1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



55 



shore. The bees seek th«ra for the 

 cucumber and locust just as they do 

 for Baptist, but the distances are so 

 great that the bees returning with 

 their loads often do not reach the 

 shore in safety. Mrs. J. Clark, a 

 beekeeper in a valley twenty miles 

 north of Guttenberg, has removed 

 her apiary sever&l miles back from 

 the river to prevent her bees from 

 going to the islands. It is her theory 

 that as they return homeward, the 

 bees, because of the load they carry, 

 fly close to the river's surface. Be- 

 coming weary in the long flight they 

 see their reflection in the water and, 

 thinking it is land, drop down. 



Baptist tells this about his foun- 

 tain : Soon after he had built it he 

 began to notice dead bees in the 

 water. He was puzzled to determine 

 what attracted the bees until he made 

 the discovery that they came seeking 

 the moss that had formed in the 

 fountain. "I think they liked a kind 

 of salty taste it had," he says. The 

 moss was removed and has been kept 

 out since, and no more loss of bees 

 has occurred in this way. 



Iowa. 



A New Way to Hive a Swarm 



By F. Dundas Todd. 



ANEW fact in bee behavior, or 

 a supposed new fact, is always 

 interesting to me, so I store it 

 away in my memory, convinced that 

 some day another new one will come 

 my way, one that will combine with 

 the older one, and the consequential 

 result will be another new idea ap- 

 plicable to practical beekeeping. 

 Here is my latest experience : 



In 1911 I had the pleasure of spend- 

 ing a couple of days with that vet- 

 eran beekeeper, Jacob Alpaugh, now 

 playing with bees in Florida, and he 

 1 , drew my attention to the fact that 

 seemed to him to prove that bees 

 could hear. We were watching a 

 swarm entering its new home, which 

 was situated alongside of a very 

 dense mass of tall trees, the front of 

 the hive being at angles to the line 

 of the clump of vegetation. Hun- 

 dreds of bees were soon flying along 



the face of the mass of grass as if 

 looking for something, and Mr. Al- 

 paugh asked my judgment as to 

 their purpose. I had no opinion to 

 offer, so he told me that from his 

 point of view they were attracted by 

 the echo of the noise made by the 

 fanning bees at the entrance of the 

 hive, and that therefore bees must 

 be able to hear. 



This past season I was lucky 

 enough to have a visit at my own 

 apiary from his brother, Ephraim Al- 

 paugh, and naturally I told him of 

 my experience with Jacob. On re- 

 counting the swarming incident and 

 mentioning Jacob's deductions as to 

 hearing ability of bees, he assured 

 me he had better proof, which he 

 utilized for many years in a very 

 practical way in swarming time. 

 When a swarm clusters he never 

 troubles to gather it in, but he puts 

 the new hive as near to the swarm 

 as possible, picks a handful of bees 

 from the bottom of the cluster, 

 throws it on the alighting board close 

 to the entrance, then proceeds about 

 his regular work. As soon as the 

 bees start fanning at the doorway, 

 the cluster begins to break up and in 

 less than a quarter of an hour all 

 the bees in the swarm will have 

 joined those at the hive. In his 

 judgment the bees of the cluster hear 

 the cheerful call "Home is found," 

 and at once join their sisters. I 

 must confess I was rather incredu- 

 lous, but a friend who was with Mr. 

 Alpaugh assured me he had seen the 

 act done a score of times without a 

 single failure. Naturally I wanted 

 to know just how far bees travel in 

 such circumstances, and Mr. Alpaugh 

 said that on one occasion the swarm 

 had clustered on a fence rail and 

 post, so out of curiosity he placed 

 the hive on the ground 12 feet from 

 the swarm. On this occasion the 

 bees did not fly but crawled down the 

 post and marched like an army along 

 the ground to the hive. It was about 

 the most interesting sight he had 

 seen in his beekeeping c:;reer. 



His news was too good to be kept, 

 for, if true, it solved very simply 

 many awkward swarming problems. 



Baptist Beck's bee garden. Old stone bouse in background 



I have vivid recollections of a lady 

 dramatically reciting her troubles 

 with a swarm that landed on a stump 

 which was covered with a big growth 

 of wild blackberries whose prickly 

 stems forbade all attempts to handle 

 the bees. Seven different swarms 

 had landed in the same place, and 

 she lost them all. She denounced her 

 book of instructions (L was the un- 

 fortunate author), which told her 

 how to handle a swarm that clus- 

 tered on the branch of a tree, but her 

 swarms never went on trees, they 

 always preferred inaccessible stumps. 

 I grinned for a quarte/ of an hour, 

 and the more I chuckled, the warmer 

 she got. It was one of the most de- 

 lightful episodes of my life, so pic- 

 turesque and so free was her flow 

 of rhetoric. Well, I passed the good 

 news along, and then one of my 

 young beekeepers said, "I want to 

 make a confession to you, I have 

 been practicing this system for three 

 years, but with a rather silly addi- 

 tion, so I have alwaj's been afraid to 

 tell you about it." It seems he was 

 one day about to gather in a swarm 

 that had clustered on a bunch of 

 grass when an elderly woman who 

 was passing said, "Let me show you 

 how we handled that kind of swarm 

 back in Ontario." She set the front 

 of the hive on the edge of the clus- 

 ter, laid a few grasses with adhering 

 bees at the entrance, then proceeded 

 to bang the rear of the hive with a 

 stick. To my friend's surprise the 

 bees left the grass and entered the 

 hive. The lady claimed the noise at- 

 tracted the bees of the cluster to 

 those on the alighting board. He had 

 practiced the method many times 

 without a failure, but hated to own 

 up that he had in any way made a 

 noise, feeling I would ridicule the 

 idea. 



Next in order was a day spent with 

 Mr. F. W. L. Sladen, Dominion api- 

 arist. Such a day is always a red 

 letter one, for I advance all my latest 

 notions and chuckle with glee as he 

 runs his little scalping knife through 

 them, sweeps aside all the non- 

 essentials, and gets at the meat in 

 the kernel. I set forth all I have 

 said above, then awaited the out- 

 come. "No proof that bees can hear, 

 just confirmation that they can 

 smell. Over twenty years ago I 

 pointed out that there are many 

 scent glands in a bee's abdomen, and 

 that when bees fan their wings they 

 scatter the scent for many yards 

 around them to attract others. The 

 scent will easily travel a dozen feet. 

 Furthermore, I believe that when 

 bees are clustered in an inaccessible 

 position, such as the limb of a tree, 

 the beekeeper need not get bees 

 from the cluster; those from any 

 hive will do just as well. Just take a 

 frame of bees and shake them in 

 front of the new hive; the old ones 

 will fly home, the young ones will 

 take possession and fan for help. 

 The scent will reach the cluster, and 

 its members will join those on the 

 entrance board. Some day when you 

 see bees fanning, just put your nose 

 close and you will smell the scent, 

 which has an odor like iodine." 



