134 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Feb. 28, 1901. 



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Pure Italian Bees 



Old or Young Bees in the Super 

 —Swarming. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A CORRESPONDENT sends in some questions and 

 wishes me to answer them thru the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal. His first question is, "Can a 

 five-banded queen be bred — or a queen whose bees are five- 

 banded — from pure Italian queens ? " 



I unhesitating-ly answer no, for the simple reason that 

 there is no such thing as a pure Italian bee or queen, when 

 viewed in the sense of a pure race or variety, as the Ger- 

 man or black bee is pure. At best, the Italian bee is only a 

 thorobred ; and that these five-banded bees have been pro- 

 duced from what was orig-inally only three-banded or 

 leather-colored bees, is a g-ood proof that the above asser- 

 tion is correct. 



Perhaps it may be well for me to give right here a bit 

 of history relative to these so-called five-banded bees — the 

 "golden Italian " more nearly expresses what they are, for 

 there are many queens in this country to-day which give 

 bees whose abdomens are a solid golden or orange yellow 

 the whole length, except the tip ; no bands whatever to be 

 seen as on three and four-banded stock. The history is 

 this: 



In the early seventies, H. A. King, then of Ohio, and 

 Jas. M. Brooks, of Indiana, were breeding for j'ellower 

 bees than the average importations of Italians showed. In 

 1S72 I procured some of Mr. King's stock, and continued to 

 improve them them till near the eighties, the apicultural 

 world having- lost sight of Mr. King, meanwhile. At that 

 time, by exchange, I procured queens of Mr. Brooks, and 

 afterward, by purchase, got the last of his very best stock, 

 he going out of the business. In the early eighties I sold 

 one of the best queens I could rear, along the yellow line, 

 to L. L. Hearn, then of West Virginia, he and myself ex- 

 changing more or less for the next ten years. And, if I am 

 correct, all of the so-called five-banded bees, of Italian or- 

 igin, that are in the world to-day, spring from the Xing- 

 Brooks stock. Others produced the so-called five-banded 

 bees by a promiscuous crossing of Cyprian, Syrian and 

 Italian stock, but such have shown their origin by their 

 bad qualities, to a greater degree than either parentage. 



OI,D OK YOUNG BEES WORKING IN THE SUPER. 



The second question is, " Is it the old or young bees 

 that work in the surplus arrangement? Iliad supposed it 

 was the younger bees, but a neighbor contends that it is the 

 old bees." 



Tel) that neighbor of yours, if he will try the experi- 

 ment of changing a black queen for an Italian about June 

 20th, some year, noting the time the first Italian bee hatches, 

 and on the forenoon of the 14th day from that time look at 

 the entrance of the hive, he will find none but black bees 

 issuing therefrom : while if he removes the cover from the 

 surplus arrangement he will find nearly all of the bees 

 there to be Italian. If he does not so find, his experiment 

 will prove dift'erent from any I have ever tried, and I have 

 tried such experiments several times. 



When a colony is in a normal condition, I have found 

 what Elisha Gallup gave in the American Bee Journal dur- 

 ing the early seventies, to be quite correct, namely this : 



Three days in the ft^^ form, six days in the larval 

 form, and 12 days in the pupa form, making a period of 21 

 days from the e.\^^ to the perfect bee. Very warm weather 

 will hasten the matter, while very cool will retard. The bee 

 when it first emerges from the cell does nothing but feed it- 

 self for the first day or two, when it commences to become 

 a nurse-bee, preparing chyme for the larv;^', evaporating 

 nectar, secreting wax, building comb, etc., till it is 14 to 16 

 days old. The young bee takes its first flight or playspell, 

 marking its location, voiding its excrement, etc., when six 

 days old. if the vceather is favorable, doing this from 12 to 

 3 p. m., and it continues these playspells occasionally till it 

 is from 14 to 10 days old, when it goes out into the fields as 

 a field-worker, doing no more of the inside work of the 

 hive after becoming a field-worker, unless forced to by a 

 lack of nurse-bees, from some reason, and dies of old ag^e 



at from six to eight weeks from time of emerging from its 

 cell, very few bees ever .seeing seven weeks of age during 

 the working season. 



In the above I have not given the exact wording of Mr. 

 (iallup, but the substance, as I quote from memory, not hav- 

 ing the volume in which it appeared. No beginner, or older 

 apiarist, should be without the knowledge contained in the 

 above, for upon it hangs much that goes toward making 

 the management of an apiary successful. 



OI.Ii OR YOUNG BEES IN A NEW SWARM. 



Thirdly, the correspondent wants to know if the " bees 

 composing a new swarm are all old bees," his neighbor 

 claiming they are. 



The truth is, that bees of all ages go out to make up the 

 swarm, as is very easily ascertained by any one who will 

 use his eyes with the view of finding out about this matter. 

 I have seen the ground in front of a hive from which a 

 prime swarm was issuing, covered with hundreds of bees 

 under 12 hours old, which tried to accompany the swarm, 

 but were not able to fly, so they went out on foot ; and on 

 hiving the swarm, a little inspection showed that it was 

 composed of bees of all ages, from those 20 hours old, or 

 bees just barely able to fly, to those with ragged wings, 

 just ready to die of old age. In this, as in all nature, God 

 made no mistake, when he showed bees how those of all 

 ages should accompany the swarm, when they heeded the 

 mandate, " Go forth, multiply, and replenish the earth." 



By a careful observation of the bees and the inside 

 workings of the hive, we can solve many of what seem dif- 

 ficult problems to us at first. And in the solving of these 

 problems, we are growing up into our apicultural work in a 

 manner that will make us finally efficient in every particu- 

 lar. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Shipping Qiueens by Mail— Unusual Experience. 



BY O. O. POPPI.ETON. 



ONE is very apt to give a wrong impression whenever he 

 allows himself to make a simple statement without 

 giving an explanation or reasons for that statement. 

 This was especially true of the statement I made during the 

 late Chicago convention, while the question of shipping 

 queens by mail was being discust — that I had " abandoned 

 the ordering of queens by mail." Of course, the inference 

 was that the mails were responsible for the poor quality of 

 the most of my queens obtainedthat way, which was only 

 true to a limited extent. 



For some reason which I can not explain, I have failed 

 in getting even a fair proportion of queens that would do 

 well. This applies only to the queens I have receivea since 

 I came South — not to those received when I lived in Iowa. 

 The fact that 15 or 20 years ago I could get queens that 

 proved first-class ones, and can not do it since coming south, 

 looks as tho there were some other reason than injury by 

 rjailing. I have had queens from breeders in the North, in 

 the central Southern States, and in the extreme Southern, 

 and the results seem to be the same. I wish some one could 

 tell me the reason why queens do not do as well here as they 

 used to do in the North. I don't mean that the queens 

 seemingly reach me in poorer condition, but that they prove 

 much poorer for real business. 



Another, and probably my strongest reason for not or- 

 dering queens from a distance, is the fact that fully one- 

 half of the colonies which have been given these queens 

 have developt bee-paralysis. These queens all have been 

 from the ablest and most experienced queen-breeders in the 

 United States, and men against whom there can not be the 

 least suspicion of having knowingly sent out diseased 

 stock. This is another one of the unexplainable things, 

 especially so, as I do not know of any one else having the 

 same experience. I have had practically to rid my apiary 

 of all stock obtained from a distance, and their descendants. 



The last few j-ears I kept bees in Iowa, there were few 

 things I did in the apiary that gave me better satisfaction 

 than did the use of early queens from the South. I used to 

 use from 25 to SO every season. I could not only get them 

 cheaper during the first half of June, than I could possibly 

 rear them, but the getting them earlier than I could well 

 rear them enabled me to use them at a decided profit. My 

 general method of management was to prevent swarming 

 as much as possible (usually keeping it down to 5 percent 

 or less), thus keeping most of my colonies large and strong 

 during the entire honey season. Increase was secured by 

 taking nuclei from the strongest colonies early in June — 



