1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



559 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE 

 SOUTHWEST 



By Louis Scholl, New Braunfels, Tex. 



the texas state fair. 

 The Texas State Fair will be held at Dal- 

 las, October 1(5 to 31; and since this is one of 

 the biggest fairs o' its kind, it behooves ev- 

 ery reader to know about its bee and honey 

 department. Over $350 is offered in pre- 

 miums for honey, bees, and miscellaneous 

 products. It is the best place for producers 

 to advertise their goods; and whether any 

 premiums are won or not, every bee-keeper 

 who has any thing to offer should enter it. 

 The writer is the superintendent of the api- 

 arian department, and he would be glad to 

 hear from all those interested regarding the 

 space, exhibits, etc. Write at once and help 

 to make this the largest bee, honey, and api- 

 arian products show that has ever been in 

 the South. 



THE VACUUM HONEY-EXTRACTOR. 



Texas has a machine that will suck the 

 honey out of the hives and run it into recep- 

 tacles ready for shipping, page 463, Aug. \. 

 Whether this plan will prove satisfactory 

 enough to replace the present methods of 

 producing extracted honey, rr mains to be 

 seen. Tne idea is yet in its infancy. Spe- 

 cially equipped supers are required with 

 frames of much different construction, all of 

 which looks expensive. The inventor, Mr. 

 Avant, claims much for his machine, how- 

 ever. The writer has been in close touch 

 with him and his invention for several years, 

 and is watching developments closely, so 

 that he will be able to say more about the 

 practicability of such machines in a later 

 issue. 



LOCATING OUT- APIARIES. 



Since the writer now has twenty apiaries 

 under his direct care, several letters have 

 come in asking how far apart the yards 

 should be, how many colonies should be 

 kept in a yard, and also what is the object of 

 so many apiaries. 



It depends upon the locality and other con- 

 ditions as to how far apart the apiaries should 

 be. When the territory is made up of great- 

 ly varying localities, some being suitable for 

 large apiaries while others are not adapted 

 for bee-keeping at aJl, it is difficult to state 

 in any definite way how many colonies a 

 given place will support; also how far apart 

 the yards should be located. In such a case 

 the bee-keeper must find out for himself the 

 answer to such questions. I would study 

 the honey-yielding resources first, then place 

 a small apiary in such location as I aeem 

 suitable, and, later, place other apiaries in 

 spots not already occupied. Later it will be 



found that a larger number of colonies can 

 be profitably located in some of the places, 

 while the original number or even a smaller 

 number of colonies must be left at other 

 yards. 



On the other hand, if we start an apiary 

 where the same conditions prevail for miles 

 around, the solution of the problem is quite 

 different. We will take, for instance, the 

 country in our part of Texas, where apiaries 

 of 100 colonies each may be placed every 

 five miles. Experience taught me years 

 ago, however, during my seventeen years of 

 close observation, that bees do not fly nearly 

 as far for honey as many bee-keepers sup- 



Eose. I used to believe that bees gathered 

 oney profitably up to three miles; but that 

 when they went beyond, it did not pay. In- 

 quisitiveness sent me on dozens of trips of 

 adventure, which resulted in my finding that 

 the most of my honey was gathered within 

 two miles of the apiaries, and more often 

 much nearer even than that, the bees very 

 seldom going beyond the two-mile line. 

 They almost never went very far for stores, 

 and then only in cases of great necessity, or 

 for some good reason. Even in extreme 

 cases it was more often that the bees of an 

 apiary would starve before going to fields of 

 nectar three or five miles away — yes, even 

 two miles or less. 



This discussion really belongs under the 

 heading of " How Far do Be'es Fly to Gather 

 Honey?" but still it has a great deal to do 

 with the locating of apiaries and the placing 

 of a proper number of colonies in the various 

 yards. I have for years been an advocate of 

 smaller apiaries and a larger number of them. 

 The result is better when we work smaller 

 yards, and we have a greater return in sur- 

 plus honey. If bees do not gather honey so 

 far away, why is it not better to {place fifty 

 colonies in yards two and a halt" or three 

 miles apart, than one hundred colonies every 

 five miles? It certainly would give the bees 

 a better chance, and the ground would be 

 covered more evenly and worked more thor- 

 oughly than in the other case. With the 

 large yards further apart, it must be admitted 

 that many bees waste time foraging over the 

 same ground that others have already visited 

 several times near home, while other bees 

 must go much further to reach the nectar- 

 yielding fields not yet overworked. By hav- 

 ing the smaller apiaries closer together, our 

 average year after year is greater than that 

 of the other fellows who have the larger 

 yards further apart. 



Local showers of rain have a great bearing 

 on our honey yields. Very often the bees 

 in a certain apiary will pile in honey where 

 recent showers have fallen, while others 

 three miles away are doing but little. The 

 bee-keeper who has his yards scattered far 

 and wide will be sure to get some honey 

 somewhere, while if he has his bees all in 

 one yard he will get very little or none at all 

 in a poor season. The bees in large apiaries 

 are generally the first to starve, while those 

 in the smaller apiaries usually manage to 

 scrape up a living. 



