The Looking Glass Again.
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.
H. Nesbit.
Cynthiana, Ky., Sept. 6, 1870.
[For the American Bee Journal.]