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519 



LESSONS. 



Sonic IiniMM-laiit Facts IVoiii tiic 

 Exiicrieiiccs of the year ISSS. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BV FKED KANZLEK. 



Our excellent Ameuican Bee Jour- 

 nal has broiiji^'ht .several valuable les- 

 sons, whieh the poor season of 1888 

 taught us, viz : That if comb lioney 

 could be " manufactured," it would 

 have been done very extensively, but 

 we saw not a single pound in our mar- 

 kets, therefore it is an impossibility ; 

 and Prof. Wiley did not tell us a " pleas- 

 antry," but a simple lie ; that mixed 

 farming is more safe than specialties ; 

 that we start with a clean market for 

 the next year, and can sell our honey 

 ou hand for a good price, etc. But 

 there may be a dozen or more lessons 

 yet to learn, and I will name a few 

 more : 



1. The 3'ear 1888 teaches us that not 

 the number of colonies can be blamed 

 for the poor season. 



When over the whole country (a few 

 places excepted) the honey-How failed, 

 then has a man with a few colonies as 

 much sui'])lus honey as the man with 

 many colonies, i.e., none; therefore 

 the number of colonies has nothing to 

 do witli the poor crop, but the poor 

 .season is the cause. 



2. Our idea of " overstocking" must 

 be niodifled. 



If I had, in 1888, 20 colonies, and 

 my neighbor 200, and I would say ; 

 ■• Neighbor, you overstocked our 

 country," wliat would be the answer ? 

 He would say, "Friend, if I had 20 or 

 less colonies instead of 200, you would 

 not have an ounce more honey than 

 you now have ;" and if overstocking 

 means a small crop of honey, then the 

 whole country is overstocked. I, for 

 uiy part, think that if I keep more col- 

 nnies than I can profitably handle, then 

 my yar<l is overstocked, and I will 

 Illume neither my neighbor nor his 

 many colonies. 



3. The year 1888 occasioned good 

 f' cling among the bee-keepers. 



Some time ago a few big bee-keepers 

 living on a good honey-belt said to the 

 ^inall apiculturists, " You had better 

 keep no bees at all, butbuy your honey 

 of us !" What would those great men 

 say now, if the small bee-keepers and 

 the public came to buy honey, and they 

 had none left over from last year ? 

 Would they (the big bee-keepers, with 

 hundreds of colonies) not be ashamed 

 of their own folly, self-conceit and 

 self-interest ? 



As misl'ortune cu>s." b,.: and brings 

 even foes together;' jp^iiear nothing 

 more of the foregoing talk, but find a 

 more friendly feeling among all the 

 bee-keepers, and 1 hope that this gooil 

 feeling will grow from year to year, so 

 as to embrace all bee-keepers in the 

 land, making them one brotherhood. 



It would also create a good feeling 

 among bee-keepers and correspondents, 

 if the latter woidd drop all personal- 

 ities, and take more into consideration 

 the difference of localities, climates and 

 degrees of latitude. 



Between bee-keepers there should 

 not be any professional envy or jeal- 

 ousy, as we sometimes find among 

 other tradesmen; for, if I have no sur- 

 plus honey, my neighbor has none ; and 

 if he has a good croj) of honey, I lia\ e 

 also much surplus honey, all other 

 things being equal. 



Santa Clans, Ind. 



BEE-ITEMS. 



The Distance that Bees Fly lor 

 Honey. 



Written for the American Rural Home 

 BY O. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A correspondent writes that he has 

 seen the statement that bees do not tly 

 more than one and one-half miles from 

 tlieir hives in any given direction, and 

 desires to know if this is a fact. I know 

 that there are a few who claim what 

 our correspondent writes, but the ma- 

 jority of bee-keepers believe that bees 

 go double that distance for honey ; 

 while some have traced their bees so 

 that they were positive that they were 

 at work on flowers seven miles from 

 where the apiary was situated. 



The most of my experience along 

 this line was obtained when the first 

 Italian bees came to this country, as 

 tliey were then located three miles from 

 me, in a straight line. The next spring 

 after tliey were thus brought here, I 

 was watching the bees at work on ap- 

 ple blossoms, and soon saw an Italian 

 bee at work in my orchard, when there 

 could not have been any of this variety 

 of bees nearer than the three miles 

 spoken of above. Upon examining 

 more closely, I found that on an aver- 

 age, one bee in five were Italians, and 

 this with apple blossoms in profusion 

 everywhere. 



Again, in haying time, as I was cut- 

 ting a field of clover one mile from 

 home, or four miles from the same 

 Italians, I saw bees at work on the clo- 

 ver. Having heard so much about 

 Italian bees working on red clover, I 

 got otr the machine, and, to my sur- 

 prise, counted five Italians to two 

 blacks, with fields reil with clover every- 

 where. 



Once more : One year still later, 

 there was not a piece of buckwheat in 

 sight of my apiary, and the nearest of 

 any amount was four and one-half 

 miles in a .southerly direction, where 

 there was from 20 to 30 acres, while 

 about six miles away, there was nearly 

 100 acres. I sold 1)00 pounds of buck- 

 wheat honey that year, and the bees 

 wintered on at least 2,500 pounds of 

 buckwheat honej'. 



From the above I became satisfied 

 that bees went from five to seven miles 

 for honey, although I believe that they 

 will work to more advantage when tliey 

 do not have to go more than from two 

 to three miles away. 



:|tees Avitli JaKS*i<l ^Vingri^- 



Another correspondent writes about 

 seeing many bees with jagged wings 

 during the month of June, and wishes 

 to know what caused it. Some suppose 

 that it is caused lay the bees fiying so 

 far during basswood and other bloom, 

 which tends to lead the bees far from 

 home for honey; but I think that this 

 is a mistake, for basswood does not 

 bloom in this locality till about the mid- 

 dle of July, while, as our correspon- 

 dent states " we see the tattered-winged 

 bees in June more plentifully than any 

 other time during the year," at which 

 season the white clover is in bloom. 



White clover, with us, grows mo.stly 

 in the meadows, and in order to get it 

 the bees must fly down in the herd's- 

 grass, and so by constantly hitting the 

 wings against the grass they become 

 worn, as our correspondent has obser- 

 ved. By the time basswood is over, 

 we see but few of these bees with jag- 

 "•ed wings, as the ones which worked 

 on clover have mostly died by this time. 



L.iS'ht-*^oIoi-ed Uees. 



Another writes, wishing to know if 

 the light-colored Italian bees are as 

 o-ood honey-gatherers as the dark ones, 

 having heard that the light-colored bees 

 were lazy. 



I never had any dark Italian bees, 

 but have plenty of blacks and hybrids, 

 and with me the nearer pure the bees 

 are, the better honey-gatherers they 

 make. To illustrate : 



Several years ago, when the bass- 

 wood was all gone, I did not have a 

 single section filled with honey. After 

 a week or so, the seed crop of red clo- 

 ver came into bloom, and my Italians 

 and hybrids commenced to work on it ; 

 but the black bees did nothing but con- 

 sume their own stores, and carry wliat 

 little honey they had in the boxes, down 

 into the hive. The best and lightest Ital- 

 ians filled their hives, and stored from 

 i^) to 00 pounds in sections; and tlio 

 hybrids stored just in proportion to the 

 amount of Italian '■ blood " there was in 

 them. 



