February, 1917 



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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 

 GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



FROM THETIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



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M. 



Conversations with Beekeepers 



Do bees ever collide on the wing? Are 

 they affected by objects in motion? Does a 

 black hat really rouse the ire of bees? These 

 may be unimportant to old beekeepers, but 

 they are very interesting to the man just 

 commencing. 



As beekeeping is quite largely made up 

 of little things, a better understanding of 

 these may lead to our comfort in handling 

 bees, and also so interest us that we may 

 make a greater success in our undertaking. 



COLLISION AMONG BEES- 



Regarding the collision of bees when on 

 the wing: This is something which I do 

 not remember any one asking about before. 

 Years ago, when this part of New York 

 State was quite largely timbered, there was 

 a place cleared off between two of the large 

 tracts of woodland, about twenty rods wide 

 and 30 to 40 rods from my apiary. This 

 seemed to form a grand highway for the bees 

 as they hurried to and from the apiary to 

 the basswood bloom on the hillside a mile or 

 two away. Many a time have I lain stretch- 

 ed at full length on my back directly under 

 this highway of teeming thousands with my 

 eyes partially shaded by my hands observ- 

 ing that the air was apparently full of dark 

 lines showing their course of transit. While 

 I never saw a head-on collision I quite fre- 

 quently observed two lines apparently meet 

 and then slightly diverge in a somewhat 

 altered direction. This was probably a 

 wing collision. These little jolts were ap- 

 parently more numerous in case of bees 

 which were coming in heavily loaded. At 

 times of strong winds I would find quite a 

 number of bees crawling, apparently dis- 

 abled, on the gTound with no apparent or- 

 ganic ailment. My thought was that these 

 bees had been disabled by collisions. If 

 this thought was right, why are there no 

 collisions when bees are swarming? The 

 air is full of circling dark lines, and I have 

 noticed crippled bees crawling on . the 

 ground under swarms which had just alight- 

 ed on some low-down limb. In case of a 

 swarm, nearly if not all of the bees are 

 loaded, and they fly with their abdomens 

 hanging down more than usual, so that the 

 chances for a head-on collision are not so 

 gi'eat as with the rush "^f unloaded bees for 

 the fields. 



RAPID MOTION IRRITATES BEES. 



Regarding bees being affected by objects 

 in motion: A man will not need to run 



more than two or three times backward and 

 forward thru the apiary before he Avill be 

 doing some hiding. Nothing except the 

 jarring of their home irritates bees more 

 than rapid motions about the hives, and 

 especially in front of the entrance. Espe- 

 cially is this true where the apiarist visits 

 the out-apiary only two or three times dur- 

 ing the season. On a return after a two- 

 months' absence every move is watched. If 

 I approach a little too close to the hives it 

 will be resented and the bees will attack my 

 feet and ankles; and, eventually, my head. 

 After an hour or two of work this pettish- 

 ness on their part is not so noticeable. 



I read somewhere that if a flag were plac- 

 ed in the apiary it would have a tendency 

 to accustom the bees to motion. Having a 

 strawberry-bed that came to the edge of the 

 bee-yard I put up some differently colored 

 pieces of cloth to keep the robins away. 

 While this did not seem to have any effect 

 on the robins, yet I soon became aw^are that 

 I was not bothered so much by the nettle- 

 someness of the bees at this end of the 

 apiary. 



Interviews from many " inquiring " bees 

 are not altogether pleasant. Why is it 

 that a few bees will take upon themselves 

 the duty of following you about the apiary? 

 If you do not flght them there will be hardly 

 more than from three to five. Even if you 

 retire two or three rods away, three or four 

 bees will pester you. If you have a paddle 

 and knock them down and there is no scent 

 from poison, it will not take five minutes 

 for their places to be filled by another three 

 to five bees when there might as well be 

 as many thousand. It is a mystery, is it 

 not? 



THE EFFECT OP DIFFERENT COLORS f 



As to the ire of bees being roused by dif- 

 ferent colors : This is something which has 

 been much discussed during the past, the 

 majority believing that a dark color is 

 offensive to the bees. I well remember go- 

 ing with three other beekeej^ers to visit an 

 apiary, the others wearing light - colored 

 hats while mine was black. It was soon 

 noticeable that I was the target for all cross 

 bees. The color theory came up and I 

 changed for the whitest of the other three 

 hats. This change seemed to make no dif- 

 ference. The bees selected me as the one to 

 vent their spite upon, while the wearer of 

 the black hat was as immune as before. 

 These hats were all of the kind which are 



