1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



781 



of good to think that a great railway system 

 is in the habit of protecting stupid and blun- 

 dering travelers in that way. 



AN INSTANCE OF THE WONDERFUI, INTEL- 



I.IGENCE AND ALMOST REASONING 



POWER OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



On the 12th of September a shipment of 

 honey came in, and two 60-pound cans had 

 been damaged so that the contents had leaked 

 out and run through the floor of the box car. 

 The railroad company had agreed to take the 

 car away at half-past ten ; and as the weather 

 was cool the bees had not discovered it at 

 that time. Unfortunately the company failed 

 to move the car as agreed, and I knew noth- 

 ing of it till I was apprised something was 

 wrong by the unusual number of bees swarm- 

 ing around the windows and doors of the fac- 

 tory. Then I made a little row in the camp. 

 We carried a hose over to the leaky car and 

 washed away the honey, cleaning it from the 

 gearing, ironwork, and underside of the car 

 until the bees were pretty well satisfied there 

 was nothing more to get, although they were 

 hanging around in great numbers. To pre- 

 vent the bees from getting the honey inside 

 the car, our boys covered the floor pretty well 

 with sawdust. About three o'clock the engine 

 came around and pulled the car away. A lit- 

 tle after four, some men who were loading 

 wheat informed us our bees were making them 

 a great deal of trouble. I at once jumped to 

 the conclusion that the company, instead of 

 taking the car entirely away, as agreed, had 

 only removed it to another location in the 

 yard, and that the sticky car was still enticing 

 our bees. I went over, saw the sawdust on 

 the floor on which they were dumping bags of 

 wheat, and concluded it was the honey-car ; 

 but while I was puzzling my head to account 

 for the fact that the ironwork under this car 

 showed no trace of honey or water either, a 

 man called to me and pointed to another car 

 in still another location, just swarming with 

 bees around its door, inside and out. Then I 

 *' caught on." Do you see the point, friends? 

 There was not a particle of honey in or around 

 either of the two cars I was looking at. After 

 the honey-car had been pulled clear out of 

 town, the bees, not willing to give up, proceed- 

 ed to "leave no stone unturned," and were 

 investigating every car having an open door 

 that, in their judgment, might be the one that 

 had been pulled away. When they found one 

 with sawdust spread over the floor they natu- 

 rally concluded that was the car, and got down 

 on their hands and knees (figuratively) search- 

 ing in the sawdust for the honey. The other 

 bees, seeing them thus employed, naturally 

 concluded this was the place. Others, having 

 learned that one box car contained so rich a 

 find, concluded that a search through all the 

 cars in the yard might possibly reward them 

 for their investigation ; and it was only in the 

 cool of the evening that they were willing to 

 stop digging in that sawdust, and be convinced 

 there were no more honey-cars in the neigh- 

 borhood. 



Now, friends, it may not be true that bees 



recognize cololrs, but they certainly do take in 

 the general makeup of objects. They are not 

 only able to recognize a hive, but they know a 

 box car at sight ; and even if you move it to a 

 different location they take in its general ap- 

 pearance so that they know pretty well how to 

 find it in case of removal. I am not prepared 

 to prove that they read the letters " Big Four" 

 on the side of that car, nor that they remem- 

 bered there was an enormous figure 4 printed 

 in white on the red door of the car they want- 

 ed ; but I tell you they came pretty close to 

 it. 



NOTES or TRAVm 



I BY A. I. root: 



ANOTHER TRIP TO NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 



I find myself the 20th of September in the 

 Traverse region once more, and I am greatly 

 interested in the different methods of farming 

 that I see going on about me. For instance, 

 Mr. Hilbert's 17-year-old boy is plowing un- 

 der a tremendous growth of clover in order to 

 sow rye. This rye is to be plowed under when 

 in blossom, for planting potatoes. Mr. H. has 

 for three or four years turned under rye for 

 potatoes to the extent of several acres each 

 year, and has never had scabby potatoes ; but 

 when he turns under clover in the spring he 

 often has a great part of his crop ruined by 

 scab ; and, by the way, this opens the way to 

 tell you that our new Russet, so called, has 

 been here for three or four years, and is called 

 the Csilifornia Russet, and never scabs. It is 

 grown largely, and would take the place of al- 

 most all others, but it does not yield like Em- 

 pire State, Beauty of Hebron, and Rural New- 

 Yorker. These three last are the great staple 

 varieties. The Rural gets so large it is often 

 hollow unless they prevent it by close plant- 

 ing. I told them I thought Carman No. 3 

 would be an improvement in this respect ; but 

 it has not been introduced here very much. 



Mr. Hilbert, situated out here in the coun- 

 try, ten miles from Traverse City, and a mile 

 and a half from his postofiice, makes a use of 

 the telephone I never thought of before. Last 

 evening, before sending to the postoflice, he 

 called up the postmaster and asked what mail 

 there was for him. The answer was, "Two 

 letters for A. I. Root, nothing else." I sug- 

 gested he might, if on good terms with the 

 postmaster, get him to read the postal cards to 

 him. He said that, in strawberry time, the 

 postmaster, by his request, often opened let- 

 ters and read them to him through the tele- 

 phone. One rainy evening after we had been 

 kept indoors all the afternoon, friend H. called 

 up several of his neighbors and introduced me 

 through the phone. Mr. C. Cole is a peach- 

 grower. He told me, in answer to questions, 

 that his peaches from five acres were going to 

 bring him this season fully $500. It gave me 

 the fever to start a small orchard on some 

 sharp high sandy hills on my 40 acre farm. I 

 had figured these hills were too high and steep 



