708 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Nov. 15 



before last I cut about 4 tons, and sent it to 

 a produce agent in Dunedin (100 miles away) . 

 I got account sales, which, after deducting 5 

 per cent commission, railage, etc., gave me 

 net 6 pence per lb. Some of this consign- 

 ment was a few boxes just kept in store all 

 summer, and kept its shape and appearance 

 perfectly. This season I was changing my 

 home; and to suit my own convenience I sold 

 3 tons in one hive at 5 '4 pence net. To put 

 it short, the increased value is 50 per cent, 

 and a readier sale at that. 

 Wyndham, Southland, New Zealand. 



HOW FAR DO BEES FLY FOR HONEY? 



The Amount of Honey in the Combs has a 



Bearing on the Energy with 



Which the Bees Work. 



BY C. W, DAYTON. 



In 1894 I had about 40 colonies of pretty 

 good Italians in an apiary, together with 

 about 175 colonies of mixed stock. The bees 

 of nearly every Italian colony brought honey 

 from a distance of iyi to 5 miles, and filled 

 one or two comb-honey supers. There was 

 no chance for mistake, for, immediately ad- 

 joining the apiary, in the direction oi the 

 orange - groves, were alkali patches about 

 two miles in width. After this was about a 

 mile of alfalfa that was pastured short, and 

 then at least a mile of vegetable-gardens. 

 After these gardens there began to be occa- 

 sional half-dozen orange-trees in the door- 

 yards for a distance of another mile, before 

 the orange-groves became general. A mile 

 and a half from the apiary I could hear the 

 roar of the bees overhead, and near the 

 orange-groves I could seen them flying 

 toward home. They flew slowly, because 

 there was a coast wind that hindered them 

 to such an extent that they would often alight 

 on my clothes to rest as I drove along. These 

 bees were decidedly yellow. There were no 

 other bees that I know of, but these bees of 

 the golden-yellow variety. Why bees do not 

 always search the country over for that dis- 

 tance from the apiary, I can not tell. 



Running east from our place here is a road 

 which is nearly parallel with the Santa Moni- 

 ca range of mountains for about sixteen 

 miles. The road is about a mile from the 

 foot hills, and these foot hills are pastured, 

 so the apiaries are located about a mile fur- 

 ther up in the canyons. This makes a distance 

 about two miles from the road. Down the 

 slope from the road is the Los Angeles River, 

 along which there are plenty of willows. 



When the willows are blooming in the 

 spring I often see large numbers of bees 

 crossing the road going back and forth from 

 the apiaries from these willows three miles 

 away. These bees are the ordinary Califor- 

 nia bees. The land between the apiaries 

 and the willows is always stubble or plowed, 

 there being no trees or growing plants what- 

 ever, and only one house in the whole six- 



teen miles. There is an almost constant 

 coast wind which blows the scent of the wil- 

 lows in a direction away from the apiaries. 

 It would seem to me that it would require a 

 very close search on the part of the bees be- 

 fore they could find the willows. Consider- 

 ing the naked fields and the adverse winds, 

 if there were any enticement to lead them 

 they ought to go two miles further. I believe 

 it requires some incentive to make bees 

 work. Bees are not much more inclined to 

 gather honey when they are not in immedi- 

 ate need of it than they are to rear a nice row 

 of queen-cells when they already have a 

 young thrifty queen. 



Last spring, other bee-keepers obtained 

 supers of new honey earlier than I did. There 

 had been a great deal of starvation reported 

 before the new honey came. Last year was 

 an off one for honey, so I gave the bees al- 

 most no attention; but in February and March 

 I was a little afraid they might be starving, 

 so about ten days before I expected the new 

 honey-flow to start I began to clear the combs, 

 with the extractor, of the odds and ends of 

 old honey that might be found. Instead of 

 odds and ends, however, I found the combs 

 in nearly every super, and nearly all the 

 brood-combs, solidly sealed with dark inferi- 

 or honey. Some of this I extracted ; but from 

 about a hundred supers I cut out the combs 

 and let the bees build new ones from the 

 starter of the old comb which the knife had 

 left along the top-bars. The strange thing 

 about it was that I extracted the first new 

 honey from the colonies which had been com- 

 pelled to build new combs in their supers. 

 Later, however, when the bees were in the 

 notion of swarming they left these frames, 

 practically, or drew the combs only in a scanty 

 way. 



When I got the supers empty there was 

 about two tons of poor-grade honey in the 

 tanks that I actually wished was running in 

 a stream down the canyon; yet the lower 

 stories were so full that many colonies did 

 not have more than one comb space for the 

 rearing of brood. It must be that no work 

 and no worry prolonged the lives of the old 

 bees which were reared the year before, as 

 the swarms seemed to be of the customary 

 size; but the hives they came from did not 

 have a pint of bees left behind to keep things 

 going. The swarms would often pile up to- 

 gether and wait for days with no queen to 

 hold them. Most of the time when they 

 broke cluster on account of the queen not 

 being with them they scattered throughout 

 the whole apiary instead of returning to their 

 own hive which they came from. I was lucky 

 in having about 75 four-frame nuclei which 

 were formed for an emergency, and these 

 were transferred into the deserted hives, 

 making the best honey-gathering colonies 

 for the honey harvest, since the honey-flow 

 did not start as soon as we calculated, some 

 apiaries being nearly starved. It seems to 

 be the safest to have enough honey to last, 

 but not muc'.. left over to darken the new 

 crop. 



Chatsworth, Cal. 



