1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



218 



right after the last brood is out of the cells 

 this syrup will be mostly stored right where 

 it will do the most good — that is, right about 

 the broodnest and within it. It will be the 

 feed of the bees till spring arrives with its 

 days of frequent Uights. Less than that 

 auiount is enough unless the hives are very 

 light. 



There can be no question that we can win- 

 ter our bees better upon sugar than we can 

 upon ordinary honey. I had that proved 

 last winter when my observatory hive which 

 I had kept bees in continuously for nearly 

 four years became depopulated. In the fall 

 of 1906 it got enough honey to winter on, 

 and I did not feed it with syrup as usual. 

 The honey killed those bees, or, rather, the 

 pollen in and about the honey. The winter 

 was not severe, whereas three winters ago 

 that little colony wintered through one of the 

 hardest winters we have had for many years 

 — the winter when there was such a frightful 

 bee-mortality. Sugar syrup took them safe- 

 ly through. 



Yet I feel that we should be slow in advo- 

 cating ihis feeding of syrup except as a ne- 

 cessity. In a locality of mild winters, where 

 bees have occasional flights, it is doubtful 

 wisdom to go to the labor of substituting 

 syrup for honey in our hives — especially as 

 it will be difficult to defend the practice upon 

 the ground of necessity, and we shall lay 

 ourselves liable to a serious misunderstand- 

 ing. It is difficult to convince the public 

 that we are honest so long as we open up a 

 chance for the public to spy a possibility of 

 dishonesty. 



For our Canadian friends, and also those 

 in the far] noi'th of our own country, to use 

 • syrup as a regular winter food is an act so 

 easy to defend upon the ground of necessity 

 that no one should fondemn it. Possibly for 

 others of us further south to feed a few 

 pounds of sugar just to get the bees through 

 the first of the winter, or even to early spring, 

 might be easily defended; but for one of us 

 to go to a hive which has already 20 or 30 

 pounds of honey in it. and stuff that hive 

 with nearly as much syrup, is decidedly 

 wrong. We are tampering with honesty 

 there, or at least playing with fire Except 

 in this one particular, as I stated above, I 

 can agree with nearly every word in the ar- 

 ticle on page 29. 



Though it may not be according to the 

 teachings of years, late feeding of thick syr- 

 up is the thing, and not early feeding of thin 

 syrup, if it be simply a matter of furnishing 

 the colony with winter stores. If the pur- 

 pose be other than to furnish winter stores, 

 then it's another story, and that story I will 

 not tell here. 



Norwich, Conn., Jan. 8. 



[In these days of the effective working of 

 our national and State laws against all forms 

 of adulteration of food stuffs, we have no 

 fear that any syrup will be fed for any other 

 purpose than to supply a winter food or to 

 stimulate brood-rearing in the flying season. 

 Sugar syrup, even if fed thin, and inverted, 



is, by our modern methods of analysis, very 

 easily detected, and no one, even if he be 

 disposed to be dishonest, would dare take 

 any chances. Bee-keepers are glad that it is 

 so, for their product (honey) is of such su- 

 perior merit that they do not need to cheap- 

 en it by the addition of an inferior sweet 



The question of a thick versus a thin syrup 

 is still open for discussion. We should be 

 pleased to hear from a good many who are 

 in position to offer facts. — Ed ] 



HOW SWARMS CHOOSE A LOCATION. 



More Observations Confirming Those of G. 

 C. Greiuer. 



BY J. C. BALCH. 



The article by G. C. Gi-einer, page 1507, of 

 the Dec. 1st issue, is in line with my experi- 

 ence. I remember that, in the winter of 

 • 1895, in Kansas. I lost quite a few colonies of 

 bees. The combs were cleaned of dead bees, 

 and the hives left on the stands with the en- 

 trance open. In the swarming season there 

 were five swarms that came and took posses- 

 sion of empty hives in the apiary, and I know 

 they came from parts unknown, because my 

 bees were Italians, and those were blacks. 

 The swarms all came in the forenoon, be- 

 tween 9 and 11 o'clock. 1 would see a few 

 bees going in and out of a hive the day be- 

 fore they came, and the quantity of bees in- 

 creased in the afternoon till there would be 

 almost a pint of them around the hive, very 

 restless, and busy going in and out, and, I 

 think, going to and from the hive to the 

 swarm and bringing other bees with them; 

 then when night came they all went away; 

 and the next day, as soon as the dew went 

 off. and it began to get warm, the swarm 

 came and went right in at the entrance. 

 They did not stop to cluster, but just tumbled 

 over each other in getting into the hive. 



I once noticed some bees working busily 

 around an empty hive all day. The next 

 morning a neighbor came to my house a lit- 

 tle after sunrise, and said he had found a 

 swarm of bees. I went with him and hived 

 them for him. They were about 30 rods 

 from the apiary; and after hiving the swarm 

 there were no more bees working around 

 that empty hive. I am satisfied that, had he 

 not found them, they would have hived 

 themselves that forenoon in my hive. 



Two years before that, there were three 

 stray swarms that came to my apiary and 

 went into empty hives in the same way. 

 They always go into hives with combs in 

 them the first year. It was into my extract- 

 ing-supers they went. I had set them out in 

 the apiary, preparatory to putting them on 

 the hives. There was a pile of five or six 

 supei's. They were not set up perfectly true, 

 and so left an entrance so the bees got in. 

 Absconding swarms seldom go into a new 

 hive unless there are three or four empty 

 combs in it. 



Ferndale, Wash., Dec. 11. 



