20 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CirLTURE. 



Jan. 



about which day should be Sunday, and 

 many other matters of similar import. It 

 seems to me, my good friend, that almost 

 all the world will be willing to stnnd side by 

 side with you and me on this ])oint. Then 

 why not let us unite here and drop these 

 other things that must be, to a greater or 

 lesser extent, mere matters of opinion. 

 " There shall be one fold and one shepherd." 



SETTING BEES IN" EARLY. 



HONEY NOT ONLY STORED FASTER IN FOUNDA- 

 TION, BUT OF SUPERIOR QUALITY. 



XJFOUR remarks on why bees can store honey 

 I^Hki faster when furnished with foundation than 

 '^^ when furnished with empty combs, were 



"*' most interesting-. One thing-, it seems to me, 

 should be emphasized; and that is, the quali- 

 ty of the honey is decidedly improved by the foun- 

 dation process. Being- so perfectly ripened, the 

 smooth, oily taste so much craved would be pres- 

 ent. Who would advise the same line in working 

 for exti-aeted honey? We are confronted with the 

 same difficulty there, in a modified way. The cells 

 are not so deep, but too deep for the current of air 

 to pass " close to the surface " of the first nectar 

 deposited; and has not extracted honey taken from 

 new combs been found richer in flavor than that 

 taken from old combs, even though both were cap- 

 ped over? This is a large subject, and should be 

 amplified through Gleanings. 



My bees were humming merrily yesterday. I 

 placed my thermometer on the south side of the 

 honey-house, and it soon marked 95°. Your " zero 

 weather " made it quite plain to you that Mr. Doo- 

 little had " hit it this year." This 9.5° weather makes 

 it quite as clear to me that he would not have made 

 an egregious blunder had he left them till now. 

 To-day seems quite as pleasant as yesterday. 



Lawndale, 111., Dec. 8, 1887. F. C. Blount. 



Friend B., I think you are very likely 

 right, and that our extracted honey would 

 be better if stored and ripened in combs 

 with shallow cells. We can secure this by 

 having the combs quite close together. 



HOW MANY COLONIES TO THE 

 SQUARE MILE? 



friend FRANCE RECONSIDERS THE SUB.IECT DIS- 

 CUSSED ON PAGE 816. 



N Nov. 1st. Gleanings, page 816, friend Porter 

 introduces the inquiry as to how many bees 

 can be kept profitably on one square mile, and 

 that without regard to the range inside of the 

 mile. As he puts it, the bees are not confined 

 to one square mile, for he says the bees may be put 

 at the corners of the mile. In that case a very 

 small proportion of their produce comes from the 

 one square mile. We all know that bees do range 

 off awny from home for from one to five or six 

 miles, to gather honey. If they can not do better 

 they will Hy si.v miles to gather honey, and that 

 over a lake five miles wide, without a chance of 

 stopping on the way to rest. Now, if bees go five 

 miles each way from the center mile, then we have 



11 miles square, or 121 square miles. That looks 

 like a big pasture for the bees that are on our one 

 square mile of ground. Now, if there are no other 

 bees kept nearer than ten miles of our bees we 

 should have the range to ourselves. If the pas- 

 ture is all good, perhaps we could keep 1000 colo- 

 nies on the one mile square. But divide the 1000 

 colonies by the 121 square miles of the range, and 

 we have a fraction over 8 colonies to the mile. 

 But, how far do bees fly, on an average, to gather 

 honey? In my opinion, very few go more than two 

 miles when honey is plentiful. Say they go two 

 miles. In that case, the bees located on the cor- 

 ners of the one square mile would have 25 square 

 miles to pasture on. Take the average of the 

 country about here, 200 colonies would be as much 

 as I should think profitable for that range. Here, 

 again, we have eight colonies to the mile. We are 

 keeping .500 colonies of bees here, divided into 6 

 apiaries. They are far enough apart to give each 

 apiary a range of 16 square miles, which gives us a 

 population of about 5^ colonies to the mile, and we 

 think we are stocked heavily enough. I should like 

 to hear from other large honey-producers on this 

 subject— how many bees they have, and about how 

 large a range they cover. 



We are all well aware, that there is a great dif- 

 ference in location. Take the land here in my lo- 

 cality, and there is not over one-fourth of it good 

 bee-pasture. All the good tillable land is plowed 

 up, and used to raise farmers' crops which do not 

 produce any honey. Then there is perhaps another 

 quarter of the land covered with timber, with no 

 basswood or any honey-bearing- trees. White clo- 

 ver and basswood are our main dependence. We 

 never get surplus from any other source. I am 

 very well aware, that there are many locations far 

 better than mine in which to keep bees. 



In closing my i-emarks on the subject of how 

 many colonies to the mile, I just want to say that 

 the remarks that were placed under Mr. Porter's 

 article (referred to above) caused a very percepti- 

 ble smile. I don't know who wrote those remarks, 

 but I suppose it was our much-respected uncle, 

 A. I. Root. It struck me that he must have had a 

 very slow horse, and it took him a long time to get 

 around that one square mile, for he came to the 

 conclusion that it was a large tract of country, big 

 enough to place .50 colonies of bees on each corner, 

 and then have room in the middle for 50 more. I 

 would not put the .50 in the center, but, rather, 

 divide them up and add them to the corner apia- 

 ries. They would thus have an equal chance with 

 the others, and then I think it would depend a 

 great deal moi'e on what covered the surrounding 

 country for two or three miles out, then it would on 

 what covered those 640 acres. If one were raising 

 queens to sell, your arrangement of 2.50 colonies 

 (or nuclei) on a square mile, perhaps, would do, if 

 they were fed stores to winter on, and the nuclei 

 were doubled down to about half to winter; but 

 handling large colonies of bees, for the purpose of 

 a profitable honey crop, is another matter. We 

 want room, and plenty of good pasture. 



Platteville, Wis., Dec. 1.5, 1887. E. France. 



Yes, friend F., it was A. I. Root who 

 wrote that about riding around the square 

 mile; and T want to inform you that a 

 square mile is a good big slice of ground. I 

 suggested putting TjO colonies in the center, 

 because, when w'e arrange fruit-trees, cab- 



