March, 191 1. 



American ^ee Journal 



it " is the price of success. To go up, 

 you have to exert yourself and climb ; 

 to go down, all you've got to do is to 

 hold still and slide. So with breeding 

 bees or other animals. What you gain 

 you must ever be on the alert to keep, 

 and be up and hustling to add to it. 

 Bee-keeping has emerged from that 

 state of lying in the shade watching 

 one yard for swarms, to the condition 

 of several yards, and rustling from one 

 to another with preventive measures. 

 Who shall say the next step may not 

 be the perfecting of a strain of bees so 

 little given to swarming that several 

 additional apiaries may be added with 

 only 2 or 3 visits during the season to 

 put on supers, harvest the crop, etc..-' 



In another article I hope to tell some- 

 thing of rearing a few queens for our 

 own use, and the methods of requeen- 

 ing undesirable colonies without inter- 

 fering with the honey crop. 



Dunlap, Iowa. 



Honey-Dew— An Excretion or 

 Secretion ? 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



This subject will not down. I note 

 what is said about it in the October 

 issue of the American Bee Journal. It 

 is not my purpose to enter into an 

 argument or attempt to prove that one 

 or the other theory is true, but rather 

 to tell what I know on the subject. 



First, let me say that I have never 

 seen extensive times of honey-dew, 

 nor have I been fortunate enough to 

 come in contact with any bee-keeper 

 who has. The greatest amount of this 

 product I have ever seen, or that has 

 ever come anywhere near me and 

 among my bee-keeping acquaintances, 

 was during the past two years when I 

 had considerable, and so did many or 

 nearly all throughout northern Colo- 

 rado. I say this has been the most ex- 

 tensive experience, but almost every 

 year for the past 20, there has been 

 more or less of the product. 



There is a green louse on the box- 

 elders in more or less numbers every 

 year, coming before the regular honey- 

 flow, and a/2C(iy.<^ when the lice are 

 present there is the honey-dew, and the 

 quantity is in proportion to the quan- 

 tity of lice. If the weather be damp 

 while these lice are present, the mois- 

 ture from the air will unite with the 

 excretions and make it seem more 

 abundant; if very dry it dries up quickly 

 and seems less abundant. Besides the 

 box - elders, the cottonwoods have 

 nearly every year been "lousy," often 

 about the seed-pods ; on these there 

 have have been lice, and their excre- 

 tions often almost sustain the colonies, 

 supplying their daily consumption. 

 Colorado air is very dry, and in mid- 

 day, and after part of the day, but little 

 work is done on the trees, unless it be 

 a cloudy day with the air full of mois- 

 ture. 



How do I know that the sweet gath- 

 ered was the excrement of the lice ? 

 Simple enough. I have many times 

 watched them do the trick. When these 

 trees are showing the dew on the leaves 

 and on the sidewalks or fences, or 

 whatsoever happens to be underneath 

 them, and when the bees are gathering 



it from the upper surfaces of the 

 leaves, I always find the lice above. Go 

 to such a tree — preferably box-elders, 

 for they are so low they are very easily 

 inspected, and usually without a ladder 

 — in the morning befoi'e the sun gets 

 very high. Get the tree between you 

 and the sun ; shade your eyes so the 

 sun does not shine directly in them, yet 

 so that you are looking toward it, 

 and you will see the spray falling almost 

 like particles of a fog when it becomes 

 so nearly rain that it begins to precipi- 

 tate. When you have seen this, walk 

 up to the tree and look on the twigs, 

 and especially on the green, fresh 

 growth, and on the underside of the 

 leaves, and there you find the green lice 

 in great numbers, and on the backs of 

 many of them you will see the liquid 

 that is being excreted. I have many 

 times seen it, and watched it leave the 

 body of the louse. I have watched 

 ants go and partake of this right from 

 the insect. I have seen some of this 

 dew for many years past, and seen the 

 bees gathering many, many times ; 

 have seen it in the hives, and tasted it 

 there, but I have never once seen the 

 dew except when the lice were present. 



This does not prove, by any means, 

 that there is never any exudation from 

 leaves that bees take up, but the above 

 being my experience makes me think 

 that such cases are the exception. 

 Whether this louse product is simply 

 an excrement, or whether it is a secre- 

 tion of the insect, as milk, saliva, etc., 

 I do not know. 



Loveland, Colo. 



"Yours for a Better Race 

 Bees " 



of 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Not long ago I received a letter 

 which closed with the words which I 

 have placed as a heading to this article. 

 Those words have been running in my 

 mind quite a little of the time since I 

 received the letter, and I have been 

 asking myself whether the bee-keepers 

 of the world were trying to improve 

 their stock with an energy equal to 

 that used by our poultry-men, dairy- 

 men, and other beeeders of our domes- 

 tic animals. Even the lovers of dogs 

 have put their brains to work till we 

 have almost an unnumbered description 

 of these animals, from those the ladies 

 like to hold in their laps to the gaunt 

 greyhound, that can almost equal a 

 locomotive for speed. And while this 

 is so, the lover of our industrious 

 /totity/iirs has done very little to give 

 us aught else save one giving an aver- 

 age but little above those which our 

 fathers hived in their "log gums." 



A few years ago a man told me that 

 there was very little use in trying to 

 improve bees, that he had tried for 10 

 years to improve his, but could not see 

 that they were any better now than 

 when he commenced. I asked him if 

 he had worked as hard to improve his 

 bees as he had done with his cows, for 

 he had the name of having the best 

 herd of cattle there was in his town. 

 He told me that years ago he found 

 that some of his cows were not nearly 

 so good milkers as were others, so he 

 set to work to have all as good as the 



best, and he told me that he had suc- 

 ceeded ; but he did not have tlie time 

 to put on the bees that he did with the 

 cows. 



I asked him if he saw any difference 

 in the gathering qualities of his bees, 

 and he admitted that the difference 

 was as marked with them as it was with 

 his cows when he first went into the 

 dairying business. And such is the 

 case with very many of our bee-keep- 

 ers, especially with those who have 

 taken no really advanced ground in 

 trying to improve their stock. 



Probably there are few apiaries in the 

 United States, containing 10 or more 

 colonies, but that the owner thereof 

 would be compelled to acknowledge 

 that certain colonies do better than 

 others nearly every year in producing 

 honey; unless said owner has taken 

 pains to bring his stock up to a high 

 point of perfection along this honey- 

 gathering line. How often have I 

 heard the expression at bee-conven- 

 tions, and in visiting different bee- 

 keepers, " Such a colony gave me a 

 big yield, and if the whole apiary could 

 have done as well, 1 should have had 

 twice the honey to send to market." 



Again, I have come across certain 

 bee-keepers who claim that the hive 

 has very much to do with successful 

 apiculture. There is no question but 

 what a good hive is needed by all who 

 are engaged in our pursuit, but a /i/fe 

 can not gather nectar any more than 

 can the apiarist. It is the bees that 

 produce that which the apiarist is seek- 

 ing after. 



Then, others claim that the strength 

 of the colony has all to do with this 

 matter; but I am inclined to think that 

 the race of bees has the greater influ- 

 ence over these things. I am sure that 

 certain traits of character exist in 

 certain colonies of bees that do not in 

 others. And if this is so, there is a 

 chance of improvement in our bees, 

 and I have argued for years that it 

 would be to our credit in the future to 

 work more for the improvement of our 

 bees, even though we slack not our 

 pace in working for the maximum 

 numbers in our colonies just at the 

 time of the nectar-flow ; and the pro- 

 viding of hives the best suited to the 

 wants of the colony and the keeper of 

 the bees. 



I am well aware that the man who 

 had success in breeding his cows up to 

 the standard of perfection, had an ad- 

 vantage with them which he did not 

 have with the bees, in that he had ab- 

 solute control of the father as well as 

 the mother; for as yet I know of only 

 one way for the rank and file of bee- 

 keepers to accomplish what they desire 

 along this line of improvement, and 

 that is through the queen. If we could 

 control the drone as we can the male 

 in our other animals, this improvement 

 matter would be much easier, but as 

 we can not control the drones to any 

 great extent, we have only the queen to 

 aid us materially in the improvement 

 we are desirous of making. But, even 

 if we are thus handicapped, I am sure 

 quite a gain can be made if we will 

 only set ourselves at the task as we do 

 in most other pursuits in life. 



Over a quarter of a century ago I 

 began to turn my attention to this mat- 

 ter, as I found that I had some colo- 



