January, 1908. 



American Hee Journal 



square inch, you have 2400 cells to the 

 frame.'' Of course that "2400" sliould 

 be "3400," and insead of 48,000 cells for 

 10 frames there would be 68,000, all on 

 the basis of 25 cells to the square inch. 

 If, instead of 25, we figure on 28 13-IS 

 cells to the square inch, we will have 

 78,517 cells, instead of 68,000, in the 10 

 combs — quite a difference. It is quite 

 possible, however, that the smaller num- 

 ber may be nearer the truth, for good 

 bees may not be satisfied, if left to them- 

 selves, to build cells as small as s to 

 the linear inch. 



Hybrid Bees and Italians. 



I see that you and Miss Wilson still 

 insist that hybrids are the best honey- 

 gatherers. Yours must be different 

 from any I ever get. 



This year was a poor one. June 10 

 I had 75 colonies all in poor condition, 

 some with brood half dead, chilled, and 

 starved. Sixty colonies are pure Ital- 

 ian and IS are hybrids, first cross, as 

 I keep mismated queens only one j'ear, 

 never allowing them to swarm or super- 

 sede. I keep pure drones. The hybrids 

 I run for e.xtracted honey and Italians 

 for comb. The result was, the hybrids 

 stored from 25 to 60 pounds extracted 

 honey being supplied with empty combs; 

 the Italians stored from 40 to 96 pounds 

 of comb honey and gave 15 percent in- 

 crease. From those 15 hybrid colonies 

 I got more stings in one day than from 

 the 60 Italians all summer. In 1903, 

 1904, 1905, I had a queen that I be- 

 lieve was equal to Root's famous Red 

 Clover queen. This is a poor locality, 

 yet she gave me over 500 pounds of 

 surplus honey in those 3 seasons. I al- 

 so got 10 daughters from her. Seven 

 were mismated. All proved poor honey- 

 gatherers. The 3 purely mated were 

 fair but nothing compared to their 

 mother. I had another queen those 3 

 years that did not give one ounce of 

 surplus, and 2 falls I had to feed her 

 colony. I got 3 daughters from her. 

 AH mated pure, and, strange to say, 

 they are the ones that produced 96 

 pounds this year. So you see as long 

 as my neighbors keep black and hybrid 

 bees I can't accomplish much by breed- 

 ing from best stock. With me the first 

 cross will degenerate 40 percent, as 

 honey-gatherers; and blacks never give 

 any surplus here. 



I had a colony of hybrids that an- 

 noyed me so this fall that I killed the 

 queen and gave them an Italian in a 

 cage, letting cork be over the candy 3 

 days. On releasing her they killed her. 

 I removed all their brood and gave them 

 another queen, leaving the cork over 

 candy 2 days. They killed her. I pound- 

 ed them up then till they gorged them- 

 selves with honey, shook them in front 

 of the hive, and let another queen run 

 in with them. I found her dead the 

 next day. I looked for some brimstone 

 then, but failing to find any I set them 

 on top of the strongest colony in the 

 yard, hoping to see them strengthened, 

 but not a bee killed. New Jersey. 



Answer.-— Please allow me to say 

 that you misunderstand my position, in 

 which you are not alone. Instead of 

 saying that hybrids are better than pure 



Italians, I have in general advised pure 

 Italians. One prominent writer across 

 the water, for whom I have great re- 

 spect, hints at inconsistency on my part 

 for advising pure Italians while myself 

 keeping hybrids. 



As a fundamental starting point, let 

 me say that all Italians are not alike. 

 Some are better than others. The same 

 is true of blacks and hybrids. Another 

 thing commonly accepted as true is that 

 introduction of fresh blood is likely to 

 give new vigor. So when Italian blood 

 is introduced into an apiary of blacks, 

 the introduction of the fresh blood is 

 an advantage, without reference to the 

 question of whether Italian or black 

 blood will secure hybrids that will be 

 a great improvement on his blacks. In- 

 deed, in many cases the hybrids are 

 found to be better than either black or 

 Italian blood in its purity, just because 

 of the fresh cross. 



But now comes in an item not so 

 generally recognized as it should be, 

 and that is, that a cross of Italian and 

 black blood is not so reliable to per- 

 petuate its characteristics as the pure 

 strain of either kind. With the pure 

 strain you are likely to have offspring 

 of the same kind as the parents, while 

 with the cross, things seem to be split 

 up and go in all sorts of directions. 



I'm not sure that I have put these 

 things in language scientifically correct, 

 for I'm not a scientist but only a com- 

 mon bee-keeper, but I think my state- 

 ments are not far out of the waj'. 



So much for theory ; now let me turn 

 to practise, and say what I have done. 

 Some time ago I began keeping close 

 tally of the amount of honey secured 

 each year from each colony, and I can, 

 at the present moment, by referring to 

 the records, tell what any particular 

 colony has done for a number of years 

 past. At the same time I began breed- 

 ing from the colonies giving best yields, 

 paying little attention to the matter of 

 color. As a result I have today bees 

 that are hustlers at honey-gathering, al- 

 though there is some black blood in 

 them, and the past season these hybrids, 

 in competition with pure Italians that 

 were considered choice stock, showed 

 themselves superior by the fact that the 

 best colony of hybrids stored 75 percent 

 more honey than the best colony of 

 pure Italians. 



Does this prove that hybrids are su- 

 perior to pure Italians? By no means. 

 It does prove that years of care in se- 

 lecting has given me some very ener- 

 getic hybrids, but the question remains 

 whether I might not have had still bet- 

 ter results if I had all through those 

 years held to the pure blood. With 

 pure-bloods I feel pretty sure I would 

 have had better temper, for some of 

 my hybrids are exceedingly vicious. And 

 the likelihood is that my mixed blood 

 will more easily go wrong in its poster- 

 ity than would pure-bloods. 



Frankly, I am very much afraid I 

 have made a mistake in not sticking to 

 pure blood, and if I had it to do over 

 again I think I would be careful to keep 

 out black blood, unless I could have, 

 as they seem to have in Switzerland, 

 blacks that are better than Italians, and 

 in that case I would stick to the black 

 blood. 



Mr. J. E. Crane gets good results by 

 pursuing a different course. He con- 

 stantly brings in fresh Italian blood 

 of pure stock, allowing the young queens 

 he rears to be fertilized by his hybrid 

 drones. But you see that is quite a 

 different course from continuously 

 breeding from hybrid parents on both 

 sides. Indeed, if he rears his young 

 queens always from pure mothers, will 

 he not be constantly approximating pure 

 stock, while at the same time having 

 always the advantage of the introduc- 

 tion of fresh blood? 



Now let us see how it is with your 

 bees. You find that the pure-bloods 

 surpass the hybrids. Nothing unusual 

 about that. Indeed, I think it is the 

 general rule. The fact that carefully 

 selected hybrids may be better than 

 pure-bloods not so carefully selected by 

 no means conflicts with the possibility 

 that hybrids in general are inferior to 

 pure-bloods; and so there is no incon- 

 sistency in my advising to breed for 

 pure blood, nor indeed m my following 

 my own advice. 



Your experience in having a colony 

 so determined not to accept a queen, 

 while not common, is very trying. 

 Sometimes you may brmg such a colonv 

 to terms by moving it to a new stand 

 so it will lose its field-force by their 

 uniting with other colonies. 



Oil-Cloth for Winter Hive-Protection. 



I am trying to winter my bees on the sum- 

 mer stands, and have pasted oil-cloth on ail 

 sides and the top of the hives, except an open- 

 ing on the front side. Will this offer enough 

 protection for southern Kansas? 



A Subscriber. 



Answer. — Likely it will; especially if build- 

 inRs or timber break the winds from the pre- 

 vailing direction. 



Moving Bees to Northern Michigan. 



Will you advise me in regard to moving bees 

 as far north as Ontonagon County, Michigan ? 

 Will they stand the cold climate there? and 

 would they produce honey enough to pay to 

 take them there? Are bees kept as far north 

 as the above? Michigan. 



Answer. — Oh yes, bees have succeeded far- 

 ther north than that. The only question is 

 to find a place where there is good pasturage. 

 There are places in northern Michigan that 

 are counted extra good because of the acres 

 of raspberries or fireweed. 



Caucasians vs. Italians as Honey- 

 Gatherers. 



-Are the Caucasian bees as good honey-gath- 

 erers as the Italians? Are they more gentle 

 to handle? A Subscriber. 



.'\nswer. — Reports as to the character of 

 Caucasians are very contradictory. There is 

 probably no question that at least some of 

 thcra are the very gentlest bees known; but 

 some others are reported as no better-natured 

 than Italians. As to their gathering qualities, 

 reports, on the whole, hardly place them as 

 equal to Italians. 



Points in Judging Comb Honey. 



What are the points considered in judging 

 comb honey? Are they only taste and color? 

 Should a section of honey with section all 

 white and clean, evenly capped, built out well 

 in the corners, and clear honey, be turned 

 down for one daubed with bee-glue on the 

 section, and unevenly capped, for a small dif- 

 ference in flavor? The question is: Is it 

 only flavor, and how strong is the point of 

 flavor? ItUNOis. 



ANSWER.-7I don't know how to answer from 

 the standpoint of a judge, as I never did any 

 professional judging, but I may say that for 

 my own use, if I were buying honey, the 



