748 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



Another thing in this connection I will men- 

 tion at the risk of being thought heterodox. All 

 advise feeding early enough so fall-fed stores may 

 all be sealed before cold weather. This would 

 necesitate feeding in this latitude early in Sep- 

 tember ; yet I rarely begin feeding before Octo- 

 ber, and find few or no bad results. The yard 

 that I fed last (after the middle of October) last 

 fall has wintered best. I do not think one-fourth 

 and I doubt if one-fifth of the syrup fed was 

 sealed, and yet that yard has wintered the best of 

 any of my yards — in fact, perfectly, with a loss 

 of only one colony, and that worthless in the 

 fall. Doubtless to feed early enough to get feed 

 all sealed may be best or ideal; and yet let no 

 one feel that, because he has failed to do so, seri- 

 ous results will necessarily follow. I only want- 

 ed to say that I think more emphasis has been 

 laid than necessary upon the need of having all 

 stores sealed. 



On page 285 is a picture of as fine-looking a 

 lot of bee-keepers as we often see, and yet on the 

 next page Mr. Holtermann tells us that, in con- 

 vention assembled, they " resolved themselves 

 into a series of hostile camps, being hot and cold 

 ' processers,' thick and thin 'syrup-makers,'" 

 etc. Well, now! They must have had a live 

 topic; but, alas! all the argument and discussion 

 in the world can not settle these questions. 

 Whether the best results can be had by feeding 

 sugar syrup thick or thin, hot or cold, slow or 

 fast, with inverted syrup or otherwise, can be 

 shown only by careful experiments. Why should 

 sugar syrup need to be inverted .' "I don't 

 know." Does it make it more healthful food 

 for the bees, or is it for the purpose of preventing 

 granulation .'' One thing seems certain: If the 

 bees are provided with a special organ in their 

 mandibles for providing an acid for this very 

 purpose, it must be of considerable importance. 



On p. 281 is an article from the pen of E. W. 

 Alexander, of unusual interest, as it shows how 

 differently we must manage bees under different 

 environments. He says, concerning Italians, 

 "Their never satisfied desire to gather honey 

 causes them to fill their brood-nest early in the 

 season;" and so he advises removing this surplus 

 of honey so the queen can fill the brood-chamber 

 with brood. Now, such advice would be the 

 worst that could be given me, for rarely do the 

 bees fill their brood-chamber with honey, and 

 the bees need all the honey in their hives for 

 rearing brood, and frequently have to be fed in 

 addition to what they have or gather. In only 

 two years in over forty have bees crowded their 

 brood-nests with, me before clover bloom — once 

 from maple bloom and again from apple bloom; 

 and when such was the case the treatment which 

 Mr. Alexander advises is the best possible. If 

 he errs it is in thinking others enjoy as good a 

 location in springtime as he. 

 # 



On page 350 a paragraph is quoted from the 

 Prairie Farmer on the use of honey as a food. 

 In the last sentence it says, " The only obstacle 

 in the way of its more general use appears to be 

 that many people can not eat it without stomach- 

 ic pain." The editor of Gleanings thinks the 



editor of the Prairie Farmer away off, and gives 

 us to understand that the stomachic pains come 

 wholly from overeating of honey. Did you 

 ever! Now, if the editor of the Prairie Farmer 

 had said that " some persons " instead of " many 

 persons " can not eat honey without stomachic 

 pain he would, I believe, have stated the exact 

 truth; and had the editor of Gleanings said that 

 as many or more persons are made to suffer from 

 overeating of honey as from any peculiar quali- 

 ty of honey he too would have hit the nail square 

 on the head. Had he also stated that, where 

 honey causes any disturbance of the stomach, 

 whether from overeating or otherwise, a drink of 

 milk will usually bring immediate relief, it 

 would have been helpful. 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



BEES CHOOSING A HOME. 



Several years ago, during one season I had three swarms come 

 out, each several days apart; and as soon as all were out in the 

 air they started right off without clustering; and all of my drum- 

 ming, slinging of water, dirt, and such like, did not stop them. 

 I used to scout the idea that bees looked out for a location before 

 swarming, or while clustered for that matter. I thought they just 

 wandered until they found a place. A year or two after the 

 swarms I spoke of went away I saw bees going in and out of a 

 crack in the siding of the house just under the plate on which the 

 rafters rest, and I thought there was a colony in there; but upon 

 opening a door to a small cupboard there was at that place in the 

 house I found nothing. The next day the bees were there again; 

 and about noon, as I was going to dinner I heard the roar of a 

 swarm, and, upon looking up, thousands of bees were pouring on 

 to the house and running into that crack. This thing continued 

 for some minutes. Upon opening the door that night I found a 

 nice swarm had taken possession of that cupboard. After this I 

 put out hives and boxes all about the premises, in places where I 

 thought the bees might like a home. I have watched the bees 

 going out and in, cleaning up these hives and boxes in an eager 

 and excited manner; and from a day to two weeks I have had 

 swarms come and go into these cleaned places. At times I have 

 seen the scout bees, as I call them, at work, and the next time I 

 came that way I have found the swarm housed and at work. Can I 

 doubt any longer, when, lor the past four years, 1 get in this way 

 each year from four to twelve swarms.' I know now that these 

 scout bees lead the swarm to the selected place. 



Iowa. 



I should have left this letter in its pigeon-hole 

 had it not been that, on pages 1508 and 1554 of 

 Gleanings for 1907 the editor says that he would 

 be glad to hear from others on this scout matter. 

 On pages 1507, '8, Mr. Greiner gives us some 

 very interesting matter on the subject of bees 

 choosing a home, and seems, on the whole, to 

 come to the conclusion that these scout bees are 

 sent out by the swarm as a " matter of compul- 

 sion " while the swarm is on the limb, rather than 

 that they go out before the swarm leaves the par- 

 ent hive to choose a home, so that the swarm 

 knows where it is going before it leaves its old 

 location. But, as Dr. Miller points out on page 

 1553, I do not see how he could arrive at such a 

 conclusion after telling us that he saw these scouts 

 at work the afternoon before the swarm came. 

 But if I were one of those scouts, sent out from a 

 swarm, I think it would be compulsory with me 

 if I went at all, for I should never expect to see 

 either my old home or the swarm again, but to 

 die a homeless, starved, and chilled wanderer the 

 next night after I went out, especially if my old 

 home happened to be in a modern apiary. Why do 

 I say this.? Because if a swarm is allowed to hang 



