PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE W. T FALCONER MANPG CO 



VOL. V. 



NOV&MBER, 1895. 



NO. n. 



At What Age do Bees Gather 

 Honey. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



The above heading may be thought 

 by some to be of little interest, but as 

 it has much to do with the surplus 

 honey we secure, I thought a few 

 words on 'the subject might not be 

 amiss. Many seem to suppose that 

 the bee is capable of going to the field 

 to gather honey as soon as it emerges 

 from the cell, or in three or four days 

 at least, but some facts prove that they 

 do not. Bees may be forced to go to 

 the fields for pollen and honey at the 

 age of five or six days old, but when 

 the colony is in a normal condition, as 

 it always should be to store honey to 

 the best advantage, the bee is sixteen 

 days old before it gathers honey. If 

 we take combs of brood just hatching, 

 and place them in a hive without any 

 bees, as is frequently done to intro- 

 duce a valuable queen, we will see 

 young bees not over five or six days 

 old go to ttie field, being compelled to 

 do so for water, pollen, etc., because 

 there is none of an older age to go ; 

 but this does not prove that bees of 

 that age usually do so, any more than 

 the experiment of feeding twenty 

 pounds of honey to bees confined to 



the hive before one pound of wax is 

 produced, proves that it always takes 

 twenty pounds of honey to produce 

 one pound of comb. I have conduct- 

 ed several experiments since I kept 

 bees, to ascertain the age at which 

 bees gather the first honey and as each 

 has proven the same, I believe sixteen 

 days to be the time when the bee 

 brings her first load of honey, when 

 the colony is in a normal condition. 

 The experiment which I tried was 

 this : A black queen was removed 

 from the colony, and an Italian queen 

 introduced in her place, about the 

 middle of June. The date was mark- 

 ed on the hive, and as the 21st day 

 thereafter arrived, a careful watch 

 was kept to see when the first Italian 

 bee hatched. When the first Italian 

 bee had emerged from the cell a care- 

 ful watch was again kept of the hive 

 to see when the first Italian took its 

 flight. This happened about two 

 o'clock in the ofternoon, seven days 

 later, when a few Italian bees came 

 out for a playspell, but in less than 

 an hour all had returned and none 

 but black bees were seen going to and 

 from the hive. As the days passed on 

 the number of Italians increased at 

 each playspell (about two o'clock on 



