OVER-STOCKING. 305 



Although bees will fly, in search of food, over three 

 miles,* still, if it is not within a circle of about two miles 

 in every direction from the Apiary, they will be able to 

 store but little surplus honey .f If pasturage abounds 

 within a quarter of a mile from their hives, so much the 

 better ; there is no great advantage, however, in having 

 it close to them, unless there is a great supply, as bees, 

 when they leave the hive, seldom alight upon the neigh- 

 boring flowers. The instinct to fly some distance seems 

 to have been given them to prevent them from wasting 

 their time in prying into flowers already despoiled of their 

 sweets by previous gatherers. 



In all my arrangements, I have aimed to save every 

 step for the bees that I possibly can. With the alighting- 

 board properly arranged, and covered, in windy situations, 

 with cotton cloth (p. 279), bees will be able to store more 

 honey, even if they have to go a considerable distance 

 for it, than they otherwise could from pasturage nearer at 

 hand. Many bee-keepers utterly neglect all suitable pre- 

 cautions to facilitate the labors of their bees, as though 

 they imagined them to be miniature locomotives, always 



* " Mr. Kaden, of Mayence, thinks that the range of the bee's flight does not usually 

 extend more than three miles in all directions. Several years ago, a vessel, laden 

 with sugar, anchored off Mayence, and was soon visited by the bees of the neigh- 

 borhood,which continued to pass to and from the vessel from dawn to dark. One 

 morning, when the bees were in full flight, the vessel sailed up the river. For a 

 short time, the bees continued to fly as numerously as before ; but gradually the 

 number diminished, and, in the course of half an hour, all had ceased to follow the 

 vessel; which had, meanwhile, sailed more than four miles." fiienenseitvtiff, 

 1854, p. 83. 



t " Judging from the sweep that bees take from the side of a railroad train In 

 motion, we should estimate their pace at about thirty miles an hour. This would 

 give them four minutes to reach the extremity of their common range. 



" Mr. Cotton saw a man in Germany who kept all his numerous stocks rich by 

 changing their places as soon as the honey-season varied. ' Sometimes he sends 

 them to the moors, sometimes to the meadows, sometimes to the forest, and some- 

 times to the hills. In France and the same practice has existed in Egypt from 

 the most ancient times they often put hundreds of hives in a boat, which floats 

 down the stream by night and stops by day.' " London Quarterly Review. 



