May 9, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



293 



picioD that our own apiaries are not up to tlie standard we desire. 

 We hear of frolden .yellow queens, leather color, long tongnes. and 

 even .?1(I0 queens. To make a good start we should like one of those 

 $100 queens; but after considering the lank condition of our purse we 

 finally conclude to send for a dollar queen, and that is about as far as 

 we get this year; but next year, if we have a big crop of honey, we 

 will do better. Our dollar queen maybe good, bad, or indifferent; 

 and. whichever it is, we do not get much out of her. 



Then you know that queen-rearing has become a great science of 

 late years. Alley's plan used to be good enough for me; but no\y it is 

 dipping-sticks, tooth-picks, transfer of royal jelly, transfer of larviv, 

 and putteration until your head swims. Oh, it is so strenuous! 



But I see light at last. When I read Pridgen's plan of making 

 queen-cells by the peck, and queens by the quart, a great load seemed 

 to be lifted from my mind, and I formulated the following more strenu- 

 ous plans for (lueen-rearing: 



In the first place, every bee-keeper needs the very best queens that 

 can be reared — best in hardiness, ijrolificness, and notably in the honey- 

 gathering i|Ualities of her progeny. 



In the second place, there are but few bee-keepers who have the 

 combination of riualities that will insure their success in modern 

 strenuous scientific queen-rearing. Now, my plan is that a certain 

 number of bee-keepers in a given locality turn their queen-rearing 

 over to an expert in that line of work. A contribution from eacli 

 bee-keeper interested would enable the expert to commence oiierations 

 with the best available stock. Each bee-keeper in this district should 

 agree to take a certain number of ciueens per annum; and. having a 

 definite number of queens to rear, and a large number of them, the 

 expert could rear them at a minimum cost to the bee-keeper, and at 

 the same time with a good profit to himself, 



A person devoting his entire attention to queen-rearing will strive 

 to improve his stock, and his iiatrons will receive the full benefit, or 

 the patrons in this case would have an influence in keeping the stock 

 up to an approved grade. 



Our usual plan is to send for a breeding-queen and rear daughters, 

 granddaughters, and great-granddaughters from her, and trust to a 

 ]iromiscuous mating with our drones. 



Our expert could be so located as to control the mating of queens 

 with selected drones, and the bee-keepers in this district would get 

 <iueens only one removal from the original, or daughters, and from the 

 very best stock in the country. In our pl-esent haphazard way we 

 dilute the blood too much by the many removes from the original 

 stock, and this would be entirely avoided thru our expert queen- 

 rearing station. 



This plan is in line with the division of labor which at present is 

 recognized as the most effective way for accomplishing great results ; 

 and the question is. Are the bee-keepers ready for this advance in 

 their methods of management ? 



I will leave the question to you for solution, believing that, if it 

 is put into iiractice, the honey-producing power of our apiaries will 

 be advanced many fold. J. H. Martin. 



Contributed Articles. | 



Long-Tongued Bees Fad or Fallacy, Which ? 



BV G. M. DOOLITTI.E. 



OF late years some of our bee-papers start oflf with some 

 new idea, or some old one revived, and in a little while 

 the heads in all beedom seem to get twisted out of the 

 " straight and narrow path," and run off after an "appar- 

 ent something," which, a few years later, is dropt as if it 

 never had an existence, with hundreds and thousands of 

 hard-earned dollars wasted over the hobby or fad. 



The fad now "on" seems to be " long-tongued bees," the 

 fad having run long enough, and the excitement become 

 great enough to warrant asking $10, S15 and ?2S for 

 queens, giving bees having a certain length of tongue- 

 reach. And our good Editor York is compelled to fall into 

 line with the announcement at the head of his advertise- 

 ment, " Long-tongued bees are demanded now." Of 

 course, the "fad" has caused the demand, and no one 

 blames the editor for heading his advertisement in accord 

 with that truth. But is the fad founded on truth, or on a 

 fallacy ? That is the question that should be askt in all 

 seriousness, before more money is wasted on the fad. 



Long-tongued bees are either better workers, or they 

 are not better. Then, they may work on red clover where 

 that abounds, and be a great advantage there, without 

 being any more industrious at gathering honey from apple- 

 bloom, basswood or buckwheat, the nectar from which any 

 bee could reach having a tongue not more than half as long 

 as the shortest tongues measured. That being the case, 

 long-tongued bees would be an advantage only to those 

 residing vphere red clover and other long-tubed flowers 

 abound. This brings me to look into this part of the mat- 



ter, for red clover has not blossomed to any extent in this 

 locality for the past IS years, owing to a " midge" or very 

 small larva which works in the head just before it would 

 blossom, thus reducing what used to be fields " red with 

 clover blossoms " to fields having a dull-brown color, which 

 is assumed at blossoming time from the workings of this 

 pest in central New York. So, if these long-tongued bees 

 are not better otherwise, their working on red clover is of no 

 advantage to me. So I turn to the testimony : 



On page 220 of March ISth Gleanings in Bee-Culture, I 

 find these words : 



" The movement for longer tongues is simply to get the 

 red-clover crop of the North, which now is practically all 

 wasted. The bees no one claims would be any belter 

 except on that account." 



The italics are mine in the above quotation, and were 

 put there to draw attention to the words, as they point to a 

 fallacy somewhere. If the above is correct, then these 

 long-tongued bees are of no special advantage to me, nor 

 to two-thirds of the acreage of North America. And yet I 

 find parties in the extreme Southern States of Florida and 

 Texas, heading their advertisements, in that very same 

 number of Gleanings, with " long-tongued queens," just 

 as tho such long tongues was the great desideratum for 

 that Southern country, when according to the reading col- 

 umns of the same paper no one should claim they were any 

 better. But such claims are being, and have been, made. 

 Let me quote a few of these claims : 



" Heretofore I could only assert that the bees were 

 superior, that they would store more honey, but I could give 

 no reason why, except that this trait had been developt by 

 years of selection and careful breeding; but now I can say 

 whj', or, at least, give a reasonable reason why." 



And what is that reason? "They have very long 

 tongues." (Gleanings for Jan. 1st, page 32). If there vvas 

 any thought about red clover in the author's mind, no hint 

 is given to that effect. 



" The fact begins to dawn that bees, in order to make a 

 better showing in their hive than the bees of another, must 

 have long tongues." (Gleanings for 1900, page _ 882). 

 These words are given in connection with bees living in the 

 State of New Mexico, where no red clover grows, if I am 

 correct. " It is the old, old story. In every case where we 

 have long-tongued bees we have good honey-gatherers." 

 (Page 881, same number of Gleanings). Not the least hint 

 at red clover here, either. " We have now learned the 

 secret of their great honey-gathering qualities. It exists, 

 as I supposed, in the great length of their tongues." 

 (Gleanings, page 813, 1900.) "Another record-breaking 

 queen whose bees have long tongues." (Gleanings, 1900, 

 page 844). " Long tongues and good working qualities go 

 together." "The evidence is still piling up, to the effect 

 that long-tongued bees are the ones that get the honey." 

 And so I might go on giving quotation after quotation 

 of statements made along this line, without any special 

 qualification, or, if any qualifications have been made they 

 have been so hidden under a lot of rubbish, or so twisted 

 that the reader is led to believe that long-tongued bees are 

 just the thing he should have if he would succeed, no mat- 

 ter about red clover, or in what portion of the country he 

 resides. 



Now, as I hinted in the start, long-tongued bees do 

 have an advantage outside of the red clover districts, or 

 they do not, and to give misleading statements, or tho se 

 actually false, is something that our bee-papers of the pres- 

 ent day should not stoop to doing, not even when the 

 motive of gain prompts its advertisers. I am satisfied that 

 long tongues are only of advantage to those in red clover 

 districts, if thev are of any special advantage anywhere, 

 for the reason "that I have repeatedly had colonies that I 

 considered hardly up to the average during certain seasons, 

 (and would so mark the hive, preparing to supersede their 

 queens in the future), that the very next season would go 

 ahead of many others which I had raarkt as the best I had 

 in the yard. And such reports have come to me from many 

 bee-keepers in other localities. 



Then, there is another thing which casts a shadow of 

 doubt on this whole measuring matter, and that is that 

 many admit that there is nothing of minute exactness 

 about it, Undoubtedlv, a bee with a tongue only IS 100 of 

 an inch long can be told from one having a tongue reach of 

 20-100 ; but with the most exactness, and the nicety of the 

 instruments used at the Medina establishment, we have 

 this strange admission by K. R. Root, found on page S79 of 

 July ISth Gleanings for 1900: 



" All the tongues I measured would reach easily 1:5 100 

 inch. By exerting a little pressure on the head of a decapi 



