676 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



place where Mr. Hill's apiary is situated, he 

 says these winged torments are numerous 

 enough to give tbe place its name. He says, 

 further, it is a noteworthy fact that the best 

 honey locations are usually found where the 

 insects are most numerous. Among other 

 "drawing cards" that render his place at- 

 tractive, Mr. Hill mentions snakes. While 

 removing combs of honey for the extractor 

 from the hives in the old house, a yellow 

 snake six feet long dropped with a dull thud 

 at the feet of Mr. Hill and his helpers. The 

 apparent escape of the dreadful reptile seems 

 to have been due to Mr. Hill's "sympathetic 

 nature." 



Replying to an article written by the editor 

 of the Chilean Bee-keeper, Mr. R. A. Sanhueza 

 makes a few corrections. He says Italians 

 were introduced into Chile in 1834 instead of 

 1865. Mr. S. says his bees have averaged, for 

 the past three years, 134 lbs. per colony, and 

 some colonies have yielded a maximum of 182 

 pounds. 



xi, 



H. L. Jones, of Australia, says those pests 

 of the hive, laying workers, should not be 

 spoken of in the singular number. He says 

 that on several occasions he has found laying 

 workers present in sufficient numbers to lay 

 over 20,000 eggs within 24 hours. He proved 

 it by placing a Langstroth frame, containing 

 between 7000 and 8000 cells, in the center of a 

 fairly strong colony infested with laying 

 workers, and within 24 hours he found that 

 about three-fourths of the cells had eggs de- 

 posited in them, each cell containing from 

 one to a dozen eggs, with an average of at 

 least four eggs to each cell. He concludes 

 that in this hive there must have been some 

 hundreds of laying w r orkers. 



A BAD LEAK. 



What Time of the Day do Prime and Second Swarms 



Come Forth? how shall we Prevent their 



Escape to the Woods ? 



BY E. E. HASTY. 



And what gets out at the bad leak ? Why, 

 swarms of bees leak to the woods when their 

 owner is not watching. And he's not watch- 

 ing because he has got somehow the notion 

 that bees very rarely swarm after two o'clock. 

 Worse than the Dutchman who can't see after 

 four o'clock, he can't see after two o'clock, 

 poor Sapiens Apicus can not. 



Apparently bees swarm during the first 

 available three hours after they are ready ; 

 and that special state of readiness arrives 

 as often one hour as another, day or night. 

 The night hours not being available, it fol- 

 lows, as a matter of course, that the three 

 first available hours of the day have not only 



their own swarms but those properly belong- 

 ing to the twelve or more hours previous ; 

 that is to say, five times their normal number 

 of swarms. The succeeding hours seem des- 

 titute in comparison, but that does not make 

 afternoon swarming abnormal at all. The 

 colony that gets ready at one o'clock is going 

 to swarm that afternoon, if weather is warm 

 and fine. Can we afford to lose these swarms 

 just because the morning hours put out five 

 times as many ? If we have five swarms dur- 

 ing the expected hours, that does not make 

 the one swarm due during the unexpected 

 hours any the less valuable, or any smaller as 

 a loss. I am pretty well convinced that the 

 afternoon hours really yield more than their 

 normal number of swarms when the ther- 

 mometer gets up into the eighties and nineties. 

 Swarms that are not quite ready begin to pick 

 up and go. 



It is tolerably well known that after-swarms 

 will often start during hours that prime 

 swarms would consider unavailable — very 

 early in the morning, or very late at night — 

 or even occasionally when it is raining slight- 

 ly. In their case it is not so much readine?s 

 as dander that determines the moment of 

 starting. The sharpness of the antagonism 

 between the queen who wants to destroy the 

 young princess and the workers who are de- 

 termined to save her, gets more and more 

 pronounced until the explosive point is reach- 

 ed. Probably those workers who were trying 

 to be neutral in the fuss start first for the 

 door, and the angry queen soon decides to go 

 along rather than continue her useless attack. 

 It may be that keeping these curious facts in 

 mind rather helps on our oblivion to the leak- 

 age of some of our best prime swarms. We 

 say, "If now and then an after- swarm does 

 get away, why, they're small affairs anyway." 



I chastise myself quite severely for one 

 thing concerning this matter. Ever since I 

 have kept bees I have kept a record of my 

 swarms ; and yet until the latter part of this 

 present swarming season I have never put 

 down the hour. If I had only done this the 

 required proof (or disproof) would be a very 

 simple affair. Although so slack about accu- 

 mulating proof, I have long been aware that 

 the prevalent idea was wrong ; and although 

 my statistical horse is a short horse I'll let hint 

 trot just as he is. 



The ordinary swarming season was famine 

 time at my yard, consequently few swarms, 

 only about 13 previous to June 3. On the day 

 just mentioned I had my mind freshly stirred 

 on the subject hy a prime swarm coming out 

 at five o'clock. The next day there were a 

 prime and two after-swarms, the precise hour 

 of which I can not now tell. Same remark 

 applies to two after-swarms on June 6, at 

 which point I resolved to date more precisely 

 all my swarms. The previous day, June 5, a 

 prime swarm came out at 3 p. M. As they 

 clustered in a difficult place, and I wanted to 

 do something else at the time, I conveniently 

 " allowed " that such a late swarm would stay 

 over night any way ; but at 4 : 15 they waved 

 me adieu and went to the woods. On June 7 

 two prime swarms came out and tangled to- 



