586 



T-H® MMMRICMlf BE® J@^RlfSlf. 



discover some of the benefits derived 

 from these associations. No single in- 

 dividual has been able to discover all 

 the intricacies concerning any one 

 thing of the method of the bee. So the 

 benehts of sociability and meeting with 

 friends and neighbors, and the ex- 

 change of discoveries that have been 

 made by the members are appreciated 

 in this organization as well as in any 

 other. 



The questions for discussion before 

 the society were : 



1. "Which is more preferable for the 

 bee-master, to supersede the old queen, 

 or let the bees do it V" It was decided 

 in favor of the master doing it. 



2. " Can a queen that produces all 

 three-banded bees be a hybrid ?" An- 

 swer : No ; by a letter read from the 

 Bee Journal, by Frank Benton. 



3. " Will mixed bees work better 

 than bees all from one colony ?" 



4. " Do bees do better in hives faced 

 in one direction than another V" 



These questions were ably discussed 

 by the members, after which the meet- 

 ing adjourned, to be called in May, 1889. 



SWARMING. 



Do Bees Select a Habitation 

 Before S^varining 'i 



Written for theAinerioan BeeJcMrrwX 

 BY JAMES F. WOOD. 



I have read the articles on the above 

 subject with much interest, and as far 

 as my observation has gone, I think 

 that each writer has been partially 

 right. 1 will give my experience with 

 a few of the most striking cases that I 

 have personally witnessed. 



When# boy of about 16 years of age, 

 I had a great desire to learn aM I could 

 concerning bees and their habits, and 

 after reading and re-reading all the 

 books until I knew them nearly by 

 heart, I concluded to stock an apiary 

 with Italian bees. Not having the 

 funds to purchase bees, I set out to get 

 my bees from the woods, and at that 

 time there were many of my neighbors 

 who kept bees, and many swarms es- 

 caped to the woods. Now for the facts : 

 A neighbor had a swarm that clus- 

 tered where they could not be reached, 

 and I was informed of this fact, and 

 directly went to the place to watch the 

 swarm and chase them to the tree when 

 they left. I did not have to wait long 

 before they started, and with some 

 difiSculty I managed to keep in sight of 

 the bees until I saw them enter the 

 tree about a mile distant. This was in 

 1875. The same year 1 followed the 

 lines that several swarms had been 

 known to have gone, but I never found 

 but one more by following the direction 

 they started from the hive. 



But on tliis side of the question I 

 have still the best evidence that I have 

 yet seen printed. It occurred this sea- 

 son in a neighboring town. I went to 

 purchase some bees of a friend, and 

 while looking at the bees, a large 

 swarm issueil. and without alighting it 

 went about 1-5 rods directly to an old 

 hive, where a colony had died the win- 



ter before. This swarm did not fly 

 around after it issued, but as soon as it 

 got out, it went direct to this hive, and 

 nearly half of them were in the hive 

 when we went to it. But this by no 

 means proves that bees " pick out " a 

 home before leaving the parent hive. 

 But it looks pretty clear that the last- 

 mentioned swarm knew where they 

 were going before leaving the hive ; 

 and that the first-mentioned swarm 

 knew where they were going before 

 leaving the limb where they had 

 clustered. 



I might add that the scouts sent out, 

 and those that returned, seemed to 

 nearly all go and come from the direc- 

 tion of this tree that the bees selected 

 for their home. I noticed this to such 

 an extent that I remarked to several 

 that I was pretty sure the bees would 

 go in that direction, as they afterward 

 did. 



One writer has said that bees some- 

 times will fly for days and keep alight- 

 ing and searching for a home. This is 

 true also, as I can testify. I knew a 

 small swarm to issue and fly off about 

 two miles before alighting. Here they 

 hung for two days on a limb, and flew 

 about a mile and alighted again. They 

 kept flying around for a week in the 

 neighborhood, and finally settled in a 

 tree not 20 rods from where they 

 started. This was late in the season 

 (the latter part of August). This 

 swarm was not kept in sight all the 

 time, but owing to the fact that it is 

 rare that swarms issue so late in this 

 locality, the size of the swarm, and 

 that it was seen by many people flying 

 back and forth, I think there is little 

 doubt that it was all one and the same 

 swarm. 



I have several times found swarms 

 clustered miles away from where any 

 bees were kept, and have several times 

 chased swarms until they finally lighted 

 on some tree or bush instead of going 

 to a tree. My conclusion of the whole 

 is this : Bees sometimes go direct to 

 the new home without alighting, but 

 not often ; and that others will alight 

 and then send out scouts ; then, if 

 successful, they will go direct to the 

 new home. But the majority of swarms 

 that escape, fly and alight several times 

 before they find a home ; and I have 

 the best of reasons to believe that they 

 often get ten, and even twenty, miles 

 from the parent hive before they settle 

 in their new home. 



North Prescott, Mass. 



RIGHTS OF BEES. 



Have tiie Bees a Right to the 

 Nectar of the Raspberries ? 



Written fur the American Bee Journal 

 BY JAMES M'NEILL. 



I have been a member of the Bee- 

 Keepers' Union since its inception, and 

 have paid my dues each year without 

 any thought that I shoulS be obliged 

 to invoke the aid of the Union in the 

 defense of my rights, as I had kept 

 bees for a number of years without any 

 serious complaiut from my neighbors. 

 But the situation is changed now at my 



out apiary, and one of my neighbors 

 declares that it is his purpose to collect 

 damage for the injury which our bees 

 have done his raspberries. 



Three years ago he set out about half 

 an acre of raspberries of the red Ant- 

 werp variety. He made no serious 

 complaint about the bees during the 

 first two years ; but the present season, 

 toward the close of the raspberry har- 

 vest, a severe dry spell left the bees 

 without any forage, and the same 

 cause, I suppose, tended to ripen th© 

 berries faster than the owner could 

 take care of them. The result was that 

 the bees worked upon his raspberry 

 patch, as he says ; not only destroying 

 his fruit, but stinging the pickers, so 

 that many of them refused to pick, and 

 he could not get pickers to take care of 

 the fruit. 



He claims that our bees have done 

 him $150 worth of damage during the 

 past three seasons. He made no serious 

 complaint to me during the first two 

 years, simply asking once in awhile, as 

 I supposed in a half joking way, what 

 we were going to pay him for bee-pas- 

 turage. Nor during the greater por- 

 tion of his berry harvest this year did 

 he make any complaint about the bees, 

 though we passed by when he was 

 picking every day. But meeting him 

 on July 31, he declared that the bees 

 had become an intolerable nuisance— 

 that they were eating his berries up 

 and drivmg his pickers away, and that . 

 even after the berries were in the bas- 

 kets, they stuck at them and destroyed 

 many. 



We drove down the same day to look 

 over the berry patch, and we found, as 

 we supposed we should, that the berry 

 season was about over, and great 

 quantities of over-ripe and dried-up 

 berries hanging on the bushes. Of 

 course the bees were on them, but 

 wasps and hornets were there as well. 

 Certainly no one but those who had a 

 senseless fear of bees, need have been 

 afraid to go among the bushes, as a 

 slight jar would cause the bees to fly 

 away. 



There were a couple of crates of ber- 

 ries standing at the ends of the rows, 

 and the women of the household were 

 crying out that the bees would eat them 

 up if they were not taken away. We 

 opened the crates, and found perhaps 

 6 to 10 bees in each basket ; but a slight 

 jar would cause them to fly haimlessly 

 away. 



We called upon a neighbor of this 

 man who has berries of the same va- 

 riety, to find out if the bees troubled 

 his patch, and he made no complaint. 

 He said if the berries were not allowed 

 to get over-ripe, the bees were not 

 troublesome, and if they were upon a 

 bush, a slight jar would cause them to 

 fly harmlessly away. On the other 

 hand, the man who works the farm 

 where our bees are, and who has a 

 patch of the same kind of berries, said 

 that while he had no cause for com- 

 plaint last year, this year he found the 

 bees very troublesome. 



The fact in this man's case we knew 

 was, that he had so much to do that he 

 neglected his berries until they were 

 over-ripe. When we told these men 

 that if they picked their berries when 

 they should be picked, they would have 



