324 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



May 24 1900 



over our heads, while, if we approacht the apiary from the 

 river shore, no noise was heard till we were at the side of 

 the hives. 



The three apiaries that we had alongf the bluffs south of 

 Warsaw, about three miles apart, were from two to four 

 miles from the river, and separated from it by the richest 

 land in the State except the upper apiary, which was sep- 

 arated from the river bj' a number of sandy ridges that 

 grew little more than cockleburs and willows, but the rich 

 lowlands were even there only a mile and a half awaj'. The 

 best yielding portion of these bottom-lands is that which is 

 least adapted to cultivation, being too low to drain well, and 

 producing only knot-weeds and Spanish-needles in profu- 

 sion during the months of July, August and September, 

 when the waters recede and the moisture evaporates suffi- 

 ciently to enable them to grow and thrive. We have every 

 season invariably harvested larger crops from the apiary 

 which was the nearest to these lowlands — only a quarter of 

 a mile — than from either of the others. 



The difference in the quality of the honey, from one 

 apiary to another, has also shown itself plainly, even when 

 thej' were but three miles apart. Here we must say that the 

 soil being very varied the crops are dissimilar, but during a 

 clover crop, when clover was to be seen everywhere, one 

 might have expected the honey to be similar, yet we have 

 always been unable to sell clover honey from one apiary 

 upon a sample taken from another, and the same may be 

 said of the fall crop. 



Not only have the above-mentioned remarks shown 

 that the bees harvested only the local crop of their imme- 

 diate neighborhood, but we have noticed, in two or three 

 seasons of scarcity, that they were unable to find blossoms 

 located five miles away, and even less. The bees of our 

 home-apiary generally take their bee-line in a northeast 

 direction up the valley on which we live, probably because 

 there are no impediments in their course in that direction. 

 Very few go west in the direction of the river. 



In 1880, the worst year of honey famine we have known, 

 a neighbor's bees, located close to the river west of us, were 

 storing honey and whitening their combs on the honey 

 harvested from a couple hundred acres of lowland, while 

 ours, less than two miles off, had not found it. In that 

 same year we removed one entire apiary, as mentioned 

 above, to the heart of the lowlands, below Warsaw, to the 

 overflowed lands which were covered with a luxuriant 

 growth that had sprung up as fast as the high waters of 

 the river receded, while our hills were parcht by drouth. 

 This apiary produced an abundant crop, while apiaries five 

 miles off in a bee-line in the hills had to be fed for winter. 



From all this it appears to me that if we want success 

 we must place our bees within a short distance of the crop, 

 and that distance, in my own case, I place at a mile and a 

 half at the outside. 



Do not understand me as taking exception to the state- 

 ments made by some apiarists that bees do go six, eight, 

 and even 10 miles in search of honey, but you can readily 

 see from this experience of 28 consecutive years that one 

 can not consider such distances as safe to be relied upon for 

 a good honey crop. If bees make a practice of flying after 

 food so far would there be an3' chance of overstocking any 

 location, even if one kept a thousand colonies in one place ? 

 An area of say eight miles in every direction makes a pas- 

 ture of the extent of some 250 square miles, or 160,000 acres, 

 allowing the fractions for the rounding off of the outline. 

 Just think of it 1 You would have a practically unlimited 

 field, and the kind of crop that might be produced in your 

 vicinity would cut verj' little figure in your crop since bees 

 fly fast enough to make the time occupied in the trip of lit- 

 tle importance. 



But that which evidenced to us most emphatically the 

 importance of location close to the pasture was the amount 

 of honey harvested. If I remember rightly, the highest 

 average per colonj* in one apiary during our very best sea- 

 son, amounted to some 140 pounds per colony, but during 

 that same season an apiary in a poorer location yielded only 

 an average of SO pounds, and the result was the same ever3' 

 year; the latter location making a less amount of harvest 

 proportionally. The apiaries located at the edge of the 

 bluffs always gave a big crop of fall honey, while those en- 

 tirely on the bluff, and away from the lowlands, gave the 

 biggfer yield of clover crop. Hancock Co., III. 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth work- 

 ing for. Look at them. 



The Early Bee- 



What " He 

 "Him. 



Is. and How to Get 



Written for the laxt f'otiveiUion of the California See-Keepers^ Association, 

 BY W. A. PRVAI.. 



YOUR secretary askt me to contribute a paper on some 

 bee-topic for your edification. In an evil hour my ego- 

 tism prompted me to give him an affirmative answer. 

 Then for days I rackt my brain in an endeavor to hit upon 

 an original subject. This eft'ort on ray part came near be- 

 ing my undoing ; it addled my brain, and started several 

 screws, all of which will account for the oddity of the re- 

 marks which follow. My choice of a subject, I think, is a 

 good one, and I have chosen to lay it before you in the 

 shape of an epistle, rather than in the hackneyed form of an 

 essay, learned and dry. 



There is an old saying that " the early bird catches the 

 worm," which I am going to paraphrase by saj'ing, "that 

 the early bee catches the honey." Of course this is not 

 exactly true, as we know that the bee does not catch any- 

 thing, as he is neither a baseball plaj'er, a policeman, nor a 

 terrier, tho he is something of a bird of rare plumage, espe- 

 cially when he is of the five-banded golden kind we read 

 about in the advertisements of queen-breeders who vie with 

 one another in their endeavor to disseminate Apis Ameri- 

 cana. 



But I must be more serious, for I recognize the fact that 

 I have the honor of having these crude, and, I am afraid, 

 uninteresting statements read to a body of gentlemen who 

 are wont to be of a contemplative disposition, for Nature 

 has, particularly here in the Golden State, destined most 

 bee-men to pursue the even tenor of their way in some quiet 

 ravine, or, ma3' be, on the slope of some towering sentry 

 of a mountain-range, where the white hives add a gravelike 

 stillness to the scene by their tombstone appearance. It is 

 a life among the bees amid such suroundings that makes 

 our bee-men to a great extent hermits and lovers of the 

 serious side of life. 



Then, I must say that joking is not in my line ; and, 

 besides, I should not attempt it. I have heard of a couple 

 of bad instances where the malady has strangely afflicted 

 persons connected with apiarian pursuits, and, if I am not 

 mistaken, the affliction has been a source of annoyance to 

 some of their friends. I believe, gentlemen, that you are 

 aware of how this trouble has taken a deadly hold of some 

 of the brightest minds that adorn the pages of our modern 

 bee-literature. Just look at the havoc it has made with 

 Editor York, of the American Bee Journal. Behold his 

 well-turned puns, and see how they run rampant thru the 

 pages of the " Old Reliable " weekly. Then, Ernest Root's 

 foot-notes in Gleanings in Bee-Culture are editorials indeed, 

 but in them lurk the root of manj' a cunning joke. In 

 " Stray Straws " a Miller (C. C.) sees a means of grinding 

 out a crop of chaff and substantial food at the same time ; 

 and, perhaps, just beside him may be that prince of apicul- 

 tural humorists, the never-to-be-supprest Rambler, whose 

 fun and frolic is known to you all. I trust for your sake 

 that he is far awaj' from you during this meeting, as other- 

 wise his pen and crayon and tell-tale camera may be getting 

 in their deadly work on some unsuspecting attending 

 honey-producer 1 



But what has all this to do with the early bee, you may 

 ask ? Surely nothing. 



Gentlemen, I shall not joke. I will be serious, and pro- 

 ceed to find the early honej' that catches the bee — no, I 

 mean the early bee that gathers the honey, and like a good 

 dog that has retrieved your game, lay it before you. 



To begin, I will state there are several kinds of earlj' 

 bees. The one I dread the most is the too previous bee. I 

 dare say you have run against this amusing little creature 

 on more than one occasion. He usually makes your ac- 

 quaintance when you least suspect his presence. He darts 

 from his hive at all seasons, early and late, tho seldom be- 

 hind time, as he tries to be never late in getting in his work 

 upon you, which is too often done in a decorative sort of 

 way about your optics. 



Perhaps you have heard of the spelling-bee. Of course 

 you have, and I shall not waste time in referring to the 

 thing. It Cometh in the night, and is too late for notice bj' 

 me any way. Ditto husking-bee. 



My bee is not any of these ; neither is he Apis dorsata. 

 Apis Filipino, or even Apis Aurora borealis, whatever the 

 latter may be in the bee-line. 



Another early bee, and the one I believe you think I 

 have in mind, is the one thatriseth from his soft and downy 

 couch in the wee sma' hours of morning, throws off his 



