ILLIXOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATIOX. 



49 



pound. Now it has gone up, like every 

 other thing. 



Question — When would you feed a thin 

 syrup and when would you feed a thick 

 S3'rup? 



jMr. Dadant — I do not think that any 

 practical bee-keeper would hesitate in de- 

 ciding between the two. The thick syrup 

 would be better in the fall and thin syrup 

 in the spring. Bees in the spring need 

 water, they go after water. If you give 

 them thin syrup, they will go less after 

 water than if the syrup is thick. But in 

 the fall they do not need water, because 

 they do not breed. It takes no less than 

 two pounds of sugar to a pint of water 

 in winter, some people use two and a half 

 pounds. 



Question — What strain of bees as a rule 

 gives the best results? 



Mr. Warner — The light three banded 

 Italians. 



The Secretary — I have my hives so 

 arranged that the best bees are on the 

 stand of concrete foundations nearest to 

 \vhere I approach them from the honey 

 house, because they do not sting as bad 

 as the other. When I went to get honej- 

 to exhibit at the Fair, I found all the hives 

 that had anj' finished combs in them were 

 here among these bees Out of one hive I 

 took just one frame, that was the onty one 

 in that hive that was all sealed with 

 tapers to the outside. I took that one 

 frame out and I thought they w'ould not 

 make any more honey and I thought I 

 would leave the two frames to fill the 

 space. I was extracting a week ago and 

 those two frames were exactly the width 

 of my three fingers and they, weighed 13 

 pounds apiece. They had filled them out 

 so far and had done it all since the Fair 

 and those were light Italians. They were 

 among my best. They were queens that 

 I got from Mr. Dadant and they were not 

 the yellow, but they were the three banded 

 Italians. Because of the rush of work at 

 our place I have nine stands yet to extract 

 from and every stand back in the shed, so 

 that my bees are shaded from the 3 o'clock 

 sun and I cannot say what the result is 

 going to be there, but I have an idea that 

 they are all of them full, just as the others 

 were. None of them have done better 

 than the light Italians. 



Mr. Root — I have felt that the ordinary 

 old fashioned three banded Italians have 

 not been bred for beauty, for color, but 

 for business and they are the ones that 

 give the results. 



The Secretary— You do not call them 

 hybrid, do you? 



— 4 B A 



Mr. Root — No, I call them the old 

 fashioned Italians. 



The President— That is my hobby, when 

 3'ou come to the question of what race or 

 strain of bees is the money maker. I have 

 been testing them for the last forty years 

 and observing pretty closely when I go 

 over my apiary in the fall to do my fall 

 extracting. My hives are all ten frame 

 hives; I cut them down to eight or seven 

 frames and some times, although rarely, 

 to six frames, according to the strength of 

 the colony. The surplus combs I put 

 away for spring feeding and I invariably 

 mark my colonies according to what they 

 produce and according to the stores in the 

 brood chamber. This fall T have maiked 

 all dark, leather colored Italians, the pro- 

 geny from queens that I got from Mr. P. 

 L. Riley thirty years ago. I have tried to 

 make strains since of Moore, Morgan, Law 

 and a dozen others, some darker, some 

 lighter and some just like gold. I do not 

 want them on the place. I am going to 

 breed from these that I have marked. I 

 have some colonies there that have pro- 

 duced two full boxes of surplus honej*. 

 That means about 80 pounds of extracted 

 honey, when the adjacent colonies, ap- 

 parently just as strong, light colored, have 

 only produced just enough to winter on. 



These colonies that I took these two 

 boxes off have so much honey that I have 

 taken out two side combs and I weighed 

 six of these side combs and they weighed 

 a little over 70 pounds. That is what I 

 have got to feed back in the spring. I do 

 not have to buy sugar if the bees do not 

 make a drop of honey before the middle of 

 Ma}^ But you cannot do that with 

 hybrids or black bees or light colored ones, 

 as a rule. I do not want anything to do 

 with light colored bees. Give me the old 

 genuine leather colored three-banded Ital- 

 ians. 



Mr. Dadant — I do not believe we ought 

 to condemn the light Italian bee unless it 

 has been bred for color. The man who 

 buys Italian bees and keeps breeding from 

 the yellows, will find he is getting yellow 

 bees, but as a rule he is overlooking the 

 other qualities. If you breed from your 

 best producing colonies, whether they are 

 bright yellow or only leather colored, pro- 

 vided they are pure Italians, you are doing 

 the right thing. If you breed froD) the 

 yellowest, you are likely not to get good 

 results. We should breed from those 

 Italians that give us the best results. 



The President — ^And those are the dark 

 colored three banded Italians. 



The Secretary — Not always for me. 



