honey." 



"Yes, I became infatuated with the idea 

 that there could be as much honey obtained 

 from apple-bloom as from basswood, if I 

 could only succeed in getting the popula- 

 tion of the hive up to 40,000 instead of 4000; 

 so I began trying that old advised plan of 

 having my bees always strong, especially 

 in apple-bloom; but after an entire failure 

 of apple honej' for the next five years, on 

 account of the trees failing to bloom a part 

 of the time, and cold rainy weather during 

 the years when they blossomed, and that at 

 a cost to me of much extra work and stores, 

 I gave the matter up, and came to the con- 

 clusion that the ahvays-strons; idea had not 

 been fully looked into — only trying to have 

 the bees strong so as to take advantage of 

 the generally good weather, and the regu- 

 lar yearly bloom of the basswood, which is 

 our main honey- flow here. But I see the 

 time is up when I must leave to meet an ap- 

 pointment. Before going, however, I wish 

 to say this for you to carry home to think 

 about: First we have the field or location 

 we are in, of which we should have a thor- 

 ough knowledge ; next we have the bees, 

 which are to be secured to the maximum 

 numbers, just in time to take advantage of 

 the main honey -flow of our field; and, 

 third, that a bee is of little value as a hon- 

 ey-gatherer only as it can be placed in the 

 field of action just at the right time; hence 

 we should not encourage brood-rearing at 

 all other times, only in so much as is neces- 

 sary that the life of the colony may be pre- 

 served in good condition for this main rush 

 of brood to bring about the thousands upon 

 thousands of bees just when they are want- 

 ed. In this way the quantity of honey 

 which a bee can gather in a lifetime be- 

 comes of interest to us, that we may work 

 assiduously to have that lifetime come when 

 our field is yielding its greatest amount of 

 nectar." 



L. IV. A., Texas. — You can induce comb- 

 building in your locality — that is, provid- 

 ing the temperature does not go below 70 or 

 80, by feeding liberally sugar syrup, or 

 any cheap honey you may have. The idea 

 is to get the bees prosperous and fairly fat. 

 I would not advise you to use any sub- 

 stance like tin to support the foundation for 

 comb-building. We consider fine wire very 

 much cheaper, and it answers all reasona- 

 ble requirements. 



