THE BEE-KEEPERS' REViEW 



49 



honey as extracted by using a large brood- 

 nest in the spring. The whole thing is 

 quite simple. I use your method, which 

 you published in a little book years ago, 

 but I do not wait for the swarms; I make 

 them artificially when it is time to set 

 the sections on the hives. These colo- 

 nies always work like a natural swarm. 

 If we wish, we can use Heddon's method 

 lu prevent after-swarms, and draw all the 

 young bees from the brood-combs to the 

 swarm. I could tell a lot of advantages 

 of this method. 



Converse, Texas, Dec. 5, 1899. 



Department of 



riticism 



CONDUCTED BY R. L. TAYLOR. 



The best critics are they 

 Who, with what they gainsay, 

 Offer another and better way. 



IMPROPER APPUCATION OF THE I.AW OF 



"THE SURVIVAI^ OF THE FITTEST." 



In Gleanings, 829, Mr. A. J. Wright ex- 

 plains his method of preventing after- 

 swarms. About the time the cells are to 

 hatch, he puts a guard of perforated zinc 

 to the entrance of the hive, and leaves it 

 a few days until the cells are all hatched 

 or destroyed and all young queens killed 

 but one. He says: "I now remove the 

 zinc and have the best queen of the lot, 

 on the plan of the survival of the fittest." 

 The idea of thus securing the survival of 

 the fittest is one not seldom met with in 

 apicultural writings. I am at a loss, how- 

 ever, to understand how the principle 

 applies; or, at least, I feel an impulse to 

 inquire: The fittest for what? It would 

 bring some of our troubles to a happy 

 conclusion if the answer might truthfully 

 be: The fittest to produce workers destin- 



ed to beat all others as honey producers. 

 We might then, with a good conscience, 

 bid a<lieu to the measuring of the length 

 of bees' tongues, and to testing the ap- 

 pearance and amount of a colony's pro- 

 duct, with the hope of thus discovering 

 a queen of great excellence as a breeder. 

 But it is difficult to perceive the relation 

 between fighting qualities and length of 

 tongue, or prolonged activity in the field. 

 Who ever heard of any one resorting to 

 cock-fighting for the selection of sires 

 from which to breed a good strain of lay- 

 ing fowls, or of choosing sires among 

 horned-cattle on account of their fighting 

 qualities, for the establishment either of 

 a beef or dairy breed ? This, nevertheless, 

 would seem a rather wise thing to do, as 

 compared with the selection of queen 

 bees by appealing to the wager of battle, 

 since in the latter case there are few 

 queens that are not destroyed, not on 

 account of any deficiency in fighting 

 qualities, per se, but owing to their com- 

 parative immaturity. In other words, 

 there is not a fair fight. Queen bees, it 

 is well known, emerge from their cells 

 in succession largely; so that, when the 

 desire for further swarming is given up 

 and the workers exercise no restraint to 

 the emerging of the queens, all others 

 fall on easy prey, as a rule, to the one 

 first out; and that not at all because the 

 latter is in any respect a better queen but 

 solely because she is more mature; and, 

 therefore, stronger and more active. ' 



SOME CRITICISMS ON ADV'ICE REGARDING 

 A MALADY THAT MAY BE CONFOUND- 

 ED WITH FOUL BROOD. 



F;ditor Root, (Gleanings, 858,) after 

 discussing the matter at some length, 

 arrives at the conclusion that there are 

 two kiiuls of foul brood. The facts from 

 which he deduces reasons leading to his 

 conclusion are that samples "of badly 

 affected brood" from New York, where a 

 new affection of brood has made its ap- 

 pearance, have a malady that differs from 

 that with which he has been acquainted, 



