158 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



AT Borodino, New York 



UNDERSTANDING OUR LOCALIIY. 



" Mr. Doolittle, not long ago you told how 

 your bees gathered pollen and honey from certain 

 trees and plants, and I came over this morning to 

 ask you how you know that these things give 

 the honey. How can you tell that the bees are 

 not stealing the honey from the hives of other 

 bees or from some grocer's sugar-barrel.?" 



"Well, Mr. Stevens, allow me to ask you how 

 you know that the English sparrows eat wheat " 



"That is easy enough! I have seen them eat 

 wheat with my chickens." 



" Yes. And I have seen the bees gathering 

 pollen and nectar from all of the plants and trees 

 about which I have written, and I am just as 

 confident about the matter as you are that the 

 English sparrows eat wheat." 



" Do you think it necessary for a man to know 

 about the sources from which his bees obtain 

 their pollen and nectar.?" 



" I certainly do. One of the most important 

 factors of successful bee-keeping is a thorough 

 knowledge of the locality. Many bee-keepers 

 do not seem to realize the importance of this, as 

 their actions show; for if they did we should not 

 hear so often of those who delayed making hives 

 and sections till the surplus season was on, or of 

 those who delayed putting on the supers till the 

 best part of the honey season was over, or of 

 those equally unwise who add the surplus room 

 so early in the season that their colonies are 

 greatly injured by the great amount of room 

 when there are but few bees in the hives below." 



"Then you think such things should be stud- 

 ied into by the beginner.?" 



" I think all work with the bees, if successful- 

 ly done, should be done with an eye open to the 

 probable time of the blossoming of the main nec- 

 tar-producing plants and trees in the locality. 

 Of course, the pollen part is not so necessary to 

 know about, except when some tree or plant is 

 likely to give an excess of pollen as the hard ma- 

 ple does in this part of York State. Then it is 

 well to open the hives at the close and remove 

 frames solid with pollen to give to colonies de- 

 ficient in the same when a scarcity comes later." 



" But how do you prepare for any known crop 

 of nectar so as to help matters any.? " 



" All bee-keepers worthy of the name know 

 that the queen is the mother bee, and lays all the 

 eggs from which the bees eventually come. Aft- 

 er the egg is deposited in the cell, it takes ap- 

 proximately three days for it to incubate, when a 

 larva hatches from the egg. As soon as hatched, 

 this larva is fed by the nurse bees for approxi- 

 mately six days, when it has grown so as nearly 

 to fill the cell. At this time the cell is capped 

 over, and this larva undergoes the changes neces- 

 sary for it to emerge from the cell a perfect bee, 

 which it does in about twelve days from the time 

 the cell was sealed over, or approximately twen- 

 ty-one days from the time the queen laid the egg 

 in the cell." 



" Yes; but bees are hatching at all times of the 

 year, except winter; so what has that got to do 

 with the matter.? " 



"Take, for ins ance, the blossoming of white 

 clover, which we will suppose is our main nectii- 

 producing plant in our locality. To get the bees 

 in good condition for it, we must commence op- 

 erations with them at least six weeks previous to 

 its blossoming, for it takes at least six weeks to 

 build up a colony so it will be able to do the 

 best work on a given field of blossoms. Hence, 

 as white clover blossoms in this locality about 

 June 16 we must commence to secure our bees 

 for this harvest as early as the first of May." 



"But I thought you said that it took only 

 twenty-one days from the time the egg was laid 

 till the perfect bee emerges from the ceil." 



" So 1 did. But this perfect bee takes six da) s 

 to straighten up to where it is ready for a flight 

 from the hive, when a colony is in a normal con- 

 dition, and ten days more of inside work before 

 it has grown to a full-fledged field worker, while 

 the greatest number of field workers is not ob- 

 tained for a we k to ten davs longer." 



"But all do not have white clover." 



I know they do not. Suppose the yield came 

 from basswood, which opens from July 10 to 15, 

 there being no more clover than is needed to keep 

 up brood-rearing; then commencing to stimulate 

 the bees for this harvest as early as May 1 would 

 be labor and stores thrown away, as the useless 

 expenditure of honey needed in producing bees 

 to loaf around waiting for the basswood harvest 

 would detract just so much from the success we 

 desire to attain. If we have a field of grain to 

 cut, requiring the labor of twenty men to harvest 

 it, we would not hire these men two to three 

 weeks before the grain is ripe, feeding and pay- 

 ing them during the time; and we should learn 

 to use common sense in regard to the bees the 

 same as we do in other things. When we are 

 told to commence to feed and stimulate the bees 

 as early as possible in the spring, it is well to 

 know what tliese bees can secure from such stim- 

 ulation; and if nothing is ready for them to har- 

 vest, let us leave the stimulation alone till the re- 

 sulting bees can work to advantage in the har- 

 vest. Again, if we do not get the bees ready for 

 the harvest till after it is over, it would be like 

 hiring the twenty men after the grain had become 

 ripe and had spoiled on the ground. We should 

 have to pay them and feed them when there was 

 nothing for them to do. So the man who brings 

 the greatest number of bees on the stage of action 

 at any period of honey dearth wastes all the stores 

 necessary for their production, as they become 

 merely consumers instead of producers. They 

 are worse than useless." 



" But we must have a lot of bees in the colony 

 at all tiines of the year, must we not.'" 



"If by this 'lot' you mean enough to insure 

 the rapid building-up of the colony in time to 

 take advantage of any honey-flow I would say 

 yes. But if you mean that the colony should be 

 up to its maximum strength at all times without 

 regard to the one, two, or three seasons of sur- 

 plus from kno^Lvn sources, then I say we shall be 

 feeding a promiscuous multitude with no definite 

 end in view. It seems plain to me that, to be 

 the most successful as apiarists, we must have a 

 full force of bees at just the right time to take 

 advantage of the harvest; and in order to do this 

 we must study our locality and know the bloom- 

 ing time of the flowers which give us our surplus. " 



