1903 



GLEANINGS IN REE CULTURE. 



r23 



1900, 40 lbs.; l^'Dl, nothing; 1902, 110 lbs. ; 

 I'HKi, 60 lbs.; spring' good, prospects for 

 fall How, as we had an inch of rain the 5th. 

 King up Uvalde, Texas. This makes l.^TO 

 lbs. per colony for 13 years, all extracted, 

 as section honej* is foolishness, I think. I 

 never let m^* bees be idle a minute. As 

 soon as the super is well filled it is taken 

 ofi' and ripened artiticiallj', if it needs 

 ripening-; and it needs ripening- unless it 

 weighs 12 lbs. to the gallon. 



VlKGII, Wravkk. 

 Bucke3'e, K}'., July 13. 



[I am not able to give j'ou much definite 

 information on this subject. The experi- 

 ment was tried once bj' putting bees on a 

 raft, by C. O. Perrine, something- over 20 

 years ago; but it did not prove to be a suc- 

 cess. Too man3' bees were lost 

 on the water. The expense of 

 moving was considerable, and the 

 whole plan was abandoned as a 

 failure. But j-our plan differs a 

 little in having: a boat to accom- 

 modate the bees; and if you land- 

 ed them every time you made a 

 stop J'OU would do awaj' with the 

 losses on the water, probably. 

 It seems, at first thought, as if 

 the plan ought to work. If }Ou 

 can build a boat at the price 

 you mention, and in such a waj' 

 that it can be converted to other 

 uses in case it is a failure for the 

 purpose you design it, so that 

 you would not lose the price of 

 the boat, it might be well to try 

 the experiment. But 30U would 

 have to paj' a tug for towing- you 

 from one point to another. 



But a better and perhaps a 

 cheaper plan would be a gaso- 

 linelaimch engine with propel- 

 ler to drive you from point to 

 point. Perhaps that was con- 

 templated in 3'our estimate of 

 J700. 



The one difficulty (and I think 

 the chief one) with the ftlan is 

 that the season advances so 

 rapidlj' that it is questionable 

 whether you could move fast 

 enough to keep up. White clover 

 opens up with us somewhere 

 about the middle or last of June, 

 and usually lasts two weeks, and 

 sometimes a month. Basswood 

 usually' comes on before clover 

 ceases. But about the first of 

 July our season is often entirely 

 closed. If we could move the 

 bees hy express (a boat would 

 be too slow) to Northern Mich 

 igan we might be able to c^tch 

 the later honey- flow. My own 

 personal opinion is, the season 

 would come on more rapidly than 

 3'ou could move your boat. You 

 probably could not go much more 

 than three or four miles an 



hour unless you had a tug- to haul you, 

 and that would be expensive. In order to 

 catch the flow as it opened up from point to 

 point northward, you ought to have the 

 wings of the wind. An express train would 

 not be any too fast. A failure of the whole 

 scheme, if it came at all, would be because 

 of your inability to move fast enough when 

 you desired to change your bee-range. A 

 difi'erence of SO miles would be hardly per- 

 ceptible: You would probably have to go 

 300 or 400. If your bees were doing well at 

 one range you could hardly aff'ord to move 

 them until they had pretty well finished up, 

 so you might have to spend a week or ten 

 days in any locality before the season would 

 be over there; and by the time you could 

 get up to your new range the flow would be 

 too nearly gone. 



HOW STKA 

 AND 



V KUNAWAY SWAK'MS AKK CAUGHT, KAGl.KI), 

 BKOUGHT HOMK ON A BICVCLK AT THK 

 HOMK OF THK HONKV-BEHS. 

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