THE FLIGHT ACTIVITIES OF THE HONEYBEE 7 
THE CONDITIONS OF THE EXPERIMENT 
In order to care for the great rush of bees on the approach of 
storms or to allow for possible clogging of some of the gates, it was 
necessary to provide such conditions that the gates would be worked 
normall}^ much below their full capacity. This was done by employ- 
ing a colony of bees of comparatively small size. When the taking 
of the records was begun in April, this colony, headed by a 1-year- 
old Italian queen, was in a hive composed of two bodies. The col- 
ony had about 5 pounds of bees, brood to fill four frames completely 
(Langstroth size) , and seven frames containing honey. The remain- 
ing frames were nearly empty. A^^len the colony was examined in 
detail on May 25, seven frames of brood and two frames containing 
eggs were present. A considerable number of larvse then showed 
symptoms of sacbrood. On the termination of the experiment at 
the end of July there were about 3 pounds of adult bees, three 
frames of brood, and a serious shortage of honey. Some of the 
larvae dead of sacbrood were not yet cleaned out. 
To prevent so far as possible the drifting of other bees to this 
colony, the hive was set up in an isolated position about 36 feet from 
another colony and about 100 feet from the main yard on the west 
side of the bee culture laboratory, Somerset, Md. It was shaded 
by the building until 9 to 10 a. m. and by a tall tree in the afternoon. 
During April, 1922, the hive did not show any days of gain in 
weight due to incoming nectar. In this region the main honey flow 
comes rather early, the two main nectar sources being black locust 
{Rohinia fseudacacia) and tuliptree {Liriodendron tulipifera). 
These species yield nectar in May, usually early in the month, fol- 
lowed by a small amount of nectar from white clover {Trifoliuni 
repens) and from other plants of minor value for nectar. Usually 
by the end of June in this region a dearth of nectar occurs and lasts 
until fall, so that there is nothing for the bees to gather during 
midsummer, unless, as sometimes happens, there is a production of 
honeydew. 
In the season of 1922 the first gain in weight from black locust 
occurred on May 3, but a heavy rain on the night of May 14 brought 
this honey flow to a sudden close. The tuliptree began to bloom 
on May 7, and the last gain from this source occurred on May 
28. During this period of substantial honey flow there was no 
gain on five days because of rain. Small gains in weight from in- 
coming pollen, with some nectar, took place in this colony on June 8, 
10, and 17. All the other days throughout June and July showed 
a daily loss in weight, with the exception of July 16, when in the 
evening the hive had exactly regained its morning weight. The 
highest daih^ gain recorded for this colony was 1.440 kilograms, and 
on two other days the gain exceeded a kilogram. If a colony of 
full strength could have been employed the gains in weight would 
have been larger. 
Of the 50 days on which this colony showed a loss in weight and 
on which rains did not invalidate the scale readings by the accumu- 
lation of moisture on the hive, 9 days showed a loss of 10 to 90 
grams, 15 a loss between 100 and 190 grams, 8 between 200 and 290 
grams, 13 between 300 and 390 grams, and 4 between 400 and 490 
grams, with 1 day showing a loss of 610 grams. The experiment 
was discontinued before the beginning of the autumn honey flow. 
