534 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



the mistake of praising them before 

 I liad used them as much as I ouglit 

 to before recommending them. 



I do not quite understand Mr. Iled- 

 don's arguments in regard to the dif- 

 ference in ferocity between pure Ital- 

 ians and tlie blaclvs, found on page 

 469. He there chiinis tlie best dispo- 

 sition for the blaclvs, but at the same 

 time admits tliat we get tlie least 

 stings from the Italians. His expla- 

 nation, that the flying bees are the 

 ones that sting, and those that stick 

 to the combs do not, strange to say is 

 correct ; but his explanation, that the 

 natural ferocity of the Italians is 

 what causes them to stick so closely 

 as they do to their combs, and that 

 the extreme mildness of the blacks is 

 what causes them to leave their 

 combs and come for the face of the 

 opeiator on the slightest provocation, 

 is what puzzles me. He may be cor- 

 rect in drawing the inference which 

 he does ; yet I cannot help seeing it 

 just the other way. 



One thing, however, I think is cer- 

 tain, i. e., stings we all wish to avoid ; 

 and the bees we are all looking after 

 (coming bees) are those which will 

 not fly out and come for us " with a 

 vengeance " every time their hive is 

 opened. 



Pure Italians, so far. have proved 

 to be just such bees ; and, as yet, we 

 have found no others possessing their 

 natural disposition not to sting ; and 

 until a race, strain, or cross can be 

 found possessing the mildness of the 

 pure Italians, together with certain 

 indelible and ever-present marks by 

 which they can always be distin- 

 guished, I, for one, shall stick to the 

 pure Italians as closely as they do to 

 their combs, and I shall not be alone 

 in this either. 



Foxboro, Mass. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Hiving Swarms— Overstocking. 



JA.MES HEDDON. 



The smallest number of colonies 

 that I have ever kept in one area, was 

 8 ; and the largest 225. The largest 

 pro rata yields I have ever had, was 

 when my apiary numbered notover 35 

 colonies. (In "giving the number of 

 colonies, I always give spring count.) 



Now I have no way of determining 

 positively that the difference in pro rata 

 yields was owing to the number of 

 colonies kept. Of all the apicultural 

 problems, to me this <me seems best 

 calculated to keep itself in obscurity. 

 We may change the number of colo- 

 nies from year to year, but the sea- 

 sons are also variable ; and they vary 

 so slyly that often we have no way of 

 knowing their exact influence upon 

 honey secretion, only by the amount 

 gathered by the bees. The problem 

 is one of vital importance to the 

 growing apiarist, to iiim who wishes 

 to make apiculture a business, one on 

 a scale large enough to be worthy of 

 the time, attention and labor of a 

 man of thouglit. Many are the 

 readers of the Bise .Journal who are 

 eager to greet anything that may 



shed a ray of light upon the dark and 

 foggy problem. 



Mr. Pond has Just made some asser- 

 tions upon the subject, but he has not 

 yet given us anything like proof, nor 

 do we see how, where or when he had 

 the opportunity to gather any such 

 knowledge as " he claims to have. 

 Previous to reading his article, I had 

 not the least idea that there is in 

 these United States a man who be- 

 lieves that a single acre is capable of 

 supporting '" 25 or 30 colonies," and 

 giving " at least 100 pounds of sur- 

 plus"' to each colony. Now, while I 

 do not know tliat Mr. P. is in error, I 

 do know how far my bees work to 

 advantage. I also know about what 

 proportion of the land in that area is 

 white with clover blossoms. Figures 

 that never lie. tell me that to utilize 

 this one area, we must keep about 

 25,000 colonies in our apiary, or in this 

 Held, if Mr. Pond's estimate is correct. 



I never supposed that any one 

 thought that flowers secreted and 

 evaporated their nectar every live 

 minutes. I thought that they were 

 hours and days about it. I know that 

 basswood nectar is very thin tlie first 

 day of secretion, and only gets to be 

 quite like honey on the fourth day of 

 secretion. I did not know but that 

 the nectar of the first day remained 

 in the blossoms (if not gathered) 

 for several days. I know that 

 there had been a decline in the gold 

 price of honey. Some way or other 

 I do not seem "to get more than about 

 half as much for honey as I used to, 

 and even at that have hard work to 

 dispose of the choicest grades ; while 

 I have letters of 12 years ago, urgently 

 soliciting cash purchases of my crop. 

 WeJl, perhaps this difference of un- 

 derstanding is owing to the difference 

 of sun'ounding influences between 

 Mr. Pond's location and mine. 



Mr. G. M. Doolittle writes wisely in 

 relation to the diiference in the ac- 

 tions of bees and flora and weather in 

 different locations, causing bee-keep- 

 ers to entertain such different opin- 

 ions. This brings me to a desire to 

 give some of my earlier experience 

 in " hiving swarms," since my experi- 

 ence differs so widely from his, as 

 given on page 487 ; and so perfectly 

 accords with Mr. Hutchinson's, as 

 given on page 437. 



As far as mutilating fruit trees is 

 concerned, no one could tell where 

 we had kept an apiary tor the last ten 

 years. I do not now remember just 

 when I have had a swarm bother me 

 liy alighting on the trunk of a tree. 

 They sometimes do so, but a little 

 experience in that line teaches us how 

 " dire evils fade if wisely met."' 



To show you how differently queens 

 act here, I will say that among our 

 clipped queens of years ago, and the 

 overloaded ones of to-day that go 

 down into the grass (and it" is pretty 

 short grass too), we very seldom, if 

 ever, find them unless we are on the 

 spot when they come out at the en- 

 trance. Many times we have looked 

 for the queen by the attention of 

 workers, and not more than one time 

 in ten have we ever seen the workers 

 pay any attention to her. On several 

 occasiiins we allowed them to crawl 



to see where they would go, and one 

 time. I well remember, the queen 

 went into a hive more than 4 rods 

 away, and was stung and dragged out. 



For years we have been using such 

 capturing-cages as Mr. D. describes, 

 and we have in the yard some frames 

 about 3 feet square, covered with 

 wire-cloth ; and if one of these is set 

 up slanting outward, in front of the 

 entrance, just as a swarm commences 

 to issue, nearly all the issuing bees 

 will crawl upon it. The queen bemg 

 heavier, according to wing -power, is 

 almost sure to, when we can very 

 easily capture her . with the cage 

 described by Mr. D. We must be on 

 hand at once when the swarm starts. 

 This we cannot always do, and the 

 result of it is of not so much impor- 

 tance either. At least not here. 



In place of " sheets " we use large 

 cheap spreads of second-hand burlap, 

 only because it is stronger and 

 cheaper. We found, like Mr. D., 

 that we could stop the queen from 

 running out by not letting her run in 

 until after a portion of the workers 

 had declared "a home." That works 

 here. Why will they run in with the 

 queen outside V Because they do not 

 seem to attach much importance to 

 her where-abouts until they all be- 

 come settled and quiet, when they 

 find that they are destitute of her 

 upon whom the perpetuation of the 

 colony depends. 



Now, for this same reason we could 

 never get the bees to cluster any 

 where at will by attaching the queen 

 to that place. Years ago we tried 

 the pole and dry mullen-heads ; also a 

 bush and the mullen-heads. We also 

 would quickly attach the cage con- 

 taining the queen by the use of the 

 annealed wire to a branch of an apple 

 tree, about which they were thickly 

 circling; but they never seemed to 

 recognize their •' ma." I recollect 

 only one instance among many where 

 they " went for that cage." 



Mr. E. W. .Jenkins, now of New 

 Buffalo, Dakota, has assisted me with 

 these and other experiments many 

 times. More than one- half of our 

 queenless swarms would alight, clus- 

 tering the same as usual, and hang 

 there for hours, if not removed by 

 force. Bees sometimes act very dif- 

 ferently from what they do at other 

 times. Quite often, when dividing up 

 a big bundle of simultaneous swarms, 

 as Mr. D. spoke of the bees given to 

 each queen being of several colonies, 

 we find it necessary to cage and in- 

 troduce the queens to prevent " ball- 

 ing." I have also tried the plan Mr. 

 D. speaks of. to tell from what colony 

 the unobserved swarm issued ; but 

 we now use what here suits us better, 

 as it is quicker and prevents "for- 

 getting all about it." We hive the 

 swarm, wait until they are all in, and 

 then having previously saved a gill of 

 the bees, put them into a quart cup 

 with a small handful of flour, shake 

 them up thoronghly, and taking them 

 just outside of the apiary, let them 

 illy, then go back into the apiary, and 

 we have no trouble in finding the 

 parent colony at once. 



The plan of hiving swarms, as 

 given by Mr. Hutchinson, is just what 



