388 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



make the negative for me, as I was not pre- 

 pared at the time to do it myself. He made 

 me a few prints from it I contracted with 

 him to make quite a number for me, which 

 I never got. Soon after this he went to the 

 bay, rented a small boat, and went fishing. 

 In a few daj-s the boat was seen on the 

 beach, but he has never been heard of, nor 

 could my negative be found among his ef- 

 fects. 



In regard to the number of bees that this 

 frame produced at one hatch, a close calcu- 

 lation gives 8200, or about 2 lbs. of bees; 

 and the brood was all hatched in about two 

 days from the time the first hatched. This 

 would indicate that the queen was laying 

 at the rate of about ten and a half frames 

 of brood in 21 days. Counting two pounds 

 of bees to the frame would make 21 pounds 

 in 2 1 days; and 60 pounds of bees in 60 days, 

 or the average life of a bee. 



Now, I do not claim that she kept up that 

 rate of laying for 60 days, nor do I think I 

 had 60 pounds of bees in that hive at any 

 time; but I feel sure that Mr. Doolittle's 

 high estimate of 4000 eggs in 24 hours was 

 reached, and that they could have cast a 

 swarm, had they swarmed, that would have 

 broken the record mentioned in Gleanings 

 fjr Jan. 15, page 82. 



By the way, I have a picture of a swarm 

 of bees that might have been a "record- 

 breaker" in number of pounds, judging 

 from their weight bef re I got them off my 

 naked arm, and it is no doubt a record- 



breaker in some respects, in that I have 

 never heard of a swarm of bees being pho- 

 tographed while on the naked arm of a man. 



During the ear.y spring I conceived a de- 

 sire to have a large hive swarm, and catch 

 the swarmon my naked arm, and photograph 

 it, and for this purpose I selected six two-story 

 hives thati alloweo tobecomecrowdedtoover- 

 iiowing with bees. I prepared my camera for 

 the work, and watched and waited for days 

 for the swarm to issue. Finally I was re- 

 warded by the swarm you see on my naked 

 arm, in the picture, coming out just about 

 noon, the best time of th ; day to do the work. 

 I bared my arm to my shoulder, cast aside 

 my hat, and proceeded to the bush where 

 they were clustering. I soon fjuud the 

 queen, and caught her in my hand, and 

 with the other hand I took bees from the 

 cluster and placed them on m hand, where 

 they soon discovered the queen and set up a 

 call. I soon had them coming my way in 

 great shape. I now opened my hand and 

 let the queen go free with the bees; occasion- 

 ally smoking, and shaking the bush to get 

 the bees to leave it. Soon I had more bees 

 trying to cluster on my arm than c mid, as 

 their weight would break them loose. I 

 finally got a twig with leaves on it and 

 placed one end of it between my fingers, and 

 I soon had my left wing completed, as. you 

 see. The white place near my elbow and 

 at the point of my shoulder were the only 

 places not fully fledged. 



Although I practically had bees all over 



W. O. VICTOR HOLDING A BIG SWARM OF BEES ON THE BARE ARM. 



