1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



919 



the frames out of the hive but one, and ate, 

 I should judge, about 8 or 10 lbs. of honey 

 and brood. I have a shanty where I move my 

 bees to with a bed and stove as furniture. 

 There are no neighbors within a mile. I take 

 my wheel and go to sleep in the shanty every 

 night. On getting up Wednesday morning I 

 discovered that Bruin had visittd the bees 

 during the night. During the day I took 

 three bear-traps and set them ready to give 

 the bear a warm reception if she returned that 

 night, as I was sure she would. I was a little 

 la e getting back to the shanty that night, it 

 being already dark, and as I neared the bees 

 I heard the bear making off through the 

 brush, she not having got up to the traps yet. 

 I lay awake most of the night waiting for her 

 to return, but in vain. Thursday night I ar- 

 rived at the shanty before dark, went inside, 

 and lay down and kept very quiet. About 8 

 o'clock I heard one of the traps snap and the 

 bear make one " whoo," for all the world like 

 a hog when scared ; but the first jump took 

 her out of the trap, it having got a very poor 

 hold of her. She then went away, but return- 

 ed the next night, went around all three of 

 the traps, and took another colony, carried it 

 away a short distance, turned it upside down, 

 and took another square meal. Owing to 

 thrashing, I was rather tired, and dropped off 

 to sleep, and did not hear her at all ; but on 

 getting up in the morning I found that she 

 had called again during the night. I then 

 moved two of the traps to a new location 

 ready for Saturday night. When evening 

 came I went to the shanty early, went inside, 

 and kept quiet so as not to scare her, as I felt 

 sure she would not elude the traps again. 

 About half-past seven back she came, and 

 plunked a front foot square into one of 

 the traps. I lit the lantern, took the gun and 

 went to shoot her, but could not get near 

 enough until she had taken the trap about 40 

 rods, with myself in hot pursuit. I was as- 

 tonished at the speed she made with a large 

 trap and clog on her foot, and that in thick 

 poplars too ; but eventrally. I got close 

 enough to give her a shot which brought her 

 down. I repeated the dose, and soon had the 

 satisfaction of putting my hand on her fur. 

 She weighed 213 lbs., she being quite poor 

 yet. The two colonies that she took a feed 

 out of have built up again for winter all right. 

 Filion, Mich., Oct. 8. 



[I think we may safely set it down as a rule 

 that bees will not ordinarily fly more than a 

 mile and a half in quest of stores ; and the 

 great bulk of them will keep within the mile 

 limit. I had very satisfactory proof of this a 

 few years ago — proof that I will not now take 

 space to give. While it is true that bees may 

 fly seven miles, yet such long flights are so 

 very rare that we do not need to count on 

 them at all. If pasturage is beyond a mile 

 and a half, I think it would pay well to move 

 to where it is, notwithstanding some bees 

 might be lost in getting back to the old loca- 

 tion. Your scheme of having an entrance- 

 closing device is good. I have thought of 

 something similar a number of times, but 



never got around to having a set of them 

 made. — Ed.] 



MOVING BEES SHORT DISTANCES. 



In Gleanings the question is asked in re- 

 gard to moving bees short distances. I moved 

 my apiary last spring after they had been fly- 

 ing in the spring. We closed up the entrances 

 early in the morning of a cool day, and moved 

 them to a location five rods away, and in the 

 evening we placed a board slanting before the 

 entrance, covering it over, and opened up just 

 a little so the bees could come out ; and after 

 being closed up so long, and then finding the 

 entrance covered they took their bearing, and 

 scarcely a bee went to the old stands. 



J. T. VanPetten. 



Washington, Kan., Oct. 18. 



LOCATING AN APIARV. 



"Good morning, Mr. Doolittle. I have 

 come clear from Texas (by letter) to have a 

 little talk with you about locating an apiary. 

 I expect to start with 2-5 colonies, and wish to 

 increase them to 100 during the years to 

 come." 



"Well, 25 colonies is rather too many to 

 start with unless you have some knowledge 

 already of bee keeping." 



" I have been fjtudying the matter for three 

 years to a certain extent, reading all I came 

 across in the agricultural papers, and I have 

 visited two or three bee-yards." 



" This will be a help to you ; but before en- 

 tering the ranks of bee-keepers you should 

 purchase one or two good books on bee-keep- 

 ing, like the A B C, or Langstroth's work, and 

 read them till you are familiar with the sub- 

 ject. Then you should take one or more 

 of the bee-papers, like Gleanings, American 

 Bee Journal, RevieiVy Progressive, or the 

 American Bee-keeper.^'' 



" I expect to do this; but what I wish to 

 know just now is, what is the best position in 

 which hives should be placed ? " 



" In reply to this I would say that they 

 should be perfectly level from side to side, and 

 slope a trifle toward the entrance or front of 

 the hive, enough to carry off the water when 

 it rains. This helps the bees al.so to build 

 straight combs, where a person allows the bees 

 to build them, instead of furn'shing them 

 with frames filled with comb foundation." 



" Should hives be always thus fixed ? " 



" Fixing them in the way I have told you 

 was on the supposition that the frames of 

 comb run lengthwise toward the front side of 

 the hive or entrance, as is considered best by 

 nearly all of our leading apiarists. If they 

 run crosswise to the entrance, then the hive 

 should be level both ways." 



" Understanding that part, the next thing 



