THE DAILY AND SEASONAL ACTIVITY OF A 
HIVE OF BEES. 
F. C. KENYON, 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 
Nort long ago there was performed a series of experiments 
with a hive of bees by a French bee keeper, M. Leon Dufour, 
and published in one of the French apicultural journals, which is 
of considerable biological interest, showing, as it does, the rela- 
tion of the activities of bees to the various conditions of honey 
flow, number of bees, season, etc. Although hives have been 
frequently weighed to show the daily increment of honey, this 
was the first attempt to find out what more might be learned by 
weighing. An hourly record of the weight of the hive used in’ 
the experiments was kept each day through the whole season. 
From the data obtained it was possible to plot daily and sea- 
sonal curves, some of which are here reproduced. Although 
the most was not made of the facts learned in making compari- 
sons, enough was done to bring out the relations between the 
activity of the bees and the flow of nectar during the day, and 
the season, as well as the relation between the daily amount of 
nectar collected and the number of bees in the hive, and between 
the number of bees and the different seasons. The series of 
hourly weights also shows the rate at which the bees leave the 
hive, and when the number returning exceeds those departing. 
The facts learned by the experimenter might be carried further 
and comparisons made with hourly, daily, or seasonal changes 
of weather, and with the floral calendar of any particular local- 
ity, and it is with the hope that further experiments may be 
performed and carried out with greater detail that the account 
of Dufour’s experiments is given here. 
In these experiments the first morning weight was taken as 
the zero point for the day. As is evident in the curves repro- 
duced in the figures, this weight was made sometimes at 5 A.M. 
and sometimes at 5.30, and sometimes later. The general 
