338 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 31, 1900. 



thru a wide and deep entrance; a good shade during- the 

 hot hours of the day, and little or no drone-brood allowed in 

 the hive — these arrangements will go a long way towards 

 preventing natural swarming, even from the very strongest 

 colonies, and a fair crop of honey will be the result. If 

 there are swarms the)- will be good ones. 



But some apiarists I have seen, who, in order to procure 

 an increase, purposely leave off the supers, confine the bees 

 to the brood apartment, and trj' by all means to induce the 

 casting of swarms, thinking this the best way of securing 

 a profitable addition to their apiary. It would be much bet- 

 ter if they avoided the annoyance of having to watch their 

 colonies, and to hive the swarms by making artificial 

 swarms. 



Divisions may be made in many^ different ways, and 

 each apiarist with a little experience has his own method. 

 But the sine qua >ion of successful dividing is in the supph' 

 of good, healthy queens from the very best stock. It is in 

 this item that there is a most decided advantage in artificial 

 swarming over natural swarming, for, with a little care, 

 YOU can rear your queens from the ver)- best mothers of the 

 very best variety, and secure uniformity, prolificness and 

 purity, and, altho perfection is never to be attained, and 

 inferior stock will ever be found, yet the careful selection 

 of breeders is the surest way for advancement in the breed- 

 ing of bees, as well as in raising chickens or any of our 

 domestic animals. 



It is always best, if you wish a careful selection, to rear 

 your own queens, and to rear them as much as possible in 

 full colonies ; but I cannot agree with those who hold that 

 queens reared in nuclei are worthless. If the apiarist is 

 careful to start his queen-cells in a good colony they may 

 be hatcht in nuclei without danger, provided these nuclei 

 are supplied with bees enough to keep warm all the space 

 they are given. We used to rear queens by the hundreds 

 every j'ear, and all our apiaries have been stockt at differ- 

 ent times with such queens, and our experience in honey- 

 production warrants us in saying good queens may be 

 reared, and just as good ones are reared, by artificial meth- 

 ods as by natural swarming. And why should the)' not ? 

 Is the son of the laboring-man born in a hut, or in the fifth 

 story of a tenement house, less sturdy, less able to work and 

 produce, or less able to reproduce his race than the pam- 

 pered and overfed son of wealth ? Descent has the greatest 

 influence on generations, but the children usually inherit 

 their ancestors' ability for work, strength and vigor, even 

 when reared under the most unfavorable circumstances. 



Hancock Co., 111. 



The Relation of Honey-Bees to Practical 

 Horticulture. 



(Frotn rroceedinga of the Oohtmbus {Ohio) Hort'n'nltural Society for 1S99.) 

 BY PROF. WILLIAM R. LAZENBY. 



TO what extent the pollination of the blossoms of our 

 more common cultivated fruits is dependent upon the 

 honey-bee is a question of practical interest to every 

 horticulturist. 



During each spring for several years past a series of 

 observations bearing on this question have been made by 

 the Horticultural Department of the Ohio State University, 

 and the results of these observations may be briefly sum- 

 marized as follows : 



The apricot, which is frequently planted in sheltered 

 positions having a warm exposure, is usuallj' the first fruit- 

 tree to blossom in Central Ohio, and honey-bees have occa- 

 sionally been seen working quite freely upon these trees as 

 early as April 1st. Some years, however, it is as late as 

 April 20th before the blossoms appear. Closely following 

 the apricot are some of our early-blooming plums, and 

 where different varieties of this fruit are grown, the period 

 of blossoming is quite extended. For example, during the 

 past season in our University garden, plum trees were 

 visited by honey-bees from April 16th until May 10th, in- 

 clusive, a period of 25 days ; the Japanese plums being the 

 first, and some of the European varieties the latest in 

 blooming. This length of period is only possible where 

 several distinct varieties or groups of plums are grown. 

 For any one variety or group the season is much shorter. 

 The pollen-collecting and honey-gathering period is rarely 

 more than five or six days for an individual tree. If two or 

 three days of this time are cloudy, rainy or wind)', the 

 chances of pollination are lessened. 



Pears and peaches soon follow the apricots and the 

 earliest plums, and these in turn are closely followed by the 



cherries, the early sweet being first, and the early sour a 

 little later. Apples come into bloom last among our com- 

 mon tree fruits, but their period of blooming, as a class, is 

 somewhat longer than that of the peach, plum or cherry. 



Arranging the fruits grown in this latitude according 

 to the date of blossoming, beginning with the earliest, the 

 sequence would be apricots, plums, sweet cherries, sour 

 cherries, pears, peaches and apples. 



Arranging them according to the frequency of the visi- 

 tation of the honey-bees, the sequence would be plums, 

 cherries, apples, peaches and pears, and this is based upon 

 the collection of pollen rather then honey. In the way of 

 honey-production I would place apples first, then cherries, 

 plums, peaches and pears. 



The following tabulations show the activity of bees at 

 certain periods, the comparative number collecting pollen 

 and honey, the approximate number of flowers visited, the 

 weights of bees, and the weights of the loads of honey and 

 pollen that were carried at certain dates : 



TABLE I. — Xaniher of bees leaving and returning to hive at different 

 intervals, and number collecting pollen and honey, May 3, 1S99 — plum 

 and cherry trees in height of bloom. 



J/ay 7, Apjile-Trees in Full Bloom. 



8:30 to 9:00 



A.M. 



!i ; 



538 

 219 



It should be noted that in no instance were the bees 

 counted as pollen-laden unless an appreciable amount of 

 pollen could be seen in the pollen-baskets. 



Careful and repeated observations made on different 

 days and different hours of the day have clearly shown that 

 when the weather is pleasant, and bees numerous, a very 

 large percent of the blossoms of some of our fruit-plants 

 are visited by one or more bees. In every case coming un- 

 der my own observation, I found plums and cherries visited 

 the most frequently of the tree fruits. Altho peaches have 

 a very showy and apparently attractive flower, and the 

 pear-blossom a markt odor, bees do not visit them in any- 

 thing like the number that they do the plum and cherry. 

 Apples are visited more freely than pears and peaches, but 

 not so freely as plums or cherries. 



Bees do not appear to be attracted by the flowers of the 

 common garden currant, but with the gooseberry they seem 

 a little more familiar. Raspberries and blackberries are 

 visited freely, especially the red raspberry. During a sin- 

 gle favorable hour I have seen nearly every blossom on an 

 average-sized stool of a Turner raspberry visited or toucht 

 by bees. 



Strawberries are infrequently visited by bees. Upon 

 several occasions I have carefully observed good-sized 

 strawberry plantations when in bloom, and can count upon 

 my fingers the bees I have actually seen in contact with the 

 flowers. They are often seen flying over the strawberry- 

 plants, appearing to have been attracted by the early and 

 rather showy flowers, but they rarely alight upon them, at 

 least on our own grounds. 



During the height of the strawberry-bloom I have seen 

 dozens of bees upon the flowers of the weeds that were 

 among the strawberry-plants, but seldom one on the flowers 

 of the strawberry. 



If I were to mark the different common fruit-plants on 

 a scale of 10, showing the comparative number of flowers 

 of each visited by honey-bees, os observed on our own 



