1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



383 



NOISE IN BEE-CELLARS; DOES IT DISTURB 

 BEES? 



Mr. Root: — I have read with much inter- 

 est this past winter the g-ood reports you 

 have put in Gleanings about those bees 

 which were wintering under the machine- 

 shop. I have also kept track of the reports 

 of the Bing-ham cellar with its mighty ven- 

 tilator. Now comes to hand the April 1st 

 number of Gleanings, and states that noise 

 does not disturb bees, and that ventilation, 

 and lots of it, keeps the bees quiet. I can 

 swallow quite a big piece, but the above is 

 quite unreasonable. M3' thought was that 

 Mr. Root had made a slight mistake, or 

 was placing too much confidence in his new 

 hobby of wintering bees under a machine- 

 shop. In looking up the meaning of 

 "noise" I found the definition to be, "a 

 loud sound; outcry." I went into my bee- 

 cellar, which has over 70 colonies in it, the 

 hives standing on benches with neither 

 bench nor hive touching wall or ceiling, and 

 the bees in that peaceful mood which de- 

 notes successful wintering. I stepped two 

 paces into the cellar, and shouted "Hello!" 

 The bees answered with a "buzz, buzz." I 

 could hardly believe myself; and, thinking 

 that Mr. Root and Gleanings might still 

 be right, I shouted again. This time the 

 bees went "buzz, buzz, buzz" again, and 

 there was a general stir among them. So I 

 went out and shut the door, proving to my 

 own satisfaction, as Mr. Root says, that 

 noise does disturb bees. 



Mr. Root might say the foregoing was 

 not a right test, so here is another: 



Over my bee-cellar is a work-shop, and 

 on stormy days during winter I was nail- 

 ing frames, fastening the end-bars with \Vz- 

 inch nails. The shop was empty; and by 

 nailing the frames it made quite a noise. 

 The thought came to me one day while nail- 

 ing, "Does this noise disturb the bees?" 

 The next morning, before I started to work, 

 I put my ear to the cellar-door. Every 

 thing was quiet, so I went to work. After 

 nailing for about half an hour I went to 

 the door and listened again, and found that 

 the bees were on a general rumble. If 

 noise does not disturb bees, what was it 

 that caused them to roar as they did, and 

 then quiet down as soon as I quit pounding? 



As for ventilation, I have found out the 

 past winter that bees can be wintered sat- 

 isfactorily without it. F. O. R. Simpson. 



Newmarket, Ont., Apr, 14. 



[I judge from what you say you have not 

 read all I said on this subject of noise in 

 bee-cellars. I am quite ready to concede 

 all you say so far as your own experiments 

 with your own bees are concerned, yet if 

 you were to come here to Medina I could 

 convince you that what I said was literally 



true. Going into- the cellar and shouting, 

 as you did, when quiet had reigned su- 

 preme for weeks before, was a sudden shock, 

 and it would disturb any bees; but if you 

 were to go into that cellar every day in the 

 week, and shout for ten hours, you would 

 find the bees would get used to it. Our 

 machine-shop is run from ten to eleven hours 

 a day, six days in the week, and the noise 

 is constant with the rumble of machines and 

 occasional droppings of heavy castings. 

 Bees get used to such noises that are inces- 

 sant, just as we get accustomed to trains 

 going by our windows every hour in the 

 night without waking us from sleep. The 

 first night or so it is distracting; but it 

 does not take long to get used to it, just as 

 the bees get used to the noise above in the 

 machine-shop or living-rooms over ordinary 

 house cellars. — Ed.] 



hiving swarms. 



Which is the best method of hiving a 

 swarm of bees — by trapping the drones and 

 queen in a drone and queen trap, when the 

 swarm goes out, or letting the queen go 

 with the swarm and trying to get the bees 

 into a hive afterward? J. C. White. 



Solon, Mich., Apr. 7. 



[For the average beginner it would be 

 better to use a drone-trap. I would not ad- 

 vise letting the queen go with the swarm, 

 because it entails a risk of losing the bees, 

 and at the same time causes a great deal of 

 inconvenience and a waste of time. It is a 

 common practice of our best honey-produc- 

 ers to clip one wing of all queens. When 

 a swarm issues, the clipped queen can be 

 picked up at the entrance, as a rule, put 

 into a cage, and held up on a swarming- 

 pole, where the bees will very soon cluster, 

 or put into a hive of combs on the old stand. 

 Wing-clipping has the advantage over per- 

 forated zinc in that it saves some expense, 

 and does not obstruct the entrance as does 

 the metal.' — Ed.] 



PLANTING FOREST - TREES, ESPECIALLY 

 BLACKWALNUT. 



About twelve years ago I bought a farm 

 in Isle of Wight Co., Va., on which there 

 was a field of about 15 acres of rather poor 

 worn-out soil. Ten years ago I had black- 

 walnuts planted on it in rows 24 feet apart 

 each way. The field held 1200 hills. The 

 next spring they came up in a nearlj' per- 

 fect stand. I gave a man the use of the 

 land to take care of and replant, where the 

 trees did not come up. He, in common with 

 all his neighbors, thought I was "loon3'," 

 and for several years he paid no attention 

 to replanting, and very little to taking care 

 of what he did not plow up or otherwise 

 kill. So for the last two years I have re- 

 planted and trimmed them myself, and that 

 was what I was doing last week. There 

 are now between 500 and 600 good trees. 

 In 1900 the first tree bore nuts, and last 

 year about 24 of them had nuts on. This 



