GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



General Correspondence 



A BEE-LINE THAT WAS NOT STRAIGHT 



How Various Conditions Change the Line of Flight 



BY J. FORD SEilPERS 



Most of US have been accustomed to ac- 

 cept without question the teaching that the 

 bee's flight for home witli her load of nec- 

 tar or pollen is in a perfectly straight line. 

 The "bee-line" has become the synonym for 

 straightness itself. Possibly we owe this 

 belief to the bee-hunter's tactics, who, in 

 liberating a bee from his box, is guided by 

 the course which it finally takes after hav- 

 ing made its preliminary circles about him 

 in finding its l3earings. It is not likely that 

 the hunter or any one else knows how the 

 bee flies after it once gets beyond the range 

 of vision. It may go in a straight line or 

 it may not, and he is none the wiser. All 

 he knows is that it started in a certain di- 

 rection, presumably toward its home. 



There are certain combinations of light 

 and shade, topography and atmospheric 

 conditions, by which it is possible to Avatch 

 the flight of an individual bee for a consid- 

 erable distance, a hundred yards or more.* 

 For example, my yard is something more 

 than that distance from a favorite moist 

 sandy stream-bank to which the bees go in 

 gi-eat numbers for water. The yard is on a 

 hillside perhaps fifty feet above the stream. 

 One can, therefore, stand near the apiary 



in the valley beloAv. This short flight is in 

 a straight line if the air is calm. I have 

 not been able to Avatch the course taken 

 when a strong wind was blowing except 

 when it came from the northeast. With 

 such a wind the bees invariably describe 

 an arc of a circle, the "bend" going toward 

 the direction from which the wind is blow- 

 ing, and the curve becoming deeper as the 

 wind increases. Whether the bees behave 

 in the same way when making a flight of 

 one, two, or three miles is a question likely 

 to remain unanswered unless possibly un- 

 der some unusual circumstances, as in the 

 present case I am relating, where conditions 

 favor the deflnite outlining of the course 

 taken. 



While it is next to im^Dossible to watch 

 the flight of a single bee except for a vei'y 

 short distance, there is not so much dif- 

 ficulty in following the line established by 

 a large number of bees between the apiary 

 and some attractive forage grounds, when 

 there is a general dearth of nectar or pollen 

 elsewhere. During a general honey harvest 

 the bees are scattered in every direction, 

 and there is no way of knowing what course 

 is taken after once the bees are beyond 

 one's vision. Conditions favoring the form- 

 ation of what I may for convenience call 

 an audible or visible bee-line are just the 

 opposite of those existing during a genera 

 honey-flow, since in the ease favoring the 



all _ 

 he I 

 ram 



and look down the long line of flying bees. 

 With the sun at one's back, and by the aid 

 of a clear atmosphere, there is no difficulty 

 in following with the eye for over a hun- 

 dred yards an individual bee as it is sil- 

 houetted against the background of woods 



* One hundred and forty 

 actual measurement. 



good long steps 



