June l3, 1907 



513 



Americaii liee Journal 



The Members — Yes. 



Mr. Todd — Safe for which, the ducks 

 or the bees? 



Mr. Abbott — I do not think it is. 

 My neighbors have some ducks and I 

 have some. My ducks are well behaved, 

 and they do not interfere, but I noticed 

 a big (irako from the neighbor's the 

 Other morning went in front of a strong 

 colony of Ilalians and the bees were 

 disappearing very fast. I don't know 

 how long he would have kept it up, but 

 he kept it up until I drove him away. 

 At that rate it wouldn't have taken long 

 to have the bees all eaten up. 



Mr. Arnd — I once had neighbors who 

 said that my bees killed the ducks. 

 They happened to find a bee in the neck 

 of a dead duck and they said it killed 

 the duck. 



Mr. Kimmey — If I were going to ans- 

 wer that question I should inquire whom 

 the bees belonged to, and whom the 

 ducks belonged to. If the bees belonged 

 to the man who asked the question I 

 would say no; the ducks will kill the 

 bees. 



How FAR Bees co for Honey. 



"If honey is scarce, how far will 

 bees travel to gather it?" 



Dr. Miller — Before we get into a long 

 discussion, I would suggest, if we stick 

 right to the question and those who 

 know, who have some definite testimony 

 as to the distance they have known bees 

 to go will tell us, we will get informa- 

 tion. 



Mr. Arnd — I have known bees to go 

 6 miles. 



Dr. Miller — How did you know? 



Mr. Arnd — Because they gathered 

 buckwheat honey, and there wasn't any 

 buckwheat within 6 miles. 



Mr. Whitney — I can not give any evi- 

 dence from personal observation, but I 

 remember reading in one of the bee- 

 papers of bees going g miles. [Laugh- 

 ter.] Hold on! Don't laugh! Let me 

 tell my story. "Vou will believe it. 

 During the time of the big fire in 

 Chicago there was also a fire in north- 

 ern New York, in a black-ash swamp, 

 and it swept off the whole swamp. It 

 was 5 miles long. The next year it grew 

 up to fireweed. A gentleman living south 

 of that swamp 4 miles owning the only 

 Italian bees in all that region, found 

 his bees very busily at work. He hitched 

 up his team and drove north along the 

 road. He could see his bees going and 

 coming, and he drove to the south end 

 of that swamp, and he said he never 

 saw such a sight in his life as he saw 

 there. His bees were busily at work on 

 that fireweed. He drove to the ex- 

 treme north end and he said they were 

 just as thick there as they were at the 

 south end. He knew they were his bees, 

 because he saw them going and coming 

 and they were the Italian bees, and the 

 only Italian bees in that region he 

 owned at that time. It seems almost 

 incredible but I saw the man's picture 

 in the journal that published the state- 

 ment and he looked like an honest man. 



Pres. York — Was it Ira Barber? 



Mr. Whitney — That is the name. 



A Member— If Ira Barber told it, it 

 is so. 



Mr. Wilcox — I have some knowledge 

 of it, because I used to be a bee-hunter, 



and as a bee-hunter we always know 

 how far it is from where we start to 

 where we find the bees. We followed 



lliem up and we found bees 5 miles 

 frcjm home, Intt exceedingly rarely; 

 more conniionly 4 miles. Yet I never 

 knew bees to work profitably — to carry 

 honey profitably to store a surplus — at 

 a distance grr.iter than^ 2% miles. 



Pres. York— I'.earing on that last point, 

 perhaps Mr. Arnd will tell as to the 

 result of the working 6 miles away. How 

 much did they do? 



Mr. Arnd — They did not do very 

 much. In fact, it took me about 6 

 months to find where they did get the 

 honey; and I found afterwards that the 

 buckwheat was 6 miles away. 



Pres. ^'nrk-The honey was all gone 

 by that time! 



Mr. Arnd — The honey was all gone. 



Mr. Wheeler — I had a pretty good ex- 

 perience along that line. Some 20 years 

 ago I lived in Iowa. I went into a 

 country where there were no bees at all. 

 The nearest colony was 15 or 20 miles. 

 I watched those very closely, and I 

 watched the fielders to see how far the 

 bees went, and it was very, very seldom 

 that I found a bee farther than a mile 

 away from its home; and out there there 

 was no chance of being mistaken about 

 the distance, because the country was 

 all measured off in section miles, mile 

 by mile, and hardly any of those bees 

 traveled more than a mile. 



Mr. Wilco.x — What season of the 

 year? 



Mr. Wheeler — At all times, all through 

 the working season. They did not appear 

 to go much beyond the mile limit. They 

 were thick within that mile. 



Mr. Todd — Nectar must have been 

 plentiful. 



Mr. Wheeler — No, that was the pe- 

 culiar thing about it ; they hardly made 

 a living. It was a very poor country at 

 that time. Since then white clover has 

 come in, and it is a fine country for bees 

 now ; but at that time they had to skir- 

 mish to get a living, and they very 

 seldom got away more than a mile. 



Mr. Clarke — I think the last speaker 

 and I come from the same locality. 



Pres. York — The same State, any way. 



Mr. Clarke — I don't know whether 

 the bees we have at the present time 

 are better fliers or honey-gatherers, but 

 my apiary is at Plymouth Creek, half 

 way between Le Mars and Merrill, and 

 my apiary is situated upon the northeast 

 corner of the section. One mile to the 

 farthest end of it I have a pasture of 

 40 acres, and it was about as white as 

 a white tablecloth this year with white 

 clover. We hml a considerable crop of 

 honey there this year, and my bees all 

 through the season never worked on my 

 farm. They went almost to Merrill to 

 gather the honey; and what could be 

 the reason of that? Mr. Arnd says he 

 could not see the surplus. I have for- 

 gotten just exactly what the average 

 is, but one colony stored 630 pounds, 

 and a number oi them over 300; some 

 of them up i" 400 pounds of honey. 

 Whether I have the long fliers, or 

 whether the country is changed, I can 

 not say, but that is my experience. 



Mr. France — .\s to how far bees work 

 from the homi yard, I may say my bees 

 had an abia 1 mce of basswood years 



ago right at their door, but it has been 

 cut away, so that the nearest basswood 

 now to the home yard is 3 miles, and 

 I notice that when that basswood is in 

 bloom, although it is near one of my 

 apiaries, the home yard works on it. 

 One time I was out on a lake 6 miles 

 across. There was an island, and while 

 out there upon that island bees lit upon 

 my shoulder and excited my curiosity. 

 There was no bee-tree on the island, 

 and I went across to the other side and 

 found bees there working, and they 

 went clear across that 6-mile lake to 

 some hives on the other side. They had 

 one chance to ulifrlit if they chose to, in 

 their flight, upon this island; but they 

 certainly were working across the lake 

 6 miles from home. 



Mr. Wheeler — Within the last 2 or 3 

 years I have known apiaries within 2 

 or 2Vz miles of each other, and as far 

 as I know the bees are exactly alike; 

 where one would gather a good crop, 

 the other gathered scarcely any. That 

 proves to me they do not fly far. 



Dr. Miller — That does not prove the 

 point Mr. Wheeler makes. How far 

 did you say? 



Mr. Wheeler — 2 miles. 



Dr. Miller — Here may be something 

 off here, and this yard is gathering 

 upon it — this one nearest to it; it is 

 within its range, but about as far as it 

 will go. This other yard, having 2 miles 

 farther to go, will get nothing. (I don't 

 know whether the stenographer can get 

 all my motions.) The point is this; No 

 matter how much the difference is, 

 there is a difference in the distance, and 

 yet it is very difficult to decide on any 

 sort of reason why there is this dif- 

 ference between two apiaries. For in- 

 stance, I have two. Take one year with 

 another and the northern apiary will 

 do a good deal better than the southern 

 one. I can not tell any reason why. 

 Sometimes the southern one will do the 

 better. I do not know any reason for 

 that either ; and when you come right 

 down to it, to find out the reasons why 

 bees do things, there are a whole lot 

 of things we don't know. 



Mr. buby — Maybe we could tell bet- 

 ter if somebody could give us the aver- 

 age speed of bees. I wonder if any- 

 body knows that. 



Dr. Miller — For want of any rate of 

 speed, I give 60 miles per hour. 



Mr. Moore — This may be instructive, 

 although it is not accurate at all. I 

 feel sure I read somewhere that an 

 engineer in his cab saw a bee quite close 

 up to his engine when they were going 

 at a rate of 60 miles an hour, and the 

 bee kept up with the train. If that is 

 true, it throws some light on the flight of 

 the bee. 



Toads and Snakes Eating Bees. 



"Do toads, as a rule, destroy bees, 

 when permitted to stay about the 

 aipiary ?" 



Mr. France — There are occasions 

 when I think a toad will destroy a good 

 many bees if allowed to stay about ; but 

 while it is destroying those bees, it 

 there are any moth-millers around, he 

 goes for those, also. I think he "pays 

 his keep" if you let him alone. 



Mr. Wheeler — May I amend the ques- 

 tion so far as to include snakes? Do 



