238 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAi_. 



CONDUCTED BV 



MRS. JENNIE ATCHLEY. 



BEEViLiiE. Texas. 



Bees by the Pound— Questions. 



Mrs. Atchley : — Will you kindly an- 

 swer the following qiiestions? 



Uarabler once wrote this in the Bee- 

 Keepers^ Review : " IJut even the loss 

 of half of my bees during the winter 

 would have but little terror for me, if I 

 could get Ijees by the pound from the 

 South at a reasonable price, say from 

 75 cents to .$1.00, according to quan- 

 tity, and delivered by the first of May." 



Now, Mrs. Atchley, suppose a special- 

 ist living in my latitude (northern Ohio) 

 would lose his bees during a winter, 

 what quantity of bees (by weight) will 

 he need for each depopulated hive ? In 

 what kind and size packages sent ? and 

 how provisioned and shipped ? What 

 would be a reasonable price per pack- 

 age, and how far South will it be neces- 

 sary to send ? When should they be 

 here so that they will make strong colo- 

 nies for the honey harvest, which com- 

 mences here from the first to the middle 

 of June ? 



Lastly, do you think the scheme would 

 be feasible, and profitable as well ? 



Maumee, Ohio. L. C. Jaessing. 



Friend Jaesslng, I suppose I am in a 

 position to answer your questions very 

 nearly to the point, as I have been ship- 

 ping bees by the pound north since 

 1880. If you wished to build up your 

 bees rapidly, in your latitude, I will say 

 two pounds of bees to the hive, and a 

 good queen, would come very fast if 

 your combs contained ample honey, 

 which I suppose they would. You can 

 build them up with one pound of bees, 

 and likely get a good honey crop. 



The bees can be sent in any size pack- 

 ages desired, from one to five pounds, 

 but I would get them in just the size or 

 amount of bees I wanted to put into 

 each hive, and a queen with each. 



I now provision my bees with a comb 



of honey, or with honey enough to last 

 them while in transit. The shipping- 

 box should be very light. They always 

 go by express. A reasonable price "in 

 this country is $1.00 per pound, or 75 

 cents when a large lot is taken. It de- 

 pends upon where you can get them, 

 how far South you should send. I would 

 get them as near you as I could to save 

 express charges, but 25 cents per pound 

 is about the charge from Texas, when a 

 large lot is taken, and I suppose charges 

 will be less the nearer home you get 

 them. 



You should get the bees about 45 days 

 before your harvest begins, in time 

 enough for the second brood of bees to 

 be ready for the harvest ; that is, I mean 

 it will be 21 days before bees will begin 

 to hatch, and of course they will be 

 hatching all the time thereafter; but 

 about 40 to 45 days will l)e required to 

 get them up good and strong for section 

 honey — it would take that long here. 



Yes, I just know it would be profitable 

 if you are assured of a good honey year, 

 as I have heard of a single pound of bees 

 so shipped gathering 50 pounds of sur- 

 plus the same season. I think, however, 

 this depends largely upon the season and 

 the apiarist, and what kind of queens 

 you'get. 



I would be very glad to be one of two 

 parties trying the scheme of sending 

 bees from the North to this southern 

 country to winter, and then send them 

 back in May, to catch the white clover 

 and basswood honey-flow. If some Yan- 

 kee schemer will do the work at the 

 North end of this scheme, I will under- 

 take to be Yankee enough to do the 

 work at this end. 



Liable to Starve with Plenty of Honey 



Mrs. Atchley : — We have had a 

 severe cold spell in this part of Texas, 

 which froze a good many bees out. Dur- 

 ing the freeze I had occasion to remem- 

 ber the reading of an article in the Bee 

 Journal of last spring, that bees very 

 often starved to death with plenty of 

 honey in the hive. This reminded me 

 that I had some colonies in just the con- 

 dition to " pass in their checks." 



When I examined them I found that I 

 was just about right — they had plenty of 

 sealed honey along under the top-bars 

 of the frames, but in order to keep warm 

 the bees had clustered so low down on 

 the combs that they could not reach the 

 honey without leaving the cluster, which 

 they did not seem disposed to do ; hence 



