464 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Auti. 



HOW FAR WILL BEES AVORK TO ADVANTAGE? 



I see considerable is said in Gleanings about the 

 distance that bees will work profitably, some claim- 

 ing that they will work several njiles, and store con- 

 siderable honey. My experience leads me to think 

 that about two miles is as far as they work to make 

 much gain in stores. My apiary has no berries of 

 any account within VA miles in any direction; with- 

 in 3^ miles they are quite plentiful on two sides 

 (opposite); not enough bees to interfere any with 

 berry-blossoms until I get S'A miles away. When 

 fruit-blossoms fail 1 always have to feed to keep up 

 brood-rearing until clover opens; stocks from 3 to 

 314 miles either side of me commence swarming and 

 storing in boxes from berry-blossoms, while I am 

 feeding mine to keep up brood-rearing, and are from 

 a week to ten days ahead. In the fall I have buck- 

 wheat nearly equally on all sides for l'/4 miles; from 

 3 to SVt miles away are about 100 stocks with buck- 

 wheat on one side of them only. My bees average 

 much better on buckwheat than they do, and work 

 in that direction nearly if not quite as much as any 

 other. Now, if bees fly so far as claimed, why so 

 much difference in our bees working at the different 

 seasons? 



case of absconding without alighting. 



June 38th a swarm came out, and part of another 

 swarm united with it; hived in a new hive on three 

 frames of brood, three frames of fdn., and put on 

 boxes, July 3d. This stock swarmed, rushed out of 

 the hive, and, without clustering, went to the woods. 

 I chased them a third of a mile; when coming to the 

 woods they mounted so high over the trees that I 

 could not see them, and gave them up; came home 

 and looked in the hive ; had cells; don't think they 

 were capped yet; there was rather more bees than 

 are usually left. 



Oh 1 I nearly forgot. In front of the swarm, about 

 as high as my head, were a lot of bees revolving 

 arouDd, and making a shrill noise something like a 

 swarm when they are settling. This could be heard 

 plainly above the noise made by the other bees; but 

 I think the other bees were quieter than usual. 



I think Gleanings (the old ma) is all right, but — 

 hold on until the Juvenile is grown up, eh? 



Baptisttown, N. J. John B. Case. 



Friend Case, your experience in regard to 

 the distance that bees will tly just about 

 agrees with my own. Although I have 

 had bees work on basswood and buckwheat 

 as much as 2i or 3 miles, yet it seemed to 

 me it was pretty tough work for the little 

 fellows. — Thank you for your fact furnished 

 in regard to the little band of buzzing bees 

 in advance of the regular swarm. It cor- 

 roborates what friend Peters has told us in 

 the A JJ C book. 



NEW HONEY, ETC. 



Bees are just booming the honey right in. I put 

 in two swarms that came out and went together 

 about the middle of June into one hive, and the 

 fifth of July I took out 45 lbs. of honey, and left in 

 the hive one frame of 8 boxes, which 1 judged had 7 

 lbs. of honey in it. From another two-story chaff 

 hive that has not swarmed this season, I took out 

 about 90 lbs. of honey; took it out yesterday. I be- 

 gan the season with 31 swarms; have now 36; have 

 had a swarms that doubled up when swarming. 

 There has been great mortality among queens. I 

 have lost some 9 or 10 since spring ; have drawn on 



my 3-dollar queen I had from j'ou, for brood for them 

 to raise queens from; and, by the way, the bees 

 from that queen are the most quiet ones to handle 1 

 ever saw; no need of a smoker to handle them, 

 though I can't get them to work in boxes worth a 

 cent. My brown bees and hybrids are the best hon- 

 ey-gatherers; the blacks and brown bees cap over 

 their honey so that it looks a great deal whiter than 

 the Italians, Cyprians, or hybrids. But the hybrids 

 and Cyps are tyrants to handle, but perhaps not 

 more so than the black bees. But with smoke I can 

 bring them to know their duty. 1 don't know but 1 

 shall have to give up keepmg bees, soon, for I am 

 now in a few days 77 years old, and the work is too 

 much for me; and, by the way, we are to form a 

 county bee association in Piscataquis County the 

 second day of next August. Lucian French. 



Dexter, Penobscot Co., Me. 



queens wrong end up. 



Is it common to find young queens wrong end to 

 in a ceil? I have found two that way this year. 1 

 never saw it before. Perhaps that accounts for bad 

 cells sometimes. 



I had my first swarm get right up and "skip" for 

 parts unknown this year. 



speed of railway trains. 



If you were here you could see a train run a mile 

 a minuie. I timed them the other night myself, and 

 they made a mile in a minute good. The way of it 

 is, there is a heavy down grade west of here, with a 

 straight track, and the train is one of the fastest ex- 

 press trains on the M. C. K. K. W. H. Shirley. 



Glenwood, Mich., July 10, 1883. 



Friend tShiiiey, we have had several re- 

 ports recently of queens being found in the 

 cell as you state ; out i am inclined to think 

 the explanation is usually about this : The 

 queen iiatches out in the usual way ; but 

 being frightened by the piping of other 

 queens, or perhaps by the behavior of the 

 bees, she crawls back into her cell again as 

 a place of concealment. In that case you 

 would lind her in the cell, with the end of the 

 cell open ; but as the cap to the cell is often 

 left hanging, it may be that the bees shut it 

 to and wax it up again. I suggest the pos- 

 sibility of this, because I have several times 

 found cell - caps closed back, and waxed 

 fast, after the tjueen had hatched out in the 

 regular way. i suppose that some of the 

 young bees do it just for fun, or for mischief. 

 Was the queen you speak of a fully formed, 

 live queen V— I give up on the speed of rail- 

 way trains. 



AN APOLOGY. 



I have read Bro. Heddon's remarks on my criti- 

 cism of his ideas on overstocking, and I have also 

 re-read my own criticism, and I feel that an apology 

 is really due Bro. H. I would not for the world have 

 intimated aught agaiost his probity, honesty, or in- 

 tegrity, for I deem him truly a square man in every 

 sense of the word. I find, however, on reading over 

 my article, that it can be construed in a far different 

 light from what 1 intended. Bro. H. has (right or 

 wrong) been for too long a time asserting these 

 peculiar views on overstocking, to be accused now 

 of being wholly selfish and self-interested only in 

 the matter. For mvself, I hold still to the opinion 

 that thei-e is not that danger of overstocking the 

 country that Bro. H. fears; but my reply to him 

 was couched in language far stronger than the oc- 



