hilv, 1907 



585 



American l^ee Journal 



TIic roadiT will sec l)y tliis how dis- 

 similar the crops may he when the con- 

 ditions of the country arc as dissimilar 

 as they are in our vicinity. I have no 

 doubt, however, that in the large plains 

 of Texas, or of Colorado, apiaries will 

 show more uniform results; hut no one 

 should lay down a rule, thinking that it 

 will apply to every field. 



If we look at still more irregular 

 spots, we will find still more irregular 

 results. In Switzerland, where the coun- 

 try is cut up by stee|) hills and snow- 

 capped mountains, there are localities 

 where they find differences in results 

 within a mile or two. They are so ac- 

 customed to these differences in small 

 areas that they have come to the con- 

 clusion, in .some parts of Switzerland, 

 that they can isolate queens and drones, 



woods .are pioli.ihly as nuich a hindr.ince 

 to the llight of bees as an\lhing else. 



If the paslur.-ige is uniform all around 

 an apiary, without any special .itlr.ictions 

 in one direction, I firmly believe that 

 a circle with a diameter of 4 miles will 

 about cover the pasturage used by the 

 bees. This represents an area of over 

 7,000 acres, and if there is any honey 

 ,it all in such an area the bees would 

 be very foolish to go farther. 



Perhaps some one will ask me; How 

 do you know whether your bees go, or 

 do not go, to such or .such fields? By 

 the results. This is certainly the best 

 test. If ajjiaries 4 miles apart have 

 crops differing entirely in quantity or 

 quality, under the same management, 

 with the same breed, and using the same 

 kind of hives, there is nothing to make 



by placing the mating apiaries at a dis- 

 tance of only two kilometers (1% miles) 

 from the other bees. This, to my mind, 

 is a mistake, for the drones are the 

 strongest, on the wing, of the race. Na- 

 ture has provided this so that they may 

 more readily find the young queens. I 

 therefore believe that drones will go 

 further even than the worker-bees. 



The Mississippi River has proven a 

 barrier to our bees, and yet it is only a 

 mile wide. We found but one exception 

 to this rule. It was with a small apiary 

 on the edge of the Keokuk bluff. The 

 bees, penned in by the city, and finding 

 no fall blossoms anywhere near there, 

 cross the river every fall to harvest 

 honey from the blossoms on the opposite 

 bank — the islands shown in the accom- 

 panying diagram. The width of the 

 river is about a mile, and ought not to 

 be a complete hindrance. Hills and 



the difference in results but the differ- 

 ence in pastures. If the bees at the 

 " Milliken " apiary harvest Spanish- 

 needle honey in large quantities from a 

 pasture just east of them, and those 

 at the home apiary get honey of a dif- 

 ferent color, and less in quantity, we 

 will surely conclude that they do not 

 work in the same area, even though they 

 all appear to go in the same direction. 

 If an apiary near the swamps produces 

 half as much clover honey as the home 

 apiary, and twice as much fall honey, 

 it is evident that that apiary is in a 

 different field as to blossoms. If our 

 bees went nnles readily, in any direc- 

 tion, they would have something like 

 TOG square miles to harvest from, or 

 over 60,000 acres. There would be no 

 limit to the crop, no possibility of over- 

 stocking. 



The experience I mention here dates 



back many years. Our out-apiary was 

 established in 1872. In 1877 we had 

 6 apiaries, and have had from 4 to 6 

 ever since that time. 

 Hamilton, 111. 



Some Queen Questions 

 Answered. 



BY d. M. DOOLIITLE. 



QuESTio.v. — A while ago I bad a 

 swarm issue which was hived in the 

 usual way. After hiving the swarm I 

 cut out all of the queen-cells from the 

 parent colony but 3, and there were no 

 more such cells started. About 15 days 

 later another swarm issued from the 

 parent hive. On examining the hive 



1 found that the bees had actually kept 



2 of the queens confined in their cells 

 6 or 7 days after they should have 

 gnawed out. One queen had been al- 

 lowed to emerge from one of the 3 

 cells, she leading out the second swarm, 

 while the other 2 queens were in the 

 cells. I cut open the cells, and, when 

 liberated, strange to say, these 2 queens 

 could fly as well as queens which have 

 been out of their cells several days. 

 How would you account for this? And 

 what kept these queens from starving? 



Ans. — Bees do what seem to the 

 novice as very strange things quite of- 

 ten, and even the veteran is sometimes 

 puzzled over some of the things they 

 do. The 2 queens which our questioner 

 found in their cells were kept there by 

 the bees so that they might have the ma- 

 terial to preserve the existence of the 

 colony after a second swarm had issued. 

 In fact, it is a very rare thing for an 

 after-swarm to issue unless one or 

 more virgin queens are held in their 

 cells in just this way. Had those two 

 queens been allowed to emerge from 

 their cells, a fight would have ensued 

 till all but one queen would have been 

 killed, and the killing of all but one 

 of the queens would have prevented all 

 after-swarming, and such preventing was 

 just why the bees kept the 2 queens in 

 their cells so as to preserve them till 

 after the queen- which the bees allowed 

 to emerge from her cell first had left 

 with the afterswarm, after which it was 

 safe for another of the 2 queens to leave 

 her cell, as only one queen is allowed 

 to roam the hive at one time, for any 

 length of time, except in case of super- 

 sedure of queens, when, in exceptional 

 cases, the mother and daughter will 

 dwell together for days, weeks, and 

 sometimes months, until the old queen 

 dies of her infirmities. 



Had the questioner waited an hour or 

 so after the second swarm issued be- 

 fore he had opened the hive he would 

 have found one of the 2 queens at lib- 

 erty, and the other kept in her cell by a 

 knot of bees clustering over it, or both 

 out and one of them killed, just accord- 

 ing to whether the colony intended to 

 send out the third swarm or not. 



When all idea of swarming is given 

 up then all queens old enough to do so are 

 allowed to leave their cells, a fight en- 

 suing, till all but one are killed, when 

 the bees and queen turn in and gnaw 

 into all the remaining queen-cells, when 



