Bee Letter from Middle Tennessee.
Some weeks since, in company with a friend, armed with a pint of strained honey and a bee-box, we started for the edge of the cedars, distant from my apiary, in a direct line, not less than 2½ miles, where we found bees foraging. We boxed and coursed many, but found none that did not belong to my apiary. It was a very warm day, and being wearied, without pushing out a mile or two further, we returned home, to renew our hunt in the fall.
All the trees I ever saw, having bees in them (and I have seen many) had the entrance hole or crack on the south or southeast side.
Native queens of colonies five miles distant from Italian stocks, in two instances that I know of, mated with Italian drones. And in this connection, speaking of distances, I will mention the reception through the mail of two Italian queens, accompanied by about one dozen workers each, from Wenham, Massachusetts. Look on the map, and you will see it is a long distance from here.
Very little surplus honey has been stored here this season, on account of continuous rains during the spring and summer. Late swarms, not fed, have gone up. I have endeavored to keep my bees breeding, giving them repeated small quantities of honey, and have succeeded in doing so; and buckwheat being now in bloom, I hope to obtain a dividend for my outlay and trouble, leaving enough for the worthy laborers when nature shrouds herself in snow.
This is a great country to raise bees in, and I would think more of them if they would swarm less and store more honey. But swarm they will, and they cannot be kept from it. Breaking up an old hen from sitting when she has fairly made up her mind to sit, is an easy job compared to keeping bees from swarming in this section. Swarming commences in Middle Tennessee about the 20th of April, and becomes general about the 5th of May. These new swarms often cast a swarm in thirty days. Swarming is also frequent in August if the season be a good one. Our honey harvest is divided in two seasons—the spring, embracing April and May; and the fall, embracing August and September. Very little honey is stored outside those two dates, except perhaps in the month of March, if the spring is forward and fruit trees come in bloom; and in the month of October, if we have a favorable fall and frost is delayed. There has been no fall of honey dew this year.
Friend Novice’s allusion to air castles in his communication in the Bee Journal for August, struck our flint. We read his communication to our better half. “Don’t believe a word of it! Do you think that’s so?” Exclaimed she. “I do. I have been following that Novice in print some time, and always found him truthful.” Here’s what’s the matter. A spruce old aunt was at our house a few days since, and something was said about new dresses and the fall styles, when our better half broke loose with—“Don’t expect to have anything new this year. Everything we’ve made this year has been spent for bee-gums and paints; and now the upstairs is stored so full, there’s no place for old carpets and lumber. There’s never been any money in that here, yet, and I don’t believe there ever will be,” &c., &c.
H.
Murfreesboro, Tenn., Aug. 8, 1870.
