Sept. 5, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



567 



ones, and no bees about thera. I could look into the hives 

 with bees in without smoke or veil, leave the top off, and 

 other bees would not go about thera. What was the mat- 

 ter? Were they tired, ashamed of themselves, or disgusted 

 with the size of the job? Even now (20 days after) they 

 won't smell around the old, robbed boxes left in the yard— I 

 think because the weather is so dry and hot. There hasn't 

 been a blossom of any kind for nearly two months. 



The hives in the old apiary are the same as in the new 

 one — arranged in the same way, two rows running north 

 and south, fronting east and west, with the honey-house at 

 the north end of the rows, with a clean, open ground south 

 and east of thera ; but no combs melted that I know of. 



Now will G. M. Doolittle, Dr. C. C. Miller, Prof. Cook, 

 or any others, tell me if the result would have been differ- 

 ent had the bees in the new yard been supplied with water 

 July 6 ? It was not the first time they had carried water 

 from the old apiary ; they knew where it was. I think the 

 surroundings had more to do with it than the water. 



Uvalde Co., Tex., July 27. 



The In-breeding of Bees. 



BY GEO. SHIBKR. 



NOTICING the editorial on page 355 on the subject of 

 in-breeding, and also having read in the other bee- 

 papers what has been printed on the same subject, 

 prompts me to add a word on the subject. 



I have wondered in the years past, since I have been 

 interested in bees, that it has never received consideration 

 by the leading queen-breeders, that is, I suppose it has not, 

 for I have never read anything of it until lately. 



For instance, a leading queen-breeder advertised, a 

 year or so ago, that his drones were not akin to his queen- 

 mothers ; that new, selected stock was added from time to 

 time to furnish drones. You see, he was constantly select- 

 ing choice queen-mothers, and selecting choice drone- 

 mothers, but not akin. A breeder can make some progress 

 in this way, but it seems to me its mighty uncertain. 

 Breeders of all thoroughbred stock tell us that two bloods 

 coming in contact (though of the same breed) produce a 

 shock that tends to stamp out the desirable quality — the 

 bloods do not harmonize where coming in contact. 



For illustration, take two queens whose bees are long- 

 tongue, (admitting for argument's sake that long tongues 

 increase the honey crop); choose one for drone-mother, the 

 other for queen-mother. Now, when the queens and drones 

 meet, there will be some that will be as good as their pa- 

 rents, but I should think few, for, from the standpoint of 

 other stock breeders, it would be making progress back- 

 ward. I would give twice as much for queens reared from 

 a long-tongue mother, and have said queens mated to her 

 sons — that would be harmony. Some would be as good as 

 their parents, some would be better, sure — no doubt about 

 that. 



Perhaps my bee-keeping friends will think I am specu- 

 lating too much. Not at all. 



Let me call 3'our attention to another kind of stock 

 that I have bred for years as a sort of hobby. I refer to 

 homing pigeons. The great aim with these " couriers of 

 the air " is to breed for speed and longdistance. A bird 

 that can fly 500 miles in a day is a prize. Do they 

 in-breed? Well, yes ! Father and son, brother and sister, 

 grandfather and granddaughter, and so on. Are they weak 

 and scrawny from such in-breeding? Pick up a bird of 

 mine that I have in mind now, which flew from Hagerstown, 

 Md., (a distance of over 250 miles, air line) to the home loft 

 here ; released at 9 a. m., he was back in the loft (home) at 

 4 p. m. Some days, when he is picked up he feels hard — 

 " hard as nails," as the fanciers say. How was he bred .' 

 Why, from a brother and sister. Mind you, this was a hard 

 fly, as he had to come over the Allegheny mountains, diag- 

 onally across the State of Pennsylvania. Most of the lead- 

 ing pigeon fliers in-breed ; of course this can not be car- 

 ried on indefinitely ; new blood has to be added, gradually, 

 say a quarter, an eighth, or a sixteenth. 



In-breeding, you see, tends to harmonize and intensify 

 the two bloods. It is an old saying, if you in-breed stock it 

 would soon decline and weaken. It is no doubt true; but 

 the breeder unmercifully culls his stock. Say one season 

 breed drones and queens together from the same mother ; 

 the next season use the same mother for queens. For 

 drones use one of her daughters, she mated to good stock 

 in a different yard. Then her daughter mated to a drone 

 from the first mother of the previous year. Then you have 



a small fraction of new blood added, that will tend to give 

 your stock added vigor, and will not affect the desirable 

 qualities of the strain you are building. 



I am aware of the fact that this mating of queens is 

 hard to control, but the only thing that can be done is to 

 make the best effort towards that end. until mating of 

 queens in confinement is an assured fact. But not much 

 headway will be gained by the "direct cross" spoken of by 

 some breeders. Why, if it were not for in-breeding we 

 never would have had White Leghorn, Plymouth Rock, 

 Wyandotte hens, or other breeds of " made " stock, so well 

 known by everybody. Take the Buff Leghorn hen — a new 

 breed which was produced by in-breeding, and selection 

 and in-breeding. There are hundreds of other illustra- 

 tions. 



I think this matter would best be left to queen-breed- 

 ers. I have — and I suppose others have — a dozen or more 

 different strains of Italian blood, in my apiary, but I 

 expect to make more of an effort to rear drones from the 

 same mother I rear queens from. 



Cattaraugus Co., N. Y. 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. ailLLBR, Mareng-o, DI. 



(The Qnestions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor. 1 



Keeping Chickens from Bees— Italians. 



1. I have some bees about four rods from the chicken- 

 house. If I clip the queens' wings, would the chickens eat 

 them, when they swarm ? They walk around the hives a 

 good deal. 



2. If I can't do this, what other method would you ad- 

 vise, to keep swarms from going away ? 



3. My bees have five yellow bands on them, but to stand 

 far away and look at them they look pretty black. What 

 kind do you think they are ? Minnesota. 



Answers. — 1. It is not likely that there would be any 

 trouble. 



2. If you should find that the queens were endangered 

 by the chickens, it would be an easy thing to fence the 

 chickens out from the bees, or rather to fence in the bees 

 from the chickens. A fence around the bees, of poultry net- 

 ting 18 inches high, over which you could easily step, would 

 fence the chickens out. You cannot fence chickens in with 

 such a low fence, but I have used it successfully around 

 flower-beds, and not a chicken would cross it. 



3. However dark they may look, the five yellow bands 

 indicate Italian blood. 



Two Ways of Putting on Supers. 



There are two methods of manipulating supers during 

 a honey-flow in common use, as follows : 



First, by raising the supers when partially filled with 

 comb honey, and putting the empty super underneath and 

 directly upon the brood-chamber. 



Second, by placing the empty supers on top of the par- 

 tially filled super or supers, when additional sections are 

 needed. 



Which of the above methods do you use ? and why ? 



" Out West." 



Answer. — Both. When a strong flow is on and there is 

 every reason to expect its continuamce. a second super is 

 added as soon as the first is half filled. If the bees seem 

 crowded for room it may be given before the first super is 

 half filled. It is put under the first super, because that will 

 oblige the bees to occupy it promptly, for they can not 

 enter the upper without at least passing through the empty 

 one. If the room seems still to be needed, a third super 

 may be given before either of the first two are finished, 

 and I have had as high as five or six on at a time, and not 

 one of them finished, the last one put on always being the 

 lowest. But it is a risky business to have so many unfin- 

 ished sections on at a time, for if the flow suddenly stops, 



