1883 



GLEAKmGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



391 



not lay at all in the fall, even though I fed 

 the stock, and tried every way to get her to, 

 because her cluster of bees was so small. 

 When it came time, 1 put her with her little 

 ball of bees into the wintering-house, with 

 hardly an idea that she could come through ; 

 but to my surprise there was just about 

 the same little ball of bees there in the 

 spring; and when it got real warm she com- 

 menced to lay, and her colony did about as 

 well as^ny of them. 



BEES FLYING NINETY MILES PER nOUR, ETC. 



Editor Gleanings:— The June No. is just received, 

 and I am sorry to see that you have misunderstood 

 me. I never said that it is 'very dangerous for 

 those to write on a subject whose Itnowledge is in- 

 complete." What I said was, that "arguing- in re- 

 gard to matters concerning which our knowledge is 

 incomplete" is very apt to lead us into error. The 

 word arguuia here means drawiiiij cimclusions, prov- 

 ing or slioiviug, as when Milton says, "So many laws 

 argfijc so many sins"— a common enough meaning 

 for the word. Jf you will allow me, however, I will 

 put the proposition in another shape: "One of the 

 most dangerous sources of fallacy is the drawing of 

 conclusions from incomplete data." If you can find 

 a man who does not agree with that, send him along, 

 and Barnum will no doubt give him a good salary as 

 a natural curiosity. That we may ultimately arrive 

 at a correct conclusion in this matter, it is necessary 

 that the question be kept free fi'om mere deductions 

 drawn from imaginary facts; that is, alleged facts 

 which have no existence. A very good example of 

 such vicious methods of reasoning is found in the 

 argument of E. E. Ewing on page au, June Glean- 

 ings, nis imaginary " vacuum," in which the bees 

 are held and " kept above the cars with scarcely an 

 effort," must be very amusing to any one who has 

 the most elementary knowledge of the laws which 

 govern the motions of aerial fluids. You imply 

 in your note, that Doolittle and myself believe that 

 the usual speed of bees is 90 miles per hour. I ex- 

 pressly disclaimed this. Some horses have attained 

 a speed of a mile in 2 ra. 30 s. : is it fair to say that 

 horses travel at the rate of a mile In 2 m. 30 sec? In 

 regard to the distance to which bees will fly: A 

 friend who has just left me says that he feels certain 

 that they will travel fifteen miles, as he has seen 

 them in large numbers on the prairies in the old 

 times, at a distance of fully 15 miles from either tim- 

 ber or houses. John Phi^. 



Cedar Brae, N. J., June 5, 1883. 



Thank you, friend P., for pointing out to 

 me my error. I certainly did overlook the 

 fact that your caution was really about 

 drawing conclusions; but even if it was, I 

 thought you were a little rough on the breth- 

 ren, and, begging your paidon, I think so 

 yet. You are a scientific man, and accus- 

 tomed to " drawing conclusions " in a scien- 

 tific manner, while we, many of us, are hard- 

 working men, without much college train- 

 ing; but for all that, we are sound and 

 practical ; and if the present advanced state 

 of scientific bee-keeping is not largely the 

 result of our work and research, I don't 

 know whose work it is. You are, perhaps, 

 aware of what wretched work Agassiz and 

 Tyndall made of it, when they thought they 

 might be able to help us. Friend Ewing, 

 whom you cite, has perhaps not worded his 



remarks just as he might have done ; but 

 for all that, I think we all understood clear- 

 ly the important fact he gave us. After he 

 mentioned it, it occurred to me that I had 

 seen leaves carried along by a train, in ex- 

 actly the way he describes. We want you 

 to help us, friend T.; but please bear in 

 mind, we bee-folks are all brothers and sis- 

 ters ; and if one makes a mistake, he expects 

 to have it pointed out to him with brotherly 

 kindness. You have called brother Ewing's 

 philosophy " amusing ;" but I am sure if he 

 thinks best to reply at all, it will be in a 

 Christian spirit of gentlemanly courtesy. 



FLORIDA; FRIEND WCLFENDEN'S IDEA OF IT. 



So you think we need the cold weather to sort 

 o' brace us up and make us fly around lively, do you? 

 To speak plainly, you think if we go to Florida we 

 shall get lazy. Well, you are about right. The na- 

 tives all say they would rather sit in the shade and 

 see the negroes work than to do it themselves. They 

 also say I will soon be of the same mind. W^ell, so 

 be it. I am going to try it. I have bought a small 

 orange-grove, and am going down in the fall. Part 

 of it is in bearing too. Don't you want a box next 

 fall? 



ORANGE-GROVES. 



Shall I tell you of the orange-tree? They are 

 raised from the seed, and, unlike the apple, the 

 young tree will produce fruit like the parent stock, 

 and bear in from seven to ten years. Young trees 

 are also taken from the woods, but these have to be 

 budded, as the fruit is sour and bitter. These will 

 bear in from 5 to V years from the bud. The orange 

 trees blossom in Feb., and the fruit is picked in Dec, 

 and you do not find blossoms and fruit in all stages 

 of development, as 1 had been told. The fruit will 

 remain on the tree for months after it is ripe; but it 

 does not, for it is picked and sold. 



June 3, 1883. J. L. Wolfenden. 



WINTERING IN SIMPLICITY HIVES. 



I have 13 colonies of bees. They wintered nicely 

 on summer stands, four or five in double-walled 

 hives; the rest, no protection except boxes over 

 the hives to keep off cold winds— all in your Simplic- 

 ity hives. The food for all was granulated sugar 

 syrup, which I think is the feed for winter, every 

 time. No dysentery, no spotting the hives. Hives 

 were pushed forward so there was at least one-half 

 inch open space the whole width of hive. The sec- 

 ond hive was set on top with chaff cushion, and holes 

 bored in ends of cover to let off the moisture, and 

 every thing was dry and nice. Hill's device was 

 over the frames, which I think is far preferable to 

 punching holes in the combs. All are breeding 

 nicely now. K. J. Fox. 



Natick, Mass., May 18, 1883. 



EARLY SWARMING IN MAY. 



Tell your friend who crows over his early swarm 

 of the 18th of May, that ho will have to do earlier 

 business than that, for he is badly left. My friend 

 John Colvin, of Schellsburg, writes me on the 28th 

 of April,— at least, the last week in that month,— 

 "I have just hived a very large natwal swarm of 

 bees, and have been stung like the dickens," if you 

 know how that is. He has also had some five or six 

 since. A Mr. Shondenour had two first swarms the 

 first week in May. We have a late season, and lo- 

 cust and white clover are here together. 



Ed. D. Heckeman. 



Pittsburgh, Pa., June 5, 1883. 



