JANUARY 1, 1913 



needs this " experience," otherwise his life 

 is apt to be pretty much a series of big 

 " mistakes." 



Mount Joy, Ontario, Canada. 



AN EXPERIENCE WITH BLACK BEES 



A Fight with Hornets 



BY OSCAR L. GOSSET 



The latter part of June I found a small 

 swarm of black bees hanging on a bush in 

 the pasture. As I did not have a hive I 

 made a box of nice clean lumber. The 

 boards were 12 inches wide, and 1 cut them 

 so as to make a box 12 inches wide, 12 in 

 height, and 24 long. I hived the bees ; and, 

 although it was a small swarm, the colony 

 went right to work. I left the bees under 

 the bush where I had hi\ed them, for about 

 one week. 



It happened that the hive was placed 

 near a ditch; and in case of a hard storm 

 the water might liave risen and washed 

 away the hive. 



One evening, about ten o'clock, there 

 were indications of an approaching thun- 

 der shower. The bees were my first thought. 

 As it was so late in the evening, I knew 

 that they would all be in the hive, and I 

 thought it would be a good time to move 

 them near the house, a distance of about 

 sixty rods from where the hive was then 

 located. I set the hive down not far from 

 the house, where I could watch the bees. 

 A day or two after I had moved them 1 

 found verj^ few bees in the hive; so I went 

 back to the pasture to the spot where the 

 hive had been, and found most of the 

 swarm clustered on a branch of the same 

 bush on which I had first found them. 



I returned home, made another small 

 box, went back, and shook the bees from 

 the branch in front of the box, and they 

 all went in. That evening after sunset I 

 brought the box with the bees to the house 

 and emptied them in front of the first box. 

 They all went in ; and as they had made 

 quite a large piece of comb in the first box 

 I thought they would soon stay there. The 

 next day I discovered that a few of the bees 

 had returned to the bush in the pasture. 1 

 managed to get them into the box, and took 

 them liome in the evening, emptying them 

 in front of the hive as before. The next 

 day the bees were working well. 



1 no! iced, about the middle of August, 

 that the colony was not increasing very 

 much. A few drones had hatched. I also 

 noticed tliat tl:e bees did not have a very 

 large amount of honev. so 1 ordered a 



Boardnian feeder and proceeded to feed 

 them. They had carried in about one quart 

 of the syrup from the jar when one day 

 I noticed some black hornets near the en- 

 trance, fighting the bees. The bees were 

 out on guard as if attacked by robbers. I 

 killed about a dozen of the hornets; and 

 as there were no more in sight I stood 

 watching the hive. A bee came out with a 

 young bee which seemed to be dead, for it 

 showed no life when I picked it up from 

 the entrance where the bee dropped it. It 

 hjoked as though it had been cut from the 

 cell before time for it to come out, as its 

 wings were shriveled. 



A day or two after this I took a look at 

 my bees. As I approached the hive I saw 

 no bees flying; so I raised the hive, but 

 found only about half a dozen dead bees 

 lying on the bottom-board, and about half a 

 dozen hornets sucking the comb in the hive. 

 The honey and syrup that I had fed the 

 bees had been all carried away, for the 

 combs were almost dry. There was a little 

 brood in one of the combs. Now, did those 

 hornets chase the bees out of the hive and 

 rob them? or did a strong colony of bees 

 lob my bees? There were no other bees 

 nearer than half a mile. 



Maiden Rock, Wis., Sept. 24. 



[Your principal mistake was in moving 

 the colony after it had once been located 

 and the bees had marked their location. 

 Carrying a hive away in this manner with- 

 out taking any j^recaution to make the bees 

 mark their new location will alwaj's result 

 in weakening the colony greatly, for the 

 bees will keep attempting to go back to the 

 old location, and many of them will be lost. 



Undoubtedly the hornets bothered the 

 bees considerably ; but we think the chief 

 trouble was that the colony was so small 

 tiiat the bees became discouraged. They 

 may have left the hive in a body because 

 the conditions were abnormal, or, as you 

 suggest, the bees of some other colony 

 might have completely robbed them out, so 

 that they abandoned the hive because there 

 was practically no honey left. 



Jt is expensive business attempting to 

 nurse a weak colony. We presume that 

 beginners ]:ave more trouble because of 

 La. irg their colonies too weak than from 

 any other source. — Ed.] 



T raised 100 daughters from a fine breeding queen 

 ^^ili(•h I bought last spring. I hope she will live an- 

 other year. I have 200 colonies, and have handled 

 ) ^•esj for many years, but they are the first bees I 

 ever sa\v that wouldn't sting. I handle them without 

 smoke. 



Freewater, Ore., Nov. IG. C. A. M<C'AKTV. 



