AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



369 



At 8 a.m. I took four frames of cap- 

 ped brood from as many different hives, 

 being careful not to get a queen, and 

 placed them in the nucleus hive. All 

 the bees that had ever had a flight be- 

 fore, went back to the hives they were 

 taken from. 



After shaking the young bees in the 

 nucleus hive, I returned all but one 

 brood-comb, thus leaving only young 

 bees. I placed the cage on the frames 

 of the nucleus. The first bees that dis- 

 covered the queen gave the glad hum ; 

 in half a minute all the bees had taken 

 it up, and covered the cage. I gently 

 pushed them away, so as to open the 

 cage, and the queen deliberately walked 

 out, all the workers facing her, and 

 sticking out their tongues, offering her 

 food. The next morning she was laying. 



This ought not to be tried only when 

 honey is coming in, and the day warm. 

 Take all the young bees on each comb 

 that you can. Now let those who care 

 to, or have not already observed the few 

 instances mentioned above, verify these 

 observations. 



Bees communicate by sound of wings, 

 and express joy, anger and fear. They 

 find a queen by the sound of her wings ; 

 they sound the alarm of her loss, and 

 the joy of her being found. 



Chicago, Ills., Aug. 1, 1892. 



How Far Do Bees Fly ? 



FRANK BENTON. 



Items under the above heading have 

 been going the rounds of the papers, 

 and the opinions expressed differ greatly, 

 some claiming "that bees will not go 

 farther than two or three miles," while 

 others think the distance is greater, one 

 even naming 12 miles as the limit. 



After mentioning the fact that the bee 

 makes 190 wing-strokes in a second, 

 one of the items widely copied says that 

 " scientists claim that 190 strokes per 

 second would propel the bee forward at 

 the rate of a mile per minute," and then 

 that " conservative writers admit the 

 bee's velocity to be at the rate of at 

 least 30 miles per hour." The same 

 writer then goes on to say: "Basing 

 our calculations on the latter figures, 

 and supposing that they can keep up 

 for 20 minutes, no matter how heavily 

 laden on the return trip, the rate of 

 speed on the outgoing would take them 

 10 or 12 miles from the home line." 



It is quite difficult to determine the 

 rate of speed attained in flight by bees. 



Therefore, any computation of the dis- 

 tance they go after honey, which is 

 based upon their supposed speed, is 

 liable to great error. The number of 

 wing-strokes per second, 190, as re- 

 corded above, was obtained by Prof. 

 Marey by what is known as the "graphic 

 method." 



A bee was held so that when its wings 

 were in motion one of them would strike 

 very lightly the surface of a revolving 

 cylinder covered with smooth paper 

 slightly smoked, and at the same time a 

 style fixed in the end of a tuning-fork was 

 arranged to record on paper vibrations 

 it makes per second, it was easy to com- 

 pare the number of these actually re- 

 corded with the record of the bee's wing 

 for the same time, and thus arrive at 

 the number of strokes the bee makes in 

 a second. It is evident, however, that 

 the friction of the bee's wings against 

 the paper must lessen somewhat the 

 number the number of strokes, and in- 

 deed Prof. Marey observed that as he 

 lessened this friction the • velocity in- 

 creased considerably. 



If the note made by the bee's wings 

 when she is in vigorous flight could be 

 accurately determined, the correspond- 

 ing number of vibrations required per 

 second to produce that pitch would rep- 

 resent the wing-strokes made by the bee 

 causing the sound. Dr. H. Landois 

 thinks the note of a bee in full flight 

 ranges from A to C of the first and sec- 

 ond leger of the treble clef. This gives 

 over 400 vibrations per second. 



If, then, " 190 strokes per second 

 would propel the bee forward at the 

 rate of a mile per minute" (a claim by 

 no means to be accepted as proven), and 

 if Landois has determined the note cor- 

 rectly, over 2 miles per minute would 

 be the speed attained. 



Conservative authorities are disposed 

 to place the rate of speed attained by 

 bees much below 30 miles per hour, 

 even no more than 18 to 20 miles, and 

 nothing is better recognized than that 

 bees when fatigued, when flying from 

 flower to flower, or when returning 

 heavily laden to their hives, proceed far 

 more slowly than when outward bound. 

 Thus the calculation that they go 10 or 

 12 miles from home is plainly erroneous. 



How difficult it is to determine their 

 rate of speed, and hence however erro- 

 neous any calculations based upon such 

 determinations may be, it is not at all 

 difficult to tell practically how far bees 

 actually do go after honey. 



Apis melliftca has been introduced 

 into regions where the species did not 



