490 



GLEANIi^GS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



should like to hear from our readers, especially 

 Prof. Cook, who may be able to give us more 

 definite information on the subject. 



THE HIVE DISCUSSION. 



Although the hive discussion that has been 

 going on in our columns may be a little confus- 

 ing, from the fact that one side v.ry able de- 

 fends the eight-frame side, and the other just 

 as ably shows advantages in favor of 10, 13, or 

 even 16 frames, I think light is surely coming 

 if not already here. Perhaps this discussion 

 may be tiresome to some; but it seems to me it 

 ought not to be slopped yet, although we have 

 prolonged it longer than at first anticipated. 

 The proper solution of the question for each 

 individual means dollars and dollars. I see no 

 way but that each one must weigh the argu- 

 ments advanced by both sides, and then consid- 

 er his own locality. I will say this much, that 

 the defenders of large hives have shown a 

 stronger following than any of us had any idea 

 of; and it is evident, too, that there is a tend- 

 ency toward the large sizes in some places. As 

 for ourselves — that is. we here at the Home of 

 the Honey-bees— we shall have to see stronger 

 proof yet to induce us to change to a larger 

 hive, although we shall be experimenting, and 

 shall hold ourselves open to intelligent convic- 

 tion. I think that, in the majority of the lo- 

 calities, the eight-frame hive is still the best. 

 We shall have something pertinent on the sub- 

 ject in our next issue by J. E. Hand. 



rive-banders; the tide turned against 

 them: prominent queen-breeders are 



GIVING UP the breeding OF THEM. 



We have several letters from prominent queen- 

 breeders all over the country, condemning the 

 five-banded bees on the grounds that they are 

 short-lived, not good at wintering, are bad 

 stingers, excessive breeders, etc. I am sorry I 

 am not at liberty to give you their names; but 

 one or two of them will probably have some- 

 thing to say about what they think of them, 

 over their own signatures, in an early issue of 

 Gleanings. I noticed in the last Progressive 

 Bee keeper an article by E. T. Flanagan, with 

 the headline reading, "The Five- banders are 

 no good as Honey-gatherers." Mr. F. says: 



If the advocates of the socalled five-banded bees 

 could have been with me wlien I overhauled my bees 

 this spring and noted ihe condition they were in a.s 

 compared with tlie leather-colored Italians and first 

 cross hybrids, they would never advocate their dis- 

 semination or propa.u-ation ngairi. With exactly the 

 same conditions as to liives, locality, treatment, 

 amount of stores, and condition thioughout tlie 

 season, all were as like as possible; but in eveiy case 

 this spring tlie dark Italians and liybrids were found 

 in good, fair condition, with no loss, scarcely, what- 

 ever, wliile tlie five-banders were reduced to mere 

 nuclei, or were entii'ely dead, leaving plenty of 

 honey (sometimes as much hs twenty-five pounds) 

 in the hives. Friend Alley, in his denunciation of 

 them, has been fully vindicated if others' experi- 



ence tallies with mine, and I judge it does from the 

 reports in the bee-journals that have come to hand. 



At the end of the last season we introduced a 

 good many five-banders into our yard. Of the 

 four or five colonies that we lost in wintering, 

 three of them were of the yellow sort. They 

 were such bad stingers all through the summer 

 that I made a firm resolve that, unless they im- 

 proved very greatly, we would go back to the 

 leather-colored Italians, and now we have hard- 

 ly any thing else in the yard. Last season it 

 was hardly safe to work among the bees, with- 

 out a veil. This year the situation is ma- 

 terially modified. 



I am well aware that Gleanings has, in the 

 past, said some unpleasant things of the five- 

 banders. It was one of the first to raise its 

 voice against th«m; and now I am not surpris- 

 ed that the whole bee-keeping world is going 

 back on them. The whole trouble is, that 

 queen -breeders, rushed with orders, did not take 

 sufficient pains to breed for their bread-and-but- 

 ter qualities as well a.s for color; and the conse- 

 quence was, they sent out any thing that had 

 more yellow than the average stock, irrespect- 

 ive of other qualities. Now, mind you, I do not 

 say this is true of every queen-breeder who 

 raised these bees; but the tendency on the part 

 of most of them, I fear, was largely so. There 

 are other queen-breeders I might mention, but I 

 believe Mr. Doolittle is among those who are 

 careful and conscientious in breeding these 

 bees. In the Progressive Bee-keeper of June 1 

 he says: 



I can not he accused of pushing this yellow craze 

 to the front; but seeing- it was coming, I went about 

 breeding the yellow bee up to the standard of per- 

 fection as lioney-gatherers, to the bestof my ability, 

 the same as I had been and am still breeding the 

 three-banders. I have both three and five banded 

 bees in my home apiary, and these and hybrids in 

 my out-apiary, five miles away, but mostly hybrids 

 at the out-apiary. Tlius it will be seen that I was in 

 a position to tell which did the best at honey-gatlier- 

 ing. With a buckwheat yield, the hybrids would 

 come in ahead; while with a basswood yield, the 

 average would not be greatly in favor of either kind 

 ' till last year, when, from some reason that is not 

 sufficiently clear to me to decide upon, the five-band- 

 ers were ahead by some fifteen pounds per colony 

 on an average. 



As I have intimated abo%-e, I have never claimed 

 any superiority for the five-banded bees; and while 

 I believe there is n great ditTerence in bees, yet I 

 believe that the result in honey is more largely due 

 to management than it is to the race of bees used: 

 and those bees which are the most pliable under the 

 hand of the apiaiist.'s manipulation arethe'«>( bees, 

 no matter what their color or where they came 

 from. If aiiy queen can not be manipulated or 

 coaxed to give the great bulk of her bees so they 

 will be on the stMge of action in the right time to 

 take advantage of the honey-harvest, she sliould be 

 replaced by something that can. That the five-band- 

 ed bees, the three-banded-bees of Italiaii origin, and 

 a good grade of hybrids, can be so manipulated, is 

 why 1 hold qn to them. 



