41st YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, JULY 18, 190L 



No, 29. 



^ Editorial. ^ \ 



The Thousand Members of the Na- 

 tional Bee-Keepers' Association (or the bal- 

 ance of about 300) which we are trying to 

 secure amony: the readers of the American 

 Bee Journal, are coming in slowly. As prom- 

 ised, we begin to pubish the list of those that 

 are going to help make up the number neces- 

 sary to have an even 1000 by the time of the 

 Buffalo convention in September. Since we 

 began this effort, we have received the follow- 

 ing names with a dollar each : 



W. D. Phillips. 

 W. J. Forehand. 



H. B. Shoonover. 

 C. H. Harlan. 



We hope by another week to have a much 

 larger list of names of new members to pub- 

 lish. 



Are We Doing Our Best in Breed- 

 ing? — While the theorizers are having their 

 say, and are doing some good by stirring up 

 to a full knowledge of what is required in 

 scientific breeding, are the rank and file of 

 bee-keepers doing their best with what they 

 do know ? It is not difficult lor any one to 

 understand that if he has a colony that gives 

 twice as much as the average in surplus, and 

 another that gives only half as much, if he 

 makes his increase by swarming, and gets 

 more swarms from the poorest than from the 

 best, that his stock will grow worse instead 

 of better. And yet are there not thousands 

 who will get their increase just by allowing 

 the bees to have control of swarming ? And 

 in that case is it not generally the case that 

 the poorest storers do the most swarming < 

 AVe can not control the matter of mating to a 

 very great e.Ktent, but are pains taken to con- 

 trol it as far as possible \ Are drones super- 

 seded in poor colonies and encouraged in the 

 best S If we do the best we can with what 

 we have and with what we know, will we not 

 be doing a good deal better than we are now 

 doing ; These are trite words, but it is none 

 the less important to stir up your pure minds 

 by way of remembrance. 



Bee-Keeping on Paper. — If a bee- 

 keeper is down with a fit of the blues, one 

 way to cheer him up is to give him a good 

 supply of reading-matter about bees, taking 

 an average lot as found in agricultural and 

 other papers. It is true that some agricul- 

 tural paiiers have bee-depart nients that are 

 reliable, but most of them ari' more or less 

 re-lie-able. In the Twentieth I cntury Farmer 

 is an article of some length telling about 



"traveling bee-colonies" owned by C. I. 

 Graham, in California. Some of the items 

 may be of interest to the readers of the 

 American Bee Journal, who are left to sep- 

 arate fact from fiction. 



The renascent activity of bees depends upon 

 the coming of spring flowers, and early in the 

 season it is easy to move them before they 

 have aroused themselves from the winter's 

 listlessness. When Mr. Graham moved his 

 bees in April, it was predicted that they 

 would desert him by the wayside, for while 

 bees may be moved in winter, it is generally 

 considered impossible to move them in the 

 active season. The difficulty was solved by 

 traveling at night. He has a wagon the size 

 of a flat-car with crate on it holding 300 colo- 

 nies. Cnder cover of darkness the crate is 

 slipped from the car to the wagon, and the 

 bees taken to some sweet bower before day- 

 light. When the combs are full the honey is 

 " strained." 



The same paper contains an extract from 

 the New Orleans Times, describing the Cuban 

 bee. It says " he " is quite different from the 

 American bee. The Cuban bee is lazy, 

 trifling, almost slovenly, looking like a drone 

 when compared with the American bee. 



" The Cuban bee has a sort of oxcart move- 

 ment when he goes about his work. The 

 American bee is snappy, quick, and almost 

 electrical. Now, why is this ? 1 have my 

 own theory, and I base it upon the broadest 

 principle of science, a principle universally 

 recognized for its potency in the shaping of 

 character. It is a matter of environment. 



"The Cuban bee has been surrounded by 

 slow methods and awkward, crude ways of 

 doing things. He simply reflects the life, the 

 mannerisms and the methods about him. He 

 is still the bee of the oxcart age, and buzzes 

 about his business in an oxcart gait. He is a 

 Cuban to the manor born. The American 

 bee's industry may be accounted for in the 

 same way. He is a natural-born hustler. He 

 is an American, full-blooded and full-fledged." 



What Do We Know About Breed- 

 ing? — Several writers have had considerable 

 to saj' as to the ignorance of bee-keepers with 

 regard to anything like the intelligent breed- 

 ing of bees. It is probably a fact that among 

 the breeders of horses, cattle, swine, poultry, 

 etc., there will not be found so much ignor- 

 ance as to the laws of breeding as is to be 

 found among breeders of bees. So it is well 

 that of late so much has been said by way of 

 arousingatteiiliiin to thesuljject, albeit it may 

 be in the wnsh nf many that more of instruc- 

 tion had been given by those who find fault 

 with the lack of knowledge. To the ques- 

 tion : " What do we know about breeding V 

 the plain answer probably must be, little or 

 nothing. 



After all, mc bee-keepers so greatly to 



blame for this ? In intelligence they will 

 probably rank with breeders of other classes, 

 and other things being equal, they should 

 know as much about the laws of Iweeding. 

 But other things are iiut equal. The breeder 

 of horses may make himself acquainted with 

 the laws of breeding, and in applying those 

 laws for best results one of his chief cares, if 

 not his chiefest care, is to malvc a wise selec- 

 tion of the two intended parents of his future 

 stock. Without this care in selection his 

 efforts will count for little. In the case of 

 the bee-keeper such selection has been con- 

 sidered next to impossible of accomplishment. 

 Of what avail to study carefully just the drone 

 that should meet a certain queen, if the con- 

 trol of that drone is entirely out of the ques- 

 tion >. There is excuse for the fact, if it be ti. 

 fact, which is not here denied, that bee-keep- 

 ers know less about breeding than the breeders 

 of any other class of stock. 



At the same time it would be a gain if more 

 were known as to the laws of breeding. Pos- 

 sibly we are just on the eve of entire control 

 of fertilization, and it would be a wise thing 

 to prepare for it in advance. Even if we have 

 only a very limited control of the mating of 

 queens, it will do no harm to have all the 

 knowledge that can be used in that limited . 



control. 



■*■ 



Are Ijong Tongues of Value Per Se ? 



— In' an able article which we copy on page 

 453, Frederick B. Simpson says : 



" To my mind the long-tongue agitation is 

 too much like treating a symptom instead of 

 the disease itself. I believe that long tongues 

 are of value only in so far as they represent 

 an increase in vigor; or, in other words, only 

 when such increased length is the direct result 

 of increased use of the tongue, indicating 

 greater activity and vigor." 



That might be understood as meaning that 

 in and of itself there is no value in a long 

 tongue, only as it is a sign of other qualities, 

 just as there is no value in the bands of the 

 Italian only as they are a sign of special 

 qualities possessed by the Italian. It is 

 doubtful that Mr. Simpson meant just this, 

 for elsewhere he says, " Other t/iiui/s being 

 equal, I want long tongues.'' 



Given two bees exactly alike in all other 

 respects, one having a longer tongue than the 

 other, and there is no question that the longer 

 tongue would have the advantage wherever 

 there were flower-tubes a little deeper than 

 the reach of the shorter tongue, and yet with- 

 in reach of the longer tongue. At the same 

 time it is a mistake to suppose that the length 

 of tongue is an exact gauge of the value o£ 

 two different bees. The bee with shorter 

 tongue may have extra diligence to make up 

 for shortness of tongue. 



