94 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. — (VOL. XXXII. 
began the season. It was followed by a period of good honey 
flow, extending from the latter part of May through June, and 
was due mostly to the blooming of acacias, which were evi- 
dently close at hand. The greater part of the summer was 
occupied by the second of the two periods of relatively poor 
honey flow, and was succeeded by the second of the other 
periods, beginning in the latter part of August and continuing 
into September. This, Dufour informs us, was mostly due to 
heather bloom. 
A further comparison is to be made which brings out the 
relation of the number of bees in the hive to the different 
portions of the season. 
To make this comparison 
400 
27 | 2° | somewhat more accurate, 
ZL , 
aig 7 ZL curves are chosen (Fig. 
es Be lee s/h 2) that show almost the 
same amount of added 
E | stores for the day. On 
[3 
May 11 the workers were 
evidently numerous, since 
-600 
uy 640 the hive decreased in 
aa | weight by 730 gm., and 
A if 10 bees be allowed to` 
a gram there must have 
been more than 7300 
—= 4) — 
SAME May TN 
? 2 
Pie n te, z 
-1400 bees at work. By July 
1510 18 they had increased 
Fic. 2.— Th pared to show the differ- greatly, so that, as shown 
ences in the number of bees in the hive. >ei ° 
by the minimum weight 
of 1510 gm. for the day, there were evidently more than 
15,100 workers that left the hive, which is more than twice as 
many as on May 11. In August, as shown by the curve for 
August 21 and that for August 30 (Fig. 1), there were very 
few bees — on the former date only about 2000 that went to 
work. At first glance the curve for June 4 seems to show the 
same dearth of workers, but on May 18 they were relatively 
numerous, and, since it is scarcely possible that the workers 
had died off in great numbers between the two dates, the 
