OVEU-STOCKING. 
305 
Although bees will fly, in search of food, over three 
miles,* still, if it is not within a circle of about two miles 
in every direction from the Apiary, they will be able to 
store but little surplus honey. f If pasturage abounds 
within a quarter of a mile from their hives, so much the 
better ; there is no great advantage, however, in having 
it close to them, unless there is a great supply, as bees, 
when they leave the hive, seldom alight upon the neigh- 
boring flowers. The instinct to fly some distance seems 
to have been given them to prevent them from wasting 
their time in prying into flowers already despoiled of their 
sweets by previous gatherers. 
In all my arrangements, I have aimed to save every 
step for the bees that I possibly can. With the alighting- 
board properly arranged, and covered, in windy situations, 
with cotton cloth (p. 279), bees will be able to store more 
honey, even if they have to go a considerable distance 
for it, than they otherwise could from pasturage nearer at 
hand. Many bee-keepers utterly neglect all suitable pre- 
cautions to facilitate the labors of their bees, as though 
they imagined them to be miniature locomotives, always 
* “ Mr. Kadon, of Mayenco, thinks that tho range of the bee’s flight docs not usually 
extend more than three miles in all directions. Several years ago, a vessel, laden 
with sugar, anchored off Mayence, and was soon visited by the bees of the neigh- 
borhood, which continued to pass to and from tho vessel from dawn to dark. One 
morning, when the bees were in full flight, the vessel sailed up tho river. For a 
short time, tho bees continued to fly as numerously as before ; hut gradually the 
number diminished, and, in the course of half an hour, all had ceased to follow tho 
vessel, which had, meanwhile, sailed more than four miles." — Bientnzeitu'uy , 
1854, p. 83. 
t “Judging from tho sweep that bees take from the sido of a railroad train in 
motion, wo should estimate their pace at about thirty miles an hour. This would 
give them four minutes to reach tho extremity of their common range. 
“ Mr. Cotton saw a man in Germany who kept all his numerous stocks rich by 
changing their places us soon as tho honey-season varied. ‘Sometimes he sends 
them to the moor*, sometimes to the meadows, sometimes to the forest, and some- 
times to the hills. In Franco — and the same practice has existed in Kgypt from 
the most ancient times — they often put hundreds of hives in a boat, which floats 
down tho stream by night and stops by day.’ ” — London Quarterly Review. 
