GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



195 



use uails in preference to any tbing else; but 

 I've no use for fixed frames either. 



WHY DO I'LANTS YIELD HONEY SOMETIMES AND 

 SOMETIMES NOT? 



Well, it is a disputed point, some thinking it 

 wants lots of electricity; out the poorest sea- 

 sons, and ihe most of them, with me, have been 

 just that kind of weather. Then others say, 

 dry and warm. Well, that is better for a little 

 while, but it's sure to cut the flow off by killing 

 the plants if it is very dry; besides, in my opin- 

 ion, drouth is very nearly always at the bottom 

 of the whole thing of honey failure. In an 

 experience of 37 years with bees I have never 

 had a good yield of honey in a season that fol- 

 lowed a very dry spell the year before; and I 

 never had a failure the next year after a wet 

 summer, no matter what the next year was — 

 hot or cool, wet or dry. Do you see the point ? 

 Some do, and some don't. Well, it is this: If 

 plants can have sufficient moisture all through 

 one season they will prepare for a good yield 

 the next year, and will give it unless something 

 kills them next year or they get winter-killed. 

 I have never seen it fail. 



As to the theory of the condition of the at- 

 mosphere at the time of blooming, I don't be- 

 lieve ii makes much difference. Indeed, the 

 best yields of honey I ever got were in some of 

 the very worst atmospheric conditions possible. 

 I once had one week of great yield when it was 

 so cold and dry that it killed the clover in a 

 week, and killed all the field bees to get the 

 honey too. The sunshine was very bright every 

 day; but a cold northeast wind blew right off 

 Lake Erie. The clover belt was about a mile 

 from the lake, and about two miles from the 

 apiary (every thing nearer and on higher and 

 dryer land dried up without coming to bloom 

 at all); and the bees were obliged to face that 

 chilling wind to get there, and at the end of 

 one week there were no workers left, all having 

 perished except the younger ones not old enough 

 to work outside. The clover also perished 

 about the same time; but in that week the best 

 hive filled .50 1-lb. sections, and made a winter 

 supply, and the weaker ones got heavy for 

 winter. Trees are not so much affected as 

 plants, as they form their buds and get ready 

 for next year during the month of June, espe- 

 cially basswood, the buds of which are full 

 grown and all wood growth done usually by the 

 middle of the month; and although the latter 

 part of the season may be very dry, it does not 

 make much if any difference with plants like 

 buckwheat that grow and bloom all the same 

 year. I think the same conditions prevail, as I 

 never knew it to yield much honey unless it 

 could have moisture to make a good thrifty 

 growth up to the blooming period; but if stunt- 

 ed, and short of water when it was going up 

 to bloom there was little or no honey, no matter 

 how favorable the weather was during bloom. 



I have had four good crops of honey in suc- 

 cession, every season of which had had lots of 

 rain; then that was followed by six years of 

 drouth, and not one of these gave any more 

 than enough to winter the bees; and since I 

 have been here we have had three dry seasons 

 followed by no honey the next year, and two 

 wet ones followed by good yields the next year. 

 This past summer was fairly wet, and I expect 

 honey next year any way, whether wet or dry, 

 unless it should be so dry that clover can not 

 grow at all, as it was two years ago. 



BEE ESCAPES, ETC. 



ANSWER TO MR. F. GREINER's INQUIRY, PAGE 



83. 



By S. A. Shuck. 



It is one of the peculiar characteristics in the 

 natural instinct of our common bees not to de- 

 sert their home, by compulsion or otherwise, 

 without taking sufficient food with them to last 

 them two or three days. This is manifest in the 

 amount of honey taken from a hive by a swarm 

 just issuing; also, when bees ai'e drummed from 

 box hives in transferring; or in disturbing them 

 in any way so as to disorganize them from their 

 regular routine of business. 



So pronounced is this peculiarity in their na- 

 ture that any disturbance of a hive that inter- 

 feres with the labor of its inmates seems to be- 

 get within them a fear that they are to be sum- 

 marily expelled from their home. The peculiar 

 individuality of different colonies of bees makes 

 this matter much more discernible in some col- 

 onies than in others, and is much more pro- 

 nounced in some races than in others. For in- 

 stance, the common black and Carniolan bees 

 are much more excitable and become disturbed 

 much easier than pure Italians. The former, 

 on becoming disturbed, do not look for open 

 cells from which to obtain a supply of food, but 

 in their excitement they tear open the cells 

 about them, take up a supply of honey with 

 manifest nervousness, and rush from the combs 

 in that pell-mell, hurry-scurry kind of way that 

 is so characteristic of those races, and which 

 make them so distasteful to the practical bee- 

 master. 



Now, in answer to Mr. Greiner's question, 

 " Who can tell us why bees act so in one case 

 and not in another?" I wish to say that, when 

 the escapes are used in the height of the honey 

 season, the bees have all the honey in their sacs 

 they can conveniently care for; and when they 

 are disturbed by the insertion of an escape- 

 board, there is no occasion for their taking up 

 more honey; consequently the cappings are not 

 interfered with. But after the cessation of the 

 honey flow, and especially at the close of the 

 season, there are not only fewer open cells that 

 contain honey, but the bees have but little or 



