Sept. 21, 190S 



THB AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



663 



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ITItscclIancous Hcu^s 3tcm5 



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"What To Eat" is a monthly maga- 

 zine devoted to the preaching of the gospel ot 

 pure food. It is published here in Chicago, 

 by The Pierce Publishing Company. In the 

 September number we are glad to notice 

 the major portion of the Daily News article 

 on " Comb Honey Not Machine-Made. " We 

 still have some typewritten copies of it that 

 we will mail on receipt of a 2-cent stamp, for 

 the purpose of having it published in local 

 newspapers. Almost any bee-keeper can get 

 the editor of such paper to use it, we think, 

 if the request is properly made. 



Wrong Statements About Bees are 



constantly appearing in the newspaper press. 

 Lisle J. Schneider, of Delaware Co., Iowa, 

 sends us such clipping, and says he sees 

 about i5 papers, and scarcely a week passes 

 without meeting with some " break " about 

 bees in them. Of course we can't copy all 

 such wrong statements in these columns, and 

 it would do no good if we could do so. What 



is needed is their correction in the very papers 

 where the original misstatements appeared. 

 Every bee-keeper who sees such misleading 

 reading matter referring to bees or honey 

 should very promptly write the editor a re- 

 spectful correction, or something that gives 

 the truth about it, and request its publication. 

 It the bee-keeper himself does not do this, 

 certainly no one else will do it for him. 



The Apiary of J. 1'. Blunk, of Web- 

 ster Co., Iowa, is shown on the first page this 

 week. Here is what he wrote us when send- 

 ing the photograph, Aug. 8: 



I send a picture of a part of my apiary. The 

 grove is so dense ihtt it is a hard thing to get 

 a good picture. 



The two outside rows are the hives of the 

 colonies that swarmed. It will be noliced 

 that they are well scattered. This I did to 

 insure the safe return of young queens when 

 on their wedding-trip. It proved my former 

 statement, that young queens miss their own 

 hives when they are placed close together, and 

 are not killed by king-birds, as many believe. 



I got every young queen back to her own 

 hive, not one being lost. 



This grove is a fine place for bees in hot 

 weather, but a poor place the forepart of the 

 season — too cold — so I put the hives out in 

 the sun up to about swarming time, then I 

 move them backwards by degrees until I get 

 thym all in the grove. 



Those are my boys at the further end of 

 the apiary, and all are afraid of bees except 

 Dan, the small one at the right of the tall 

 hive. He is my helper in the apiary. I tell 

 them it's no wonder they are all bachelors, 

 for any one who is afraid of a bee surely could 

 not muster up courage to get a wife. So you 

 see I have a poor prospect of ever being 

 called "grandad." 



About half of the colonies swarmed, all 

 swarms being regular and in order; no fool- 

 ishness with the swarms this spason. 



J. P. Blunk. 



Comb Honey Not Machine-3Iade. — 



We have a fair supply of the typewritten 

 letter on this subject, which appeared in the 

 Chicago Daily News ot June21,l!W5. It is 

 just the thing to have published in every bee- 

 keeper's local newspaper. We mail it for a 

 2-cent stamp. Better order several copies, 

 and request as many newspaper editors to 

 publish it. It will certainly be a good thing 

 for both the reading public and the bee- 

 keepers. 



-V (Eontrtbiitcb -f 

 Sv^doX Clrttcles 



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How Much a Bee Gathers— Strong Colonies 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE 



A CORRESPONDENT writes me saying, " Will you plea.xe 

 tell us through the columns of the American Bee Journal 

 whether the advice which is given me (to keep my colo- 

 nies always strong) is good ?" 



If every bee reared could have a Held of honey placed be- 

 fore it in which to labor, then the motto, " Keep colonies 

 always .strong," would be the right one ; but inasmuch as this 

 can not be, and as bees at all times must be consumers, no 

 matter whether producing or not, I can not see the philosophy 

 of having a colony strong in bees at such seasons, whtni of 

 necessity they can be only consumers. That one bee can not 

 gather SO pounds of honey, nor one-fiftieth part of that, is one 

 of the reasons that more than one boe is required in a hive ; 

 and because one beo can not gather that amount is the reason 

 that the apiarist desires a large number of bees in his hives at 

 certain seasons o^the year ; and as a large number is desired 

 at certain seasons, some have conceived the idea that a large 

 number of bees in a hive at all times of the year is a tiling of 

 great value. 



But right here comes in another side to this " gathering " 

 question. I have just said that one bee could not gather one- 

 fiftieth part of SO pounds of honey, my reason for so saying 

 being that in this locality we do not have a yield of honoy 

 lasting through the length ot life allotted to an individual 

 bee, while many bees — yea, usually more than half that in^ 

 reared under the most skillful management — never add an 

 ounce to the surplus. 



Thus, right here comes in another factor to this question, 

 which is the field, or supply of honey. In reality we mu- lie- 

 gin with the field, or, in other words, place that /?;•... for 

 without the field or honey-flow we have no use for the '> 'cs. 

 With a continuous and uninterrupted honey-flow within tliree 

 miles of the hive during the time which a bee lives, I tliink 

 that a bee might easily gather one ounce of nectar, wliich 

 would take only 800 bees to gather 50 pounds. Of this aiiuuint 

 it would take at least 12 pounds to supply the wants of the 

 colony during the time the bee was living, and unless the 



nectar was thicker than it averages here, it would take three 

 pounds of this nectar to make one pound of honey. So, then, 

 we would have from 12 to 13 pounds of actual honey as the 

 product of 800 bees during their life, over and above what was 

 consumed by the colony with an uninterrupted flow of nectar. 



While this might be possible, yet there are two things 

 which make it improbable, the first being, as already stated, 

 that the honey-flow does not continue long enough, and the 

 second, that the yield would not be sufficient within three 

 miles of the apiary, where many colonies are kept, so that the 

 bees could work to the best advantage. To illustrate : 



One year I had a colony which, on May 25, I estimated to 

 contain 4000 bees. This estimate was made by counting the 

 bees on a given surface of the comb, and then dividing the 

 amount of comb covered with bees by the space counted, when 

 the quotient was multiplied by the number of bees counted on 

 the first surface. The ne.Kt day was a fine one, and apple- 

 trees were yielding nectar as well as I ever knew them. 

 At 7 a.m. the bees began to go to work, and at 8 a.m. I 

 found that on an average 60 loaded bees were going into 

 the hive each minute. One incoming bee was caused to dis- 

 gorge the contents of its honey-sac, and a fair-sized drop of 

 nectar was the result. By a careful estimate I found that it 

 would take 3600 such bee loads to make one pound, so I con- 

 cluded that 4000 bees were good for the gathering of one 

 pound of nectar per hour, besides caring for the interior of 

 the hive. 



Before a bee had left the hive in the morning, I had 

 weighed the same so that I could tell when night came how 

 much the colony had gained. They worked right along at 

 the average rate of 60 bees per minute till 4 p.m., when there 

 came a gradual slackening until S, when all were in on ac- 

 count of a wind-storm coming up. 



At dusk that night [ weighed the hive again, thinking to 

 myself as I did so, that if my estimate was correct, it should 

 weigh 8 pounds more than it did in the morning. I found it 

 weighed 8 pounds and 9 ounces, thus showing that my esti- 

 mate was not far out of the way. 



Hut what was a great surprise to me, was that when 

 weighed the next morning I found that 8 pounds and 9 

 ounces gain had gone down to .5% pounds, thus showing that 

 the nectar fresh from the flowers was not all honey, by any 

 means. 



After this I became infatuated with the idea that there 

 could be as much honey obtained from apple-bloom as from 

 basswood, if I could only get the population of the hive up to 

 40,000 instead of 4000; so I began trying to get ray colonics 

 strong in bees early in the spring, but after an entire failure 

 of apple honey for the next 4 years — on account of the cold, 

 rainy weather which is usually on when these trees are in 

 bloom — I gave the matter up. only trying to get the colonies 



