1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



542 



best honey-plant, campanilla, or bellflower 

 (resembling the white morning-glory of the 

 United States), is being torn up by the cattle 

 or cut down by the machete of the Cuban 

 because the cattle do not eat it. In Manza- 

 nillo the exports have declined from 5000 

 barrels of 50 gallons each to 2000 barrels last 

 year. This year, I am confident, the exports 

 will not reach 1(K)0 barrels. 



The destruction of the timber has caused 

 great drouth in the summer or wet season, 

 and nearly all the streams go dry. Three- 

 fourths of Cuba is now cleared, and the re- 

 mainder is going very fast. Where there 

 are no woods there is not enough honey to 

 keep the bees living, and they will starve. 

 All the large apiaries in Havana province 

 are dead now, and Pinar del Rio is fast dimin- 

 ishing. This province, Oriente, has still 

 plenty of timber, and by locating along a 

 stream where the bees can always get water 

 we can not help doing well. 



I have three apiaries, and all are located 

 on the Cauto River, where the tide rises and 

 falls 2 ''2 feet, so that it can never go dry. I 

 move all the honey and supplies by river, as 

 the roads are usually bad. 



There are still plenty of good locations, but 

 it is necessary to buy all the ground within 

 reach of the bees, and so control the terri- 

 tory. I have over 950 hives at present in 

 three apiaries, one of the two outyards being 

 a mile west and the other a mile south. The 

 home yard contains 350 hives; and 200 yards 

 from it a neighbor has 200 hives more, so 

 there are now over 1200 hives of bees inside 

 of two miles. I find that the two outyards 

 do better than the home yard — in fact, at the 

 home yard I have to feed, while at the out- 

 yards, only a mile away, the bees are mak- 

 ing surplus honey. 



I have kept bees 27 years, and have never 

 known them to work profitably when they 

 had to fly over a mile for the honey. The 

 largest crop of honey I ever raised was in 

 Delaware, on a drained marsh that was all 

 in heartsease and butterweed. My bees on 

 the marsh, right among the flowers, made 

 five times as much honey as other bees that 

 were 1 '2 miles from the marsh, which made 

 hardly any surplus. 



I have extracted, from March 1 to June 1, 

 2500 gallons of honey and 1500 lbs. of yellow 

 wax. The honev, until Oct. 15, is dark; aft- 

 er that it is white from the bellflower. 

 When the white honey begins I expect to 

 change from extracted to comb honey, as 

 my frames are only six inches deep and 

 twenty long. I will make wide frames that 

 take 4x5 sections, and use them in the same 

 super. I formerly used T tins, but have 

 found that, to raise nice comb honey, the 

 section must be closed entirely. 



My crop of white comb will be about 25,000 

 lbs. " We have good facilities for shipping at 

 Manzanillo — steamers to all parts of the 

 world, and weekly steamers to the United 

 States. 



As I am on tide water I can load the hon- 

 ey on lighters at the apiary, and load right 

 on the vessel in the harbor of Manzanillo 



without rehandling. In another article I 

 will explain my management of these large 

 apiaries, the labor of which is done by the 

 natives, who have very little intelligence — 

 probably less than the American Indian. 

 Cauto, Cuba. 



THE COLOR SENSE OF THE HONEY- 

 BEE. 



Some Original Work Showing how the 

 Bees Seem to Favor Blue. 



BY JOHN H. LOVELL. 



It has been well established by experiment 

 that the honey-bee can distinguish between 

 colors. Instead of describing the experiment 

 as performed by Lord Avebury (Lubbock), 

 let me give some that I conducted along the 

 same plan, and, I am glad to say, with even 

 more conclusive results. 



On a pleasant September morning I accus- 

 tomed a yellow (Italian) bee to visit a strip 

 of blue paper three inches long by one inch • 

 wide. To prevent the paper from blowing 

 away or becoming soiled it was covered with 

 a transparent glass slide of the same dimen- 

 sions, upon the center of which a small 

 quantity of honey was placed. These slides 

 are used for mounting microscopic objects, 

 and may be obtained of any dealer in optical 

 instruments for a trifling sum. 



After the bee had made a number of visits 

 to the blue paper, a red slide of the same di- 

 mensions, and prepared as described above, 

 was placed six mches to the right of it. An 

 equal quantity of honey was also placed upon 

 the center of this slide. When the bee re- 

 turned from the hive it alighted on the blue 

 slide, which still remained in its original 

 position. 



On the departure of the bee for the hive 

 the slides were transposed, i. e., the red put 

 in the place of the blue and the blue where 

 the red had been. When the bee returned, 

 and no longer found the blue paper in its 

 usual position, it flew back and forth, exam- 

 ining both slides, paused for a second or two 

 on the red, then resumed its flight, but final- 

 ly settled on the blue. A little later it flew 

 up into the air, but soon returned to the 

 blue; then it flew across to the red, where 

 it remained for the rest of its visit. The 

 change in the position of the blue, and the 

 discovery of a differently coloi'ed slide also 

 bearing honey, evidently disturbed the bee; 

 and its frequent flights showed that it was en- 

 deavoring to orient itself to these new con- 

 ditions. As will now appear it did not find 

 it necessary to repeat this course of recon- 

 noitering. 



While the bee was awav I transposed the 

 slides for a second time, the distance apart 

 being as before — six inches. The bee re- 

 turned directly to the blue. Twice it left 

 the blue for a few moments, but each time 

 returned to it. 



When the bee left for the hive, I again 

 transposed the slides; then the bee returned 

 to the blue. The bee left for the hive, and I 



