Title: The American Bee Journal, Vol. VI, No. 4, October 1870
Author: Various
Editor: Samuel Wagner
Release date: October 28, 2018 [eBook #58187]
Language: English
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In No. 11 of the Bienenzeitung for 1870, the Baron of Berlepsch urges bee-keepers to make diligent observations, to ascertain the origin of honey dew. I have for many years given special attention to the subject, as it is one of great interest, not only to bee-keepers, but also to pomologists. My observations fully corroborate the remark of the Baron, that honey dew occurs, in most cases, independently as a vegetable excretion, and only occasionally as the product of aphides. On last Sunday, June 19th, I had an opportunity to assure myself definitely of the correctness of this position. On that day, as early as seven o’clock in the morning, I received a visit from Mr. Heuser, of Westom, one of the intelligent apiarians who compose the Ahrweiler Association for Bee-culture. While we sat conversing about bees, a lad came to inform us that he had, the evening before, seen a fine swarm clustered on a large pear tree. We naturally hastened to the spot, but found that the swarm had already decamped. A loud humming among the branches, however, led us to suppose there might be a hollow limb somewhere, into which the bees had retreated, and friend Heuser was induced to climb up in search of it. He found none, but observed a multitude of bees busily engaged licking up the honey dew with which the leaves of the tree were covered—being evidently an exudation, for on the most careful examination we could not find a single aphis, though on the morning of the next day thousands of aphides were observable there.
It remains for me to mention the state of the weather at the time, for according to my observations this chiefly conditions the production of honey dew. On Saturday, June 18th, the weather was oppressively hot. Towards evening the wind began to blow from the northwest; and the night was cool, though without dew on the grass. This necessarily checked the circulation of sap, which I regard as the primary cause of honey dew, for I may state explicitly that I never saw any, except when hot days were followed by a sudden and great reduction of temperature. The same observation was made, many years ago, by an aged bee-keeper in Niederheckenbach, who, whenever he notices in summer a sudden change of weather, at night, from great heat to cold, will rise at three or four o’clock in the morning and close the entrances of his hives; as he is firmly persuaded that the honey dew certain to come, will be injurious to his bees. I must confess that honey dew has not always proved beneficial to our bees. In some cases they seemed to be sickened by it, and to remain so for nearly a week, as indicated by their inability to fly. This was more especially the case at an apiary which I had in an oak forest, where bark was largely stripped and dried for tanners’ use. I am unable to account for the occurrence, and must leave chemists to determine whether the consumption of tannin had aught to do with it. Whenever honey dew occurs in my neighborhood again I will strip leaves from various trees affected by it, and send them for examination to Dr. Keermrodt, of Bonn, the chemist of the Agricultural Experimental Union of the Rhine province.
The views of Prof. Hallier, that the honey dew produced by aphides is of great practical account in bee-culture, I am not prepared to endorse. During the summer of 1869 I was a student in the Pomological Institute at Reutlingen, and very seldom saw a bee on any twig covered with aphides, yet we were there sorely annoyed by those parasites. Even now, I am compelled to use soapsuds, &c., to rid my plants of these unwelcome visitors, yet I have never seen a bee among them.
Your readers will probably be interested in learning the views of two of the most eminent pomologists, regarding the origin of honey dew.
Court-gardener Jager, of Eisenach, writes as follows to Regel’s Garden-Flora:—“According to my observations, honey dew is much more frequently exuded from the leaves of plants than produced by aphides. I regard honey dew, in many cases, as a segregation of the saccharine portion of the juices of plants, which these are then no longer able to excrete out of their organism by means of the blossoms. I was led to adopt this view by repeatedly observing that linden trees so kept under by pruning that they never blossom, excrete such a superabundance of honey dew that such as is not gathered by insects, drips from the leaves to the ground, and is often collected on boards and bottled. Linden trees which are allowed to blossom, do indeed likewise produce honey dew; but I have never seen it on trees that bloomed profusely, and as I live in the midst of lindens, I have the best opportunities for observation.”
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Samuel Wagner, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Next, my own respected teacher, Dr. Lucas, of Reutlingen, remarks, in a note on the foregoing passage—
“This observation of our esteemed friend Jager certainly deserves attention. Whether he is entirely right or not, is to me not altogether clear. I have seen honey dew indiscriminately on young trees and on old of various kinds; but always only after we had several successive hot and dry days, followed by dewless nights. It is very probable that then the juices of plants become more concentrated, and thus more highly charged with saccharine, in so much that drops of liquid sweet may exude through the pores of the leaves, and that then the aphides will quickly resort to the tables thus ready decked for them, and multiply with almost incredible rapidity, is a natural phenomenon observable in the case of other insects also. But that the aphides are the originators of the honey dew, as many foresters and others maintain, can certainly not be accepted as correct and true.”
Allow me, in conclusion, to request bee-keepers and pomologists to watch for the appearance of honey dew on the occurrence of such weather and temperature as above indicated, and to communicate the result of their observations.
Löhndorf, June 22, 1870.
The following account shows the very great advantage in keeping bees on the humane and improved system, over the old and barbarous practice of the brimstone match, so clearly, that I send it for your readers to go and do likewise.
In the autumn of 1865, I was at the seaside on the Lancashire coast, and found bees kept in that neighborhood in the most primitive and bad way I ever met with in any country. It was the system there to put the swarm in a large brown wicker basket, and at night to plaster a thin coating of cowdung over the outside, and leave it in this way all summer. I have frequently seen the bees coming out of holes all over the hive, from top to bottom, not being able to fill up all the nicks with propolis, and giving it up as a bad job; and if it was not a good district for honey, they would give up the ghost altogether.
When the bees give over working, the owner plasters the hive with mortar, for the winter. The entrance is made three or four inches high from the cold slate or flag on which they place the basket. When they take the honey, they suffocate the bees with brimstone. Wasps often destroy the stock.
In my perambulations I called upon a person who had kept bees for a number of years in the old way; but they had all died off except one stock. After talking with him for some time on the humane and profitable management of his bees, and showing him the great loss that he sustained by murdering his poor bees, to say nothing of the ingratitude or sin in killing them after they had been laboring for him early and late all the summer, and proved to him the very great advantage the modern bar-frame (thanks to the Rev. L. L. Langstroth, the inventor) from which the honey could be taken without killing a bee, and swarms made or prevented, as we liked. I showed him that in fact, with these hives, he had the full control over his bees, and could make them do almost anything he liked.
He asked me to get the man that makes my improved bar-frame hives, to send him some; and I afterwards sent him information he wrote for in several letters.
When I called on him last October, I found twenty stocks of bees in his garden, all very strong, with plenty of honey to last them over the winter; and he had sold nearly three hundred weight of honey, all of which he had taken that year, without killing a bee. He has now got his stock up to the number he intends to keep, so this year he will work for honey; and if it is a favorable season, his bees will collect for him an immense store and make him a nice addition to his income.
The same year that I called upon him, I called upon his neighbor, a person much better off than the other, and he then had three stocks of bees. I advised him to adopt the more profitable and humane system of management; but he did not; and when I called on him again last October, I found three weak stocks of bees in his garden, and he said he had taken no honey that year and got very little the year before. I turned his hives over and found an accumulation of wet filth and dirt, nearly an inch thick on the slate floors on which his hives were placed, and the bottoms of the combs all mouldy.
I told him if he had done as well as his neighbor, he should now have sixty stocks of bees in his garden and have taken more than a thousand weight of honey that year. He is now, with others in that district going to adopt the humane system of management, and I hope bee-murder has forever disappeared in that locality, as I always find, when they see the loss to their own pockets, it is the most convincing argument that can be used.
Newton Heath, near Manchester, England.
Bees sometimes abandon their hives very early in the spring or late in the summer or fall. They exhibit all the appearance of natural swarming; but they leave not because the population is crowded, but because it is either so small, or the hive so destitute of supplies that they are discouraged or driven to desperation. I once knew a colony to leave a hive under such circumstances, on a spring-like day in December! They seem to have a presentiment that they must perish if they stay, and instead of awaiting the sure approach of famine, they sally out to see if something cannot be done to better their condition.—Langstroth.
A student in the Michigan Agricultural College has invented a gate latch, for which he has received $10,000.
We find the above item in our exchanges. Assuming it to be true, we commend the good sense of the student. If the usual results follow, the purchaser will either lose money by the operation, or will speedily sell “rights” to parties who will lose money. We have no wish to discourage inventors, for they certainly are entitled to full reward for any improvements or discoveries they give the world. But we think it is clearly true that the great mass of inventors—especially those whose inventions relate to “little things,” or articles in common use—place too high an estimate on the value of their patent right, often holding it, waiting for better offers from manufacturers or purchasers of “territory,” until some one patents a better device for the same purpose, when the first becomes useless or nearly so.
There are certain inventions of very great value, because they supply a want universally felt. But even in such cases it is rare that the original inventor secures so high a degree of excellence that some one else cannot improve on his device. He may, however, succeed in patenting something which subsequent inventors will have to use, and for which privilege they must pay him. To illustrate: the plow is of almost universal use, yet there are objections to the best plow that has been or will be constructed. Suppose some one should invent an implement that would obviate all these objections, and do the work of preparing the soil for seeds better than any plow can, and do this work quickly and cheaply. Such an invention would be of almost incalculable value, and the inventor might well expect to become very wealthy. Yet it would be strange if some one did not improve on this invention, and thus divide the profits—perhaps take the larger share. Hundreds of men have suggested improvements of more or less value in reapers, after the main principle had been given to the public.
In case of such an invention as a gate latch, it must be remembered that there are already very good ones in existence, and probably a still better one may soon be invented; and so we say that, in all ordinary cases, it is better to sell the patent if any such price as $10,000 is offered for it. However useful such an invention may really be, the inventor as well as the intending purchaser of a “right” should carefully avoid forming extravagant opinions as to “the money there is in it.” The farmer or other business man who gives up his regular business to engage in the sale of patents, in the great majority of cases, does a very foolish thing.
We write this, because we have noticed in many cases the high anticipations of inventors or of purchasers of “territory” for some patent, and the disappointment and loss that followed. If any of our readers have invented anything they are convinced is of value, we say patent it by all means; but do not think of leaving your farm or other business to engage in its sale, or dream of sudden wealth to come from it.
The best honey season on record, and the most useful invention! Long live our German friend, who gave it to us without a patent!
The battle is past, and we can look back and see if the generalship has been, like that of the Prussians, well managed—or, like that of the French, left to manage itself.
I had two stocks last spring, and the empty combs from two hives that died about the first of March. The first swarm was hived on the 18th of June, and the honey-gathering on bass-wood closed July 26th—so that none of the young bees in new hives were then old enough to gather honey.
I have taken one hundred and eighty-seven (187) pounds with the machine, and on the 26th of July had from five hives, 228 lbs., or forty-five pounds each. They had gained forty pounds each, in thirteen days, on bass-wood blossoms. The best stock gained, 52 lbs. 8 oz. A queenless stock gained 33 lbs. 10 oz. The best day’s work, 7 lbs., Aug. 16. The best day’s work in June was Saturday and Sunday, the 25th and 26th—a gain of 21 lbs. 6 oz. on red raspberry blossoms, or 10 lbs. 11 oz. per day. I see that Novice reports 43 lbs. in three days, 25th, 26th, and 27th of June. As he reports bass-wood at its best July 6th, the flowers must be ten or twelve days earlier than at this place. So his best yield of honey, on the same days as mine, at 600 miles distance, was perhaps on account of the weather, or some electrical state of the atmosphere.
In June I took from my stocks what honey they had above twenty pounds each. While bass-wood was in blossom, I tried to take what they had above forty pounds each. The honey-emptier appeared to take away all disposition to raise a lot of drones in July. When I depended on box honey, the hive was crowded with honey before the bees would work in boxes.
As it took two pounds per month in winter to support a colony of bees, at this rate the twelve ounces of honey required to rear a thousand drones would keep a thousand workers four and a half months. I believe drones usually live about two months. So when Novice shaves off the heads of drone brood sealed over, he has already lost two-thirds of what it would cost to let them live; and the presence of drones might perhaps prevent the raising of more drone brood.
I would like to have Novice answer one question through the Bee Journal, and that is—Do light queens make better honey-gathering stocks than dark queens from the same parents?
Washington Harbor, Wis.
A charlatan is an impostor who lives by the folly of those who are imposed upon.
On page 83, Vol. V., of your most valuable journal, Querist seems to be at variance with our position in an article on page 55, of the same volume, where we assumed, as we yet maintain, that “the first and highest law of nature in insects is self-preservation in caring for offspring, &c. The honey bee seems to be endowed with this instinct for the purpose of preserving the brood in the hive.” Querist asks—“Now, is this statement correct? If the preservation of offspring is the strongest instinct that governs the honey bee, then why does she remove unsealed larvæ from the cells, to make room for a rich honey harvest? Mr. Otis, of Wisconsin, claims that the strongest instinct of the working bee is the love of storing honey. So it seems the position assumed by Mr. Seay, is at variance with that of Mr. Otis, and one or the other must of necessity be wrong.”
As to being at variance with some eminent beeologist, we have not a doubt that it is so, but you know, Mr. Editor, great men will differ. I deny emphatically that the workers will destroy the unsealed larvæ for the purpose of storing honey. I have never seen any evidence of it among my bees, and should be pleased if some correspondent (if he thinks such is the case) would take the affirmative and give the evidence.
To satisfy himself, that the first and highest law of nature in the honey bee is self preservation and the perpetuation of the species, Querist need only have a fair open contest with a hive of bees. Why do they sting? For self-preservation and the defence or preservation of their colony (species). Injure a single bee in the hive, and the whole colony is instantly exasperated. Cause the honey to run out without injury to any of the bees, and the effect is somewhat different. Tear the comb containing sealed brood, and the bees are at once enraged. And for what purpose? For self-preservation as a colony, in caring for the offspring. Why do they gather honey? For self-preservation and perpetuation of the species.
Is there nothing in all this to demonstrate the fact that the first and highest law of nature in the honey bee is self-preservation and the perpetuation of the species?
If this principle did not pervade the universe, everything would be chaos and confusion. It enters into and becomes the fundamental principle upon which the human family, the animal creation, and the vegetable kingdom have their existence. What causes the mother to care for her infant? It can be nothing less than this. If Querist were hemmed in some corner by an assassin who sought to take his life, and he had power to save himself by killing his antagonist, would he not do it? What causes the animal to care for its young, as the cow for her calf, or the sow for her pigs, or the birds for their unfledged young? What causes the bee to sting when the hive is improperly treated, or the smallest pismire to bite when its tenement is disturbed? You may pass from the human family down through the entire animal creation to the smallest animalculæ, and this (as it were) immutable principle pervades the whole series. Every once living thing that has become extinct as a species upon this earth, failed from some unknown cause, to comply with this grand fundamental principle—self-preservation and perpetuation of species.
Querist next says—“Again, is it not a fact that the self-preservation of the matured bees, is far stronger than the love of offspring? Witness, for instance, the destruction of drones during a dearth in the honey harvest?” I do not know whether I understand him here. When I say, honey harvest, I mean a time when there is plenty of honey to be found by the bees in flowers, honey dews, &c. Webster’s unabridged gives the meaning of dearth as “scarcity, want, need, famine.” These two terms then stand in direct opposition to each other. A honey dearth within a honey harvest is an utter impossibility. It implies two distinct terms, not both existing at one time, as a man within a man, or a horse within a horse. Language seems here to have betrayed Querist over to my side of the argument. It is true that the workers do destroy the unhatched drone brood in time of dearth. But why do they do it? It is in strict obedience and conformity to this alleged first law of nature.
Does Querist not know why his bees are so slow about entering their honey boxes, for the purpose of building combs? It is simply this grand fundamental principle that prompts. It is only because there are supernumerary bees in the hive that a portion of the workers leave the brood and enter the out of-the-way receptacle. The temperature required to produce brood is 70° to 80° Fahrenheit; and the amount of brood produced is governed by the number of mature bees in the hive. If the greatest instinct in workers be to gather honey, why do they not abandon the brood en masse, go into the honey boxes, and begin comb-breeding, when the grand flow of honey is to be found in the flowers? Because they would thereby doom the colony to inevitable destruction. Why do not bees enter honey boxes of their own accord, without waiting to be coaxed (as is generally the case) by placing therein small pieces of empty comb? Because their numbers will not permit them to leave the brood. And the same law of instinct, steps in and tells them that the brooding department must be run, whether combs are built and honey collected, or not. Why do they not build combs as readily in honey boxes above the combs containing brood, as they will in an open space below? Because they can thus produce the required temperature of 70° to 80°, and the heat generated below will ascend through the brood combs and bring about the same temperature above also (among the brood), thus accomplishing a double purpose, by virtue of the natural tendency of heat to ascend.
Querist says—“Mr. Seay has much to say about brood chilling.” This is true, and I have still more to say about it. It is this—it is brood just hatched, or not more than four days old, that is so easily chilled. This brood is very hard to see in the cells, and bee-keepers are not looking for it to be chilled; but when it becomes so and is lost, without having been seen in that state by the inattentive observer, its destruction is not the less attributable to that cause. Querist says where he lives, “sealed brood is not very likely to become chilled during June and July—the swarming months, and but few bees are necessary to keep it at the proper temperature to mature.” We do not know where Querist lives, but we do know that in Iowa in the months of July and August, on replacing our frames after handling them for some time, when the temperature was rather low for those months, we have frequently designated the place in the combs where young brood existed, by piercing the combs in a circle around it, with short stems of timothy grass, and left them there for a day or two that I might be sure to find the exact place and cells again; and, in many cases, on re-examination, I found no brood in those cells. I have repeatedly made swarms in the Langstroth hive, and afterwards found that the brood, in what I call the first stage, was gone.
Monroe, Iowa.
The Field. The farmers cultivate their fields for produce for the city. They are so frequently broken up that white clover has a poor opportunity for an abundant crop. But little buckwheat is sown. This season none of any consequence within three miles. Fruit blossoms in the spring were unusually abundant.
The Season. The early part of the season was favorable for gathering honey. The breeding apartment of the hives was well stored with brood and honey at the commencement of the white clover harvest. This harvest was, however, shortened by the drouth, and no honey was stored in boxes after the middle of July; and in some cases honey was removed from boxes partly filled.
Number of Colonies. I set upon the stand in the spring twenty-three colonies. Of these, three were in old box hives which were broken up when they cast the first swarm, and the hives converted to kindling wood. One of the remaining twenty, from loss of queen or other cause, failed entirely; and a new swarm was introduced to occupy its place. This left nineteen of the old colonies, for giving swarms and surplus honey.
Surplus honey in boxes. I find on adding up the product from my hives, they have given me one thousand and eighty (1,080) pounds of surplus. Perhaps in an ordinary field and poor season I should be content with this; but I think, with the experience of this season and some improvements in my hives, I could do better tried over again.
Of this 1,080 (or to be exact, 1,080½) pounds, five colonies give 625½ pounds, an average of 125 lbs., and 74¾ lbs. more than half of the whole surplus. One of the five best gave one hundred and ninety-eight and a half (198½) pounds.
I attribute this success of my best colonies to the following causes:
1. A full force of workers at the commencement of the season. To secure this, I fed them two or three pounds of syrup, when first placed upon the stand early in March.
2. This gave them from one to three weeks start of the others, in commencing work in the surplus boxes.
3. I think, further, one cause of such force of workers was a most prolific queen. Twelve boxes of six pounds capacity are now almost full of bees, though without honey or comb, except one or two.
4. But this great number of workers, and early filling the hives with bees, would not have given the surplus had they not been satisfied not to swarm. With the purpose to swarm and preparation for it, they would have given an early swarm, followed by one, two, or three after-swarms probably; and the 198 lbs. of surplus have been placed in other hives in the shape of arrangements and stores for wintering one, two, or three new colonies of bees.
In my experiments with bees, I have generally found a loss of two weeks time in preparation for swarming, in which little or no surplus honey is stored—the great body of the workers clustering out in idleness. Or if boxes were furnished them and filled with bees, I have been disappointed on the swarm leaving the box empty of bees, to find it entirely destitute of honey.
Although my advanced age and infirmities moderate my ambition in the new business of bee-keeping, and so limit my experiments that I have never tried to increase my stock by artificial swarming, I have no doubt but the greatest success in the business can only be secured by the use of non-swarming hives and artificial swarming. Overstocking the honey-field is, in my settled conviction, the great obstacle in the way of satisfactory success. This makes it necessary to have the entire control of the increase of colonies, to limit their number to the capacity of the field. I hope to do better another season, from knowledge gained by the experiments of the past.
Albany, N.Y., Aug. 12, 1870.
Mr. Alley says, in the last number of the Journal, that Mr. Briggs “may bet a high figure that no worker bee in this country ever showed four bands.” I beg respectfully to differ from him, having a queen now in my possession which produces bees that plainly show four bands, when filled with honey.
I noticed this before seeing anything about four banded Italians, in any publication. It is true, that the Baroness Von Berlepsch wrote me early in the spring that Dzierzon was selling such queens, but that was the only time that I had heard of them. The queen mentioned above was raised by me last season, and is not purely fertilized, as many of her bees show only one band.
St. Dennis, Md., Sept. 5, 1870.
A bee-hive is a school of loyalty and filial love.
Dear Bee Journal:—Just hear the good news,—our bees are again at work! Not, indeed, at the rate of ten or fifteen pounds per day, as in June last; but they are really at work at this date, September 9th.
We had been building some more “air castles,” and had talked of another yield of honey in August and September. After waiting some time, and watching and weighing a hive without any increase, we at last began to perceive a gain in weight, first of half a pound, then a whole one, and yesterday a stock of Italians gained two pounds and a half, which was enough to make us toss up our hat and almost embrace the little yellow pets (with judicious gentleness, of course).
A neighbor says the way we follow the bees across fields and through woods, and delve into the subject and remove obstructions, it is no wonder they get honey if it be on the face of the earth—and perhaps that is so.
But, look here, my dear reader, did you understand us to say that our bees were building combs? Not at all; “nary” comb will they build, with a few exceptions, and certainly none in those old-fashioned traps called boxes. It is this way. Where there are empty combs right above the brood, they will fill them with honey; as, for instance, in the upper story of the Langstroth hive. But they seldom put any honey in combs very far to one side; and hives that are full, or nearly so, do not increase in weight at all. So you see it all depends on having plenty of empty combs. We really think a few more just now would be worth a dollar apiece to us. A little feeding given just right will induce comb building, but we think not so as to pay.
The one stock that we weighed all through the season has now given us three hundred and thirty (330) pounds; and had it not been for replacing their queen, they would have done much better. Their new queen is nearly a black one, and so, also, are her workers; and, by the way, Mr. Editor, here lies a trouble. In slicing the heads off of all our drone brood this summer, we increased our yield of honey, which was all right. But we increased the yield also of new queens that produce black workers, or at least so nearly black that we have resolved to purchase twenty-five pure queens, to replace all that are not fully up to our ideas. It is true we might raise them, but at the prices at which they are now offered, we begin to think we had rather raise honey, and let some one who has more time or likes the bother better, raise queens. In making new swarms we have no trouble; but in raising surplus queens to replace others, etc., we have not made it go to suit us. We have made some experiments in artificial fertilization this fall, but have not succeeded. Queen nurseries and hatching queens in cages have also been an “unsuccessful bother” to us. We know we are but a poor novice, and should not expect to succeed always, but it does seem as if queens that do not lay, are rather a risky property to meddle with.
But there is one thing we do like, and find it a real pleasure, namely, to keep a record. Thus, we found sixty-five stocks too many to remember all about, so we got a blank book with 150 pages (bear in mind it is a good idea to have a few extra pages, even if you are sure you never will want to use them). No. 1 hive is on page 1, No. 2 on page 2, and so on to the end of the chapter. Each page tells when the queen of the hive it refers to was hatched, whether pure or not, prolific or not; if weighed, how much honey produced; if queen to be replaced, how and when; and, in short, all about the hive.
Our hives, bees, and combs weigh about thirty pounds each, and before putting them into the house in November, we are going to make every one weigh over fifty pounds, and not more than fifty-five. Some might call twenty five pounds sealed honey (or nearly all sealed) not as well as more; but, as we winter them, we think more would be detrimental, and with us all the rest goes into the melextractor. Were it not for that same melextractor, we fear, or rather feel sure, we should not get any surplus honey at all now.
In our last article it read that we had sold all our honey at thirty cents a pound, which was a mistake that crept in somewhere. The honey was sold for thirty cents per pound retail; but the commission, freight, leakage, cost of boxes, labor, etc., made quite a hole in the thirty cents. In regard to saleableness, we have just shipped the last of our three tons, and think that we could sell almost any quantity.
As respects the source of the honey we get now, it is mainly from the same white-flowering plants sent you last fall, which are even thicker here this season than they were then. And, Mr. Editor, we really think that the more bees there are kept, the more honey plants will grow; for every blossom is most surely fertilized, and the result must be more and better seed.
For the first four years that we kept bees, we never found the hives to gain in weight after the first of August; and then we had only from four or five to twenty stocks. Sixty-five colonies is certainly nothing like overstocking, and we have no fear that one hundred would be in any danger if well taken care of.
We have found our bees also working so briskly, on what we call fireweed and common golden rod, that we have labelled the honey from AUTUMN WILD FLOWERS. It is dark and thick, but has a very pleasant flavor, something like humble-bee honey, as we mentioned last fall, and very different from either clover or basswood honey.
We have had no buckwheat nearer than two and a half miles, and we followed the bees one morning all the way there, as our wild flowers were not then in blossom. We think we can afford, next year, to give farmers within one and a half miles of us, a dollar per acre to raise buckwheat. It is true it might prove a failure, but we are used to failures occasionally.
Many thanks to Mr. Tillinghast, on page 63, and also to yourself, Mr. Editor. When we commenced here with bees, our locality certainly was called poor. Bees had ceased to pay, and were dying out; and had we not been so much discouraged by what bee-keepers told us, we should probably have commenced sooner. One man purchased a hundred stocks, but utterly played out the first year. Black bees are now increasing around us at quite a brisk rate; but that is about all they do.
Mr. Tillinghast says that amount of honey (5,000), in the time, in his locality, “is simply impossible.” We think he would have done better to have said, in his opinion. We poor mortals very often have a very imperfect idea of what is possible. After the account was given in our county paper, that our bees were bringing in two hundred pounds of honey per day, and that one stock alone gathered forty-three pounds in three days, it was pronounced utterly impossible; and that if those who told it would consider, they would see that it could not be! And we were obliged to invite them publicly to come down and sit by one of our hives all day, weighing it at intervals, if nothing else would convince them, before they were still.
Counting the number of flower heads that a bee visits is a new idea to us; but we cannot think our bees visit more than a dozen certainly. One day in June, when we examined the red clover, we should think a bee would get a fair load from a single blossom; and many of them were working in the red clover at the time. The number stated seems as though the printer had made a mistake with the figures. Nearly ten blossoms in a minute for a whole hour, and not more than a load then! We agree that must be poor pasturage.
Nearly every year since we have kept bees has been called, by more or less unsuccessful ones, the “poorest” season ever known; yet, so far as honey is concerned, all we ask is—more just like them.
The only plant we have ever cultivated for bees is the Alsike clover, of which we have about half an acre, sown last spring on the snow, and which has bloomed quite profusely for the last six weeks, but is now nearly gone. We think our bees kept at least one sentinel to the square foot of it, to watch for the honey as it collected.
We had a visitor the other day (in fact, we have visitors by the score, and we are ashamed to say, to our sorrow sometimes). Well, this one for a while did not think proper to inform us whether he kept bees on the “brimstone plan” and came to convince us it was the best way, or whether he was the Editor of the Bee Journal himself (of the latter we were very sure, as we think we should know him anywhere); but eventually he taught us some things, and we hope he learned some things from us. His visit did not last quite twenty-four hours, but he really made us feel quite lonely, for more than that length of time after he was gone. One simple thing, that Gallup has often said before, but we did not believe it, our visitor convinced us of—namely, that rotten wood is ahead of all tobacco, rags, or anything else, for subduing bees, especially hybrids, who will sometimes “fight till death” when tobacco is used, but would turn around and go down between the frames “without ever a word” under the influence of rotten wood smoke. But don’t do as we did next day after he left us, and drop fire into the saw-dust. We burnt up a heavy two-story Langstroth of Italians before we discovered the muss, and the stream of melted wax and smoking honey that ran out in lava-like channels was a warning to all Novices.
And then we had some robbing at OUR house. We got about half a dozen frames of empty comb hastily put in a new hive, and removed the burnt one, and got the bees to bringing in the honey that had run out (they wouldn’t eat melted wax); but before they had got it all done, there arose an “onpleasantness” as to ownership that finally mixed itself into a grand jubilee, in spite of Novice. The burnt hive is patched up, and the combs and bees are back into it, minus their queen, about forty pounds of honey, and ten frames of comb of such evenness and beauty, that some one (who wanted to pick a fuss) said we thought more of them than of our wife and family.
Our visitor aforementioned says he has never written but one article on bees, and we think that so richly deserves a place in the Journal, that we mail it to you.
And now, Mr. Editor, we would say before closing, that in our humble opinion, the results we have achieved this year, are no nearer what may be done in scientific bee-culture, than the old brimstone way is to our present method, and humbly beg to be still considered a
Mr. Editor:—According to promise I will try to answer the queries so often put in the Journal:—“Are bees profitable?” and “Can bees be kept in cities?”
I have kept bees for the last three years on the roof of a two-story house in the city of Cincinnati, having kept bees before, when living on a farm. We did then about as well with them, as our neighbors did who also kept bees; but we were without the aid of the Bee Journal, and kept our bees in common box hives—hence our doings could hardly be called bee-keeping.
Three years ago we took to the city the last hive which the moths had left us, built a platform on the roof of the house, and placed the hive thereon. It threw off a swarm in June following, and gave us some honey. In the fall I introduced an Italian queen in each colony. Two years ago I subscribed for the American Bee Journal, and transferred my bees into Langstroth hives. A year ago last spring I entered on the campaign with five colonies of bees—the two Italians in Langstroth hives, and three in Townley hives, having bought the latter. They produced during the season nearly five hundred pounds of honey, all in small frames weighing from one pound to one and a half pounds each; and the fall found me in possession of fifteen strong stands of bees, most of them Italians. On the fourth of June, 1869, I hived two second swarms, clustered together, from two of the Townley hives. After giving them an Italian queen and a full set of empty combs, they produced for me 138 lbs. of honey, the same season.
Last spring I had a first-rate honey slinger made by a brother bee-keeper in this city, and commenced the season with twenty colonies—fourteen of which were Italians or hybrid. As the bees commenced storing honey very early, my expectations were quite flattering, though I did not obtain as much honey as I anticipated. Several mistakes which I happened to make, account for this, in part; but my honey-harvest is respectable still. Here is a statement of it:
| 384 | lbs. of | honey in frames. |
| 1,350 | ” | machine strained honey. |
| 23 | ” | beeswax. |
As beeswax sells at the same price here that honey does, we may count it with the rest, and thus we have 1,757 lbs. as the product of twenty hives of bees in the city of Cincinnati. This certainly speaks well for our Italian bees, and for bee-keeping in a large city. My black bees have done well, but I think my Italians have given me nearly twice as much honey. Every one of my twenty colonies is now strong.
I was induced last month to make four more swarms, by taking from each hive about two frames with brood, honey, and adhering bees, and giving an Italian queen to each swarm. I have thus twenty-four Italian stands of bees, in a No. 1 condition.
Last year I wintered my bees on their summer stands, by leaving the honey board in its proper place and covering it with about half a dozen coffee bags or pieces of old carpet. I placed a smooth bag next to the board, to cover well the openings. This plan did very well. I did not lose a single colony, and intend to winter them the same way this year. In the earlier part of the winter I lost a great many bees, for the reason that I had neglected to cut winter passages through the combs. This having been done afterward, on the first mild day we had, my bees then got along first-rate. Before this was done, I sometimes found hundreds of bees dead in the cells on the outside of combs which separated them from the cluster—showing clearly the necessity of winter passages. Most of those parts of combs had already a putrid smell, and I thought it best to cut them out.
I have seen it stated several times that bees get irritated by tobacco smoke, and are more apt to sting for several days afterwards. This may be true of the black bees. They will bother me sometimes, in spite of my cigar. But I think those assertions are only made by non-smokers. All I want is a cigar, and I will open every one of my hives, take out every frame, and replace it every day for a week successively, without finding my bees any more angry at the end than they were at the beginning.
I learned how to open a hive from Mr. Gallup, through one of the numbers of our Bee Journal. I hardly blow any smoke at the bees, but over them; and I keep my cigar in the mouth, while Mr. Gallup keeps his pan with sawdust by his side, until the proper time arrives for the application of a little smoke. I think there are no more peaceable hives than mine in the country.
Now, Mr. Editor, I do not want to exhaust your patience, and wish you to make use of this, or of such portions only, as you may think proper.
Cincinnati, Ohio, August 16, 1870.
On page 67 of the last number of the Bee Journal, Ignoramus criticises my article on page 34 in regard to the looking glass, and says the glass has been tried three times this year to his knowledge, and three swarms of bees secured. But he gives us the particulars in only one case, and then guesses at my reply, which is perhaps correct; or the swarm may have had two or more young queens, and a small portion with one queen settled on one tree, while two or more queens with the larger portion of the swarm settled on another. After a few minutes, all these latter queens may have been simultaneously killed, and then the bees went to the other tree and joined the small portion with the one queen. As to the bees coming down to the ground, that is often the case. When a swarm issues, the bees are so full of honey that it is difficult for them to fly, and they often light to rest. I have often had swarms to settle in three or four places, though they had but one queen, remain for ten or fifteen minutes, and then all join the cluster with the queen. Just so with the old woman’s bees. They may have just been in the act of going to join the cluster with the queen, when she saw them.
Ignoramus also tells us how to secure swarms with a knot. Well, sir, I have never tried the knot, but I have tried the mullein tops tied in a bunch and attached to a pole, &c., and also a piece of old black comb attached to the under side of an inverted bottom board swung to a pole, with cord and pulley, to raise and lower, as the bees would rise or fall. But after trying both for a whole season, when I had more than a hundred swarms to issue without a bee lighting on either, I gave it up as a failure. I think it likely his knot theory will answer very well in a prairie country, or any place where there is nothing for the bees to light on. But where they are surrounded with as many shady fruit trees as mine are, they will mostly select a leafy branch to settle on. When I allowed my bees to swarm naturally, I had two-thirds of the swarms, or more, to settle on the under side of my grape arbor; which proves that they prefer a cool shady place to a bare pole with a knot on it.
Ignoramus says I remind him of an old Dutch lady, &c. Well, sir, I am like the Dutch in one respect; that is, I am in favor of progress; but I am not like the old Dutch lady you refer to, for I was persuaded by your suggestion to look again into the glass and well. Yesterday was a clear, bright sunshiny day. I took a glass some fifteen inches square, and just as Ignoramus said, I saw different from what I did on the other occasion. I saw the water in the well and my own pretty face in the glass—nothing more. I am now ready to try any other experiment that Ignoramus may suggest; but my opinion is, the better plan will be to throw aside the glass and make artificial swarms. Then there is no danger of any going off, besides being the fastest way of increasing bees, when the operator understands the principle well. But had I been wholly like the Dutch lady, I should never have succeeded in making artificial swarms. In my first efforts, I ruined dozens of swarms before I succeeded.
I am aware there is much yet to learn about bees, and my motto is to try and try again. So come along, Mr. Ignoramus, with your suggestions. If you do not teach me anything, you perhaps instruct somebody else, as there are many new beginners that read the Journal; and the Journal is the place to receive and impart bee knowledge.
Cynthiana, Ky., Sept. 6, 1870.
Mr. Editor:—In volume 2, number 9, of the American Bee Journal, Mr. A. Grimm gives a case, under the above caption, of forty-three queen cells on one frame of comb. I have had two similar cases this season. The first one had twenty-eight cells on one frame; the other had forty-seven cells on one, and five on an adjoining frame—making fifty-two cells at one time, in one hive.
Early in the spring I experienced the greatest difficulty in getting my bees to start queen cells in full stocks. Having an extra choice queen, which I intended to raise from exclusively for the present; and not being willing to risk the loss of her in moving her from one stock to another, I adopted a different course. (By the way, I always start queen cells in full stocks—never in small nuclei.) I removed the hybrid queens from three strong stocks in succession, and in five days after their removal, I cut all the cells then started, and gave each stand a frame of brood and eggs from the choice stock. On opening those stands a few days after, to see what number of queen cells they had started, I was doomed to disappointment. The first one had only three cells, and two of these were built too close together to be separated. The other two stands did very little better. Getting tired of this slow process, I removed the queen from another strong hybrid stock; then exchanged the whole of the brood combs with the choice stock, brushing off the bees into their own hive. In this way I got some sixteen cells.
On the 6th of June two very large swarms got together. I divided and equalised them, and thinking each had a queen, I left them and went to other work. One of the queen’s wings being cropped, I had put her on the cluster before the other swarm issued—the two stands sat about a rod apart. About an hour after this one of the stands became restless, the bees flying out and in, but neither going back to the old stand, nor to the one I had just separated them from; nor settling, either, except on the tops of the weeds and grass, two rods below the two stands, and under the limb they had swarmed on. It then occurred to me that the cropped queen might have dropped in the grass, and I started to look for her. But what a sight presented itself to my eyes—a great, big, long snake! No, not a snake, but a bee procession, a rod long and from three to five inches wide, travelling on foot, through the grass and weeds, to the nearest stand, headed by her majesty—who just entered the hive before I could seize and secure her. This was the stand from which I had just separated them an hour before. I then had my work to do over again, which I did in a few minutes, but got both queens in one hive, though I did not then know it. I had watched closely, and saw only one queen enter. By this time other swarms claimed my attention, so that I hastily took a frame of brood from another stand, and gave it to the one I was not certain had a queen—intending to give them one as soon as I ascertained it needed one. They went to work, as though all was right; and I paid no more attention to them till the second day after, when I opened the hive to examine. I found they were building straight and nice worker comb. I did not then raise the frame of brood, as the nice worker comb satisfied me that they had a queen; that is, according to the authority of book authors and others, that bees will never build worker comb without the presence of a queen. But here is an exception; and I have in my practice come across many exceptions to general rules, where bees are concerned. On the 19th this stand swarmed, and taking advantage of my dislike to work on Sundays, went to parts unknown, though I saw them go. I was then engaged in hiving four others, and they refused to await their turn to be waited on. Next morning early, I raised the brood comb already mentioned, and secured seventeen fine queens, counting twenty-eight perfect cells in all! The hive was about filled with comb, but only about one-third was drone comb—the rest being worker comb. Nothing ever puzzled me more than this case. I cannot account for it without going counter to the established rules, that bees without a queen will build drone comb exclusively. But, as I said above, this swarm was extra large, and having a frame of brood given them at the start, may have taken a notion to divide again, and so built worker comb while raising the queen cells. Or, will some one say the old queen was present. Well, if she was, why did the bees build about one-third drone comb? Will some one give us a similar case—such as a newly hived large swarm starting queen cells at once, while they have a queen. I am almost positively certain that they had no queen; yet there is much about the case that bothers or puzzles me. A good job for Gallup!
On the 27th of July, I removed a queen from a strong nucleus, to send her off. The nucleus hive was 12 × 12 × 18 inches, with three frames and partition board. It had been started with two frames, but an empty frame was afterward inserted in the middle, to give the bees more room to work. This frame they had filled out to within two inches of the bottom. I had disturbed the nucleus a few days before, to stimulate the queen to lay before removing her. In six days after her removal, on opening the nucleus, I found and counted forty-seven perfect cells, but saw none on either of the other frames; yet, while removing the cells on the 10th day, I found five more on one of the adjoining frames—making fifty-two (52) in all!
In conclusion, let me add that this has been a poor season here. I will get only about 500 pounds of honey, to Novice’s 5,000. Hope he has filled his cistern by this time. But here I must close, as I have already wearied the patience of your readers.
Lowell, Ky., Aug. 12, 1870.
When the spring opened, it found me well prepared with very large colonies; but while they seemed to be doing all they could and working hard all the time, they used up all their stores, and I had to give the larger ones honey in the comb stored last year. Then while the fruit trees bloomed profusely, and when white clover had been in blossom a month, my bees had not capped—even in the largest colonies—a pound of honey, much less built any comb. Otherwise they did well.
In the winter I had thirty-five stocks. In January I smothered one, and in April three proved queenless, and two others were robbed; thus leaving me with twenty-nine. Since then I killed a drone layer, and in another hive the queen died and the bees had mostly gone up before I discovered their loss. I gave them queen cells, and as they hatched out a week ago, tomorrow I shall examine all my new swarms and see if any failed to secure a fertile queen or lost theirs. Thus you see I was reduced virtually to only twenty-seven stocks. Now, I have thirty-eight, and, with the exception of one, all are very populous.
As we have not had any rain here this spring, except one or two slight sprinklings, we are now threatened with drouth. Heavy dews and a clouded sky have saved us so far, but have kept the bees from flying a great deal. I shall not increase my stock any more till it rains, or honey becomes plenty again. From the hive that I have raising queen cells, I secured fifty in three weeks.
On the 11th of this month (June) I received an Italian queen from Mr. Charles Dadant. I was disappointed when I first saw her, as I had formed the opinion that the Italians were a larger bee than the blacks; yet there is not a worker in my hives that is not larger than those that came with the queen, and I am positive that I have black queens that are almost three times as heavy or large as the Italian queen I received. But the Italian is quicker than lightning and the workers are on guard the first in the morning and the last at night. I introduced her to the colony raising queen cells last Monday morning, giving the black queen to a queenless colony. I examined the hive containing the Italian this morning, and find that the swarming impulse is still on them, though the introduced queen is of this year’s raising, as Mr. Dadant says, “she was born this year, 1870.” On examination, I found twenty-five queen cells in the hive, ready for the egg, if the eggs are not already in them. It was too early and still too dark, being “before sun rise,” for me to make out if any eggs were laid in the cells. When I removed the black queen, I destroyed even the old queen cell foundations, so you see my mode is not theory but fact. As fast as the queen cells are capped, I shall remove a black queen from a colony and give it two queen cells, to make sure of one, till all have been changed to Italians. Next year, when I shall have none but Italian drones, I will easily secure pure Italian stock.
Buffalo Grove, Iowa, June 20.
Mr. Editor:—This has been a somewhat poor honey season in this locality, owing to the dry weather. The month of March was pleasant and warm for the season. At the close of the month there was brood in the combs in most colonies. April was less favorable. The month was cold, and at its close there was less brood in many colonies, than there was at its commencement. May was warmer again, and the bees commenced gathering pollen early in the month. Breeding was extensively resumed, and towards the last of the month, the bees stored some honey. Most of the hives were strong and apparently in good condition to be divided; yet a division at this time, or in fact at any time during the season, would have proved injurious to many, if not entirely ruinous to some of the divided colonies. Honey gathering ceased with the failure of the fruit blossoms. No more honey was gathered until the last of June. Through the middle of that month most stocks were nearly destitute of honey, and the drones in most colonies were killed off. The slaughter was pretty general. About the last of June the bees commenced gathering honey again, and for nearly three weeks it was stored quite freely. Towards the end of July the honey harvest ceased, and from that time till within the last few days bees gathered no honey.
As a whole, the season has been a poor one. Very few stocks swarmed—especially of natives. The Italians have done better, those at least that were rightly managed. In the spring I placed twenty-eight (28) colonies on their stands, all of which had been wintered in a dark cellar. These I have doubled by artificial swarming, except three natural ones.
I drew and started up twenty-five (25) nuclei, for queen raising purposes, and kept them up. This I have done, while my neighbors did not get either swarms or honey; yet I do not think I have any colonies but what will be in good condition for wintering, at the close of the season.
Enclosed please find four dollars, for which send two copies of your valuable Journal, addressed as below. Success to the Journal.
Monroe, Iowa.