FEBRUARY 15, 1916 



149 



ian stock. I lost this one, but soon got 

 another and succeeded with it, then I got 

 started with an outfit of five hives from Mr. 

 J. M. Jenkins, of Wetumpka, Ala., which 

 I got for about $6.00 for the five eight- 

 frame hives. They never gave me satisfac- 

 tion, I made a few hives that were worse 

 still, so I tried the Danzenbaker, a few at 

 first, and liked them well for the produc- 

 tion of honey, either comb or extracted, as 

 I could use the body and one suiDer for the 

 queen to occupy. But for the last few years 

 I have bought nothing but the ten-frame 

 Langstroth, as it is the Ideal hive for my 

 work in handling frames. 1 have now 100 



colonies of fine Italian bees in up-to-date 

 hives with 200 queen nuclei. I did over 

 $1100 worth of business in 1914, with a 

 clear jDrofit of over $700. 



We have seven girls and two boys in our 

 family. We are all big honey-eaters, and 

 we have not had to have a doctor in fifteen 

 years. We often eat nearly 60 lbs. of honey 

 in a month when we don't have molasses. 

 We can give the best record of health of 

 any family in this part of the country. I 

 used to think I had bad lung trouble, but 

 when I began to follow Terry it disappear- 

 ed soon. 



Jellieo, Tenn. 



PROOF THAT BEES FLY LONG DISTANCES IN CALIFORNIA 



BY P. C. CHADWICK 



I have scarcely recovered from my sur- 

 prise after reading the editorial on page 

 965, Dec. 1, endorsing the article of Mr. 

 F. M. Baldwin on the distance bees will fly 

 in quest of stores. It is utterly impossible 

 for me to conceive the idea that a perfectly 

 healthy bee would not go five miles for hon- 

 ey if necessary, and even up to ten, on 

 special occasions. If Mr. Baldwin's bees 

 will not gO' one mile for nectar I am con- 

 vinced there must be something wrong with 

 his strain of bees. If it were really true 

 that a bee would not go more than a mile 

 and a half for nectar, the bee business in 

 California would be much less profitable 

 than at present, and in many instances 

 could not be maintained on a paying basis. 

 There are so many instances to my person- 

 al knowledge where from thi-ee to five miles 

 are covered, the idea of only one and a half 

 miles of flight being common seems utterly 

 absurd. I have never thought for a mo- 

 ment that a bee is led by the sight of flora, 

 and cannot yet believe that such is the case. 



The editor has knowledge of the location 

 of my Tremont yard, and its distance from 

 the orange-gToves, for he has stood on the 

 edge of the canyon and looked far away to 

 the foot-hills where it is located. The dis- 

 tance to the nearest orange-trees is three 

 miles, and it is necessary for the bees to 

 penetrate the groves to some extent to get 

 at the nectar quickly, yet this apiary gath- 

 ers annually just as much honey from the 

 orange as do those nearly two miles closer. 

 A few years ago we had a very dry sea- 

 son, wild flora being at a low ebb, and very 

 little chance for a bee to secure a load of 

 nectar from any near source out in the 

 foot-liill region. The apiary of Mr. E. D. 

 Bullock was at that time located down in 

 the " bad lands " district, between San Ti- 



mateo and the Moreno Valley, and was a 

 good seven miles from the orange district, 

 yet his bees went to the orange-gi'oves for 

 honey. 



This season at Tustin, Cal., an apiary of 

 Mr. Geo. J. Brown was a distance of five 

 miles from the nearest sage, and that only a 

 fringe, it being seven miles to any sage of 

 consequence, yet some colonies in this yard 

 stored as much as sixty pounds of sage 

 honey. There is absolutely no chance for 

 any mistake in this conclusion— first, for 

 the reason that the honey secured was un- 

 doubtedly from the sage; and, second, the 

 fact that there was nothing at that time 

 from which bees could secure honey out in 

 the level valley, which is devoted to the 

 culture of walnuts, oranges, lemons, and 

 beane, none of which were in bloom at that 

 time. In the case of the flight from the 

 apiary of Mr. Bullock there was positively 

 no chance for the bees to see the ilora until 

 several miles from their hives. 



Some years ago my uncle, J. K. William- 

 son, had an apiary in Appleby Canyon, 

 which is located several miles from the 

 bluecurl fields near the city of Beaumont; 

 yet morning after morning have I watched 

 his bees line out for the bluecurl fields to 

 the northeast, which is the direction of 

 these fields from their location. This source 

 was figured on as a great asset for the 

 stimulating of breeding late in the fall, and 

 while not a heavy producing source shows 

 that even a light flow will take the bee 

 miles to his work. To those who know 

 Appleby at the point of the location of this 

 apiary it will be plainly apparent that the 

 flora could not be observed before they had 

 traveled a distance of more than a mile, and 

 had made an elevation of several hundred 

 feet up out of this canyon. 



