194 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



July 



day, regarding this less than two 

 miles theory, you can imagine my 

 surprise when almost the first bee I 

 saw proved to be an Italian. Upon 

 examination 1 found that on an aver- 

 age one bee in five was Italian which 

 were at work on the apple bloom, and 

 this with apple blossoms in profusion 

 everywhei-e. Still later on this same 

 season, I was cutting a field of red 

 clover one mile from home, or more 

 than four miles from these Italian 

 bees, when 1 saw bees at work on the 

 clover. As 1 had read previous to 

 this, about the Italians working on 

 red clover, I stopped the horses, got 

 off the muwing machine, and to my 

 surprise counted five Italians to two 

 blacks, and this with fields red with 

 clover everywhere. I was now con- 

 vinced that there was little need of 

 my fearing that I would not be able 

 to keep 100 colonies without over- 

 stocking my pasturage, as that was 

 the number I had a desire to keep. 

 But so far I had only proved that 

 bees would go at least over four miles 

 from home to work, but could not 

 say whether they could work to ad- 

 vantage that distance or not. In the 

 latter part of August one year, I as- 

 certained that the bees were securing 

 honey from buckwheat by the odor 

 which greeted me from the bee yard. 

 As there was not a field of buck- 

 wheat in sight of the apiary, I was 

 curious to know where the honey 

 came from. At two miles from home 

 I found a small field of about three 

 acres, and a mile further on was 

 another field of about the same size, 

 while at a distance of about five miles 

 there was in the neighborhood of 100 

 acres in full bloom. The result of 

 the buckwheat season showed that 



from about 60 colonies I sold nearly 

 1000 pounds of buckwheat comb 

 honey, while the bees had not far 

 from double that amount to winter on 

 of the same kind of honey, as the 

 hives were nearly destitute of honey 

 before, and at the end of the buck- 

 wheat season they had a great abun- 

 dance of stores for winter. Again, 

 seyen miles to the southeast of my 

 apiary is a hill which is the highest 

 point in our county, it being 800 feet 

 higher than where I reside. After a 

 distance of one mile there is a grad- 

 ual rise till the top of the hill is 

 reached. There is from ten days to 

 two weeks difference in the time of 

 the basswood bloom between that at 

 the top of the hill and the same near 

 my apiary. During several seasons 

 I have known the bees to work, ap- 

 parently to just as good advantage, 

 as far as I could see, for nearly a 

 week after the basswood bloom was 

 all gone, at three miles distant, as 

 they did when it was in bloom near 

 the apiary, and found that very good 

 work was being done in the sections 

 when there was no bloom nearer than 

 six miles from home. Of course, as 

 the sections would all be nearly com- 

 pleted at the end of the season, what 

 was obtained counted more in finish- 

 ing up than would the same amount 

 near the beginning of the season. 

 However, there is one thing which I 

 must note in this connection, if I 

 would be perfectly fair, which is, that 

 if a continuous good yield is to be se- 

 cured at this latter distance, it is nec- 

 essary to have continued good weather, 

 for if two or three days of rainy 

 weather should occur when the bloom 

 had receded five miles or so, (thus al- 

 lowing the bloom to entirely fail for 



