156 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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At Borodino, New York 



OVERSTOCKING A LOCALITY. 



"I have fifty colonies of bees and desire 

 to increase to as many as my locality will 

 support. Then, if I see my way clear, I may 

 start some out-apiaries. Now, what I want 

 to know is, about how many colonies I can 

 profitably keep in one place. I have asked 

 several beekeepers about this, and I find a 

 great diversity of opinion. Some tell me 

 that fifty is enough, as it takes more than 

 two-thirds of the nectar in most fields to 

 sustain the colonies during the year. Others 

 say that Mr. Alexander kept 700 colonies in 

 one apiary and got splendid returns from 

 them. What is your opinion?" 



"Overstocking a locality is a subject 

 which has puzzled many a beekeeper; and 

 deciding upon the number of colonies of 

 bees that may be kept profitably in one lo- 

 cality is difficult, even for one who has 

 given much thought to this subject. If 1 

 am right. Dr. INIilier has said somewhere 

 that there is a limit beyond which one can 

 not profitably increase the number of colo- 

 nies in an apiary; but just where that limit 

 is, can, perhaps, never be learned. He said 

 that, if he were obliged to make a guess, he 

 would think about eighty colonies in one 

 apiary would be the limit of his location. 

 You will note that he was talking about his 

 locality, which may be better than the one 

 you are in, or it may not be as good. There- 

 fore a knowledge of the locality one is in is 

 one of the important factors which must be 

 taken into consideration. 



Then, again, the seasons are so unlike in 

 different localities that it will never be pos- 

 sible to do much more than to estimate ap- 

 proximately the number of colonies that 

 may be profitably kept in a certain location. 

 It will also become apparent to all that a 

 different approximation must be made for 

 each locality. 



" Mr. Alexander was in a most propitious 

 locality — one in which there were thousands 

 of acres of buckwheat sown every year. 

 This, in addition to clover and basswood, 

 gave something which every beekeeper 

 would thoroughly enjoy. But Mr. Alex- 

 ander did not decide that 700 colonies was 

 about the right number for him to keep, 

 without years of experience in and with his 

 field. Therefore experience comes in as a 

 very important factor, and that experience 

 must cover several years in any given lo- 

 cality before any thing like a correct esti- 

 mate of how many colonies can be profitably 

 kept can be made. 



" Still another factor which must be taken 

 into consideration is the stability of the 

 field. When I first began keeping bees, 

 there were great forests in sight of the apiary 

 in every direction, and many of the trees 

 were basswood, some of them four to five 

 feet across at the stump, and eighty feet 

 tall, with great spreading branches. Bass- 

 wood lumber of the best quality could be 



purchased then for $8.00 a thousand feet, 

 and at that price there was little incentive 

 to cut these trees, save those dying of old 

 age. But in the years since then, the price 

 of such lumber has gone to $12, $20, $25, $30, 

 and now to $35. . The result has been the 

 denuding of these forests until very few 

 basswoods remain except in gullies and 

 other out-of-the-way places where it is al- 

 most impossible to get logs. In former 

 years there was no failure in nectar from 

 this source, so that, in three seasons out of 

 four, during the blossoming of our bass- 

 wood, 400 colonies set down here could not 

 begin to collect the nectar. But now this is 

 all changed, and a good crop of basswood 

 honey from one-fourth that number is the 

 exception rather than the rule. In fact, if 

 mustard, white and alsike clover, and buck- 

 wheat had not materially increased in this 

 locality during the past fifteen years, bee- 

 keeping would be no longer profitable, 

 where for twenty years in succession my 

 average yield of section honey was 85 

 pounds per colony. With the prices at from 

 22 to 28 cents a i^ound for section honey, 

 apiculture was very profitable in those days 

 when basswood forests surrounded many 

 of the apiaries in this State. 



"In deciding this question of overstock- 

 ing the home apiary to an extent sufficient 

 for dividing the number and taking part of 

 the colonies to a different locality, allow me 

 to suggest that it costs more to manage bees 

 away from home than it does in a beeyard 

 near your back door. The average yield of 

 the home apiary might be cut down con- 

 siderably from the increase of numbers be- 

 fore it would be profitable to start an out- 

 apiary in some locality from five to ten 

 miles distant. An out-apiary requires the 

 purchase of a team, automobile, or some 

 means of conveyance for use in going to 

 and fro, as well as a change of methods, 

 non-swarming and other systems, all of 

 which bring added expense. But after once 

 starting in the out-apiary business, the es- 

 tablishing of one or more additional apiaries 

 is not such an expensive affair as was that 

 of the first one, for all of the things neces- 

 sary for the first can be used in any of the 

 apiaries subsequently started." 



How Bumblebees Puncture the Nectaries of Bean- 

 blossoms 



When my broad beans began to bloom I noticed 

 that the bumblebees were always around: yet in 

 the majority of cases the blossoms failed to set. I 

 then noticed a hole at the base of the flower like 

 that made with a pin, and this hole was not found 

 in the newly opened buds. One day while wonder- 

 ing about this I saw one of the bumblebees, of 

 which there are several kinds, go to a flower and 

 deliberately eat a hole and then extract the honey 

 as if it had been at the job for years. So it missed 

 the pollen. 



Westley, B. C, Oct. 4. H. G. Slater. 



