THE) 3SMERICSN BE® J©^RI<ai<. 



567 



SHIPPING HONEY. 



Time or Capping Brood — Do 

 Bees HearJ 



Wrltteji for the American Bcc Journal 

 BY G. M. DOOLITTLB. 



Some seem to think that it is better, 

 in putting up honey for shipment, to 

 pack it in the case with ttie top-b<ar of 

 the section downward, or in a reverse 

 position from what it was in building, 

 claiming that it will stand more rough 

 treatment without breaking down if 

 put up in that way, than it would if 

 shipped with the same side up as it 

 was on the liive. This I think is a mis- 

 take, and a neighbor of mine says " he 

 knows it to be so." after having packed 

 some that way, which was badly 

 broken, and having none broken when 

 packing it right side up, as he always 

 did till he tried this way. To prove his 

 position, he says : 



Take a section and fill it with comb 

 foundation, attaching if only at the 

 top, allowing the room at the sides and 

 bottom, which is necessary to prevent 

 it from being bulged in drawing out ; 

 and after the foundation is thoroughly 

 secure, stand the section in the position 

 which it is to occupy on the hive, then 

 suddenly sway it from side to side. In 

 doing this you will see that the founda- 

 tion will stand any amount of sudden 

 jarring, and not break from the box ; 

 but turn the section over and the foun- 

 dation will hardly support its own 

 weight, let alone any jarring or rough 

 treatment, without falling over Hnd 

 off, especially if the weather is a little 

 cool." 



Formerly I used to pack my honey 

 with the top-bar of the section down, 

 as I was so instructed in my hrst ship- 

 ment ; but of late years I pack it the 

 same way that it was on the hive, and 

 after carefully going over the results of 

 the past. I Bnd that not nearly so much 

 has been broken since I adopted the 

 latter method of packing, as was 

 formerly. Of course it may have been 

 handled more carefully of late by the 

 railroad companies, but I think not. 

 In any event, this is a matter worth 

 careful consideration, and I bring it 

 before the notice of our apiarists at this 

 time, so that it may be in season for 

 immediate action, for it will soon be 

 time to send our honey to market, if we 

 have any to send. 



At Wliat Age Is Brood Capped ? 



Picking up a paper not long since, I 

 ran across an item setting forth the 

 merits of the "bees-by-the-pound 

 method." In it the partv tells how 

 they (the bees) were put in a hive on 

 such a date, and ten days later they 

 had enough brood capped over " to fill 

 one whole frame." As the writer of 

 the article uses the Langstroth frame, 

 it is supposable that this was the frame 

 meant, and if so. it would give about 

 7,000 as the number of cells of brood 

 capped over. 



There is a mistake here somewhere, 

 or else I have been at fault all of my 

 bee-keeping life, in my reckoning of 

 the length of time that must elapse be- 

 tween the time the egg is laid by the 

 queen, and the time the brood is cap- 

 ped over. Quinby stated in his '' Mys- 

 teries of Bee- Keeping Explained," that 

 the bee remained in the egg form three 

 days, and in the larva form six days, 

 covering a period of nine days from 

 the laying of the egg by the queen to 

 the time the larva was sealed over, this 

 being accelerated a little by very warm 

 weather, and retarded to some little 

 extent by cool weather. 



In all ray observations along this 

 line, I have found Quinby to be so 

 nearly correct that I have taken him as 

 authority on these points ; therefore 

 there must be a mistake somewhere, or 

 else the queen in the case given above 

 must have laid 7,000 eggs on the first 

 day of her introduction with the bees 

 to that hive. This is not at all prob- 

 able, even if it were possible for a 

 queen to reach that number of eggs in 

 a single day ; for no queen comes up to 

 her maximum speed of egg laying the 

 first day or first week after being 

 placed in new quarters. 



Some claim that the larva may be 

 sealed over in five or six days from the 

 time the egg is laid, but I cannot help 

 thinking that such claims are made by 

 those who have not thoroughly looked 

 into this matter. 



In many of the manipulations of the 

 hive, a correct knowledge of this mat- 

 ter of brood-rearing is of much impor- 

 tance, and none ought to be satisfied 

 with their '-bee-education" till they 

 have conducted experiments along 

 these lines, so as to know for them- 

 selves. 



Have Bees the Sense orHearln:;'! 



Many seem to think that bees have 

 the sense of hearing, but so far all of 

 my experiments go to prove to .the con- 

 trary. One says that he has known 

 bees to run out of the hive to the 

 queen when she had been removed with 

 the surplus arrangement, or show their 

 desire to get to her when she was on 

 the frame he held in his hand, attribut- 

 ing such action of the bees to their 

 hearing the queen call to them ; but 

 with me I see nothing in it but that the 

 bees knew where the queen was by her 

 scent. 



One time, in hiving a swarm, the 

 bees balled their queen, and in order to 

 make a cage for her protection as I 

 wished, she was hung in the shade on 

 a limb of a tree not far off. Upon re- 

 turning, after making the cage, I found 

 that many of the bees had left the hive 

 and clustered about the queen. 



At that time I received the impres- 

 sion that the bees might have some 

 sense of hearing, in order to get to 

 their queen so quicky, but this thougiit 

 was dispelled a little later in the season 

 when, upon hiving two swarms to- 

 gether, I caged one of the queens for a 

 little while, till I could dispose of her. 



After disposing of her, I hung the 

 empty cage in the shop several feet 

 from the door, leaving the door open. 

 After a little, the bees going with the 

 double swarm became dissatisfied with 



the other queen, and balled her, when 

 the usual excitement began which al- 

 ways exists in such cases. In a little 

 while after, I went into the shop, when, 

 to my surprise, I found a part of these 

 bees on the cage that their queen had 

 been in, thus showing that there was 

 no hearing about the former proceed- 

 ings of the others, 

 iiorodino, N. Y. 



SWARMING. 



Bees do Select a Location before 

 Swarming. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY S. J. YOUNGMAN. 



My experience of the last week will, 

 I think, bear me out in saying that one 

 oE the mysteries of bees is solved, and 

 the question, " Do bees find a location 

 before swarming V" may most emphati- 

 cally be answered in the aflirmative. I 

 will relate what came under my ob- 

 servation on Aug. 13 and 14, 1888 : 



My brother, and three other men, 

 were at work about 100 rods west of my 

 apiary in the edge of a forest at about 

 10 o'clock, a.m. They discovered bees 

 in the top of a large ash-tree. I was 

 called to see the bees, and to say what 

 the prospects of saving them would be. 

 The bees were about 50 feet from the 

 ground, and were working very briskly. 

 The sound of their humming could 

 plainly be heard from the ground, at 

 some distance from the tree. I pro- 

 claimed it a bee-tree, containing a large 

 swarm, as there seemed to be thou- 

 sands of bees at work. Arrangements 

 were made to cut the tree the next day 

 after dinner. 



The men were at work near the tree, 

 splitting rails, and about 11 o'clock one 

 of the men observed a swarm of bees 

 coming from towards my house near 

 him. He instantly gave the alarm, and 

 all the men gathered in time to see the 

 bees fly to the ash-tree, and go into the 

 same hole that the bees were issuing 

 from the day before. I proceeded to 

 cut the tree, as arranged, and found 

 them to consist of a medium sized 

 swarm, with a young unmated queen, 

 and I succeeded in successfully trans- 

 ferring them to a Langstroth hive. 



No honey was found in the tree, but 

 it showed unmistakable signs of hav- 

 ing been occupied by bees before, as 

 there were chunks of propolis and 

 fragonents of comb adhering to the sides 

 of the hollow. 



The way I view this is, that when the 

 bees were first discovered on Aug. 13, a 

 very large force were cleaning out and 

 preparing the hollow for occupation 

 the next day ; and had the ixee been cut 

 on the morning of Aug. 14, no bees 

 would have been found ; but on that 

 day the bees occupied the tree in full 

 force. 



I think that this is the strongest 

 evidence that bees do select a home in 

 advance of their swarming, and prefer 

 a tree that has been occupied by bees 

 before, or at least such a place is not 

 distasteful to them. 



Cato, Mich.. Aug. in, 1888. 



