1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



825 



nearly a third of my young queens giving hy- 

 brid bees. Being pleased wiih the work done 

 by the bees from these queens, which showed 

 that they had mated with Italian drones, I soon 

 Introduced the Italians into my own apiary, 

 which, of course, put a stop to my observations 

 as to the distance queens will mate; but from 

 the above facts I am positive that queens of 

 one race will mate with drones of another race 

 of bees unless such are kept more than five 

 miles apart. Nature has so ordered things that 

 the best results possible to be secured are ac- 

 complished by the instinct which she prompts, 

 and thus the queens from one hive or bee-tree 

 are fertilized by drones from a distance, more 

 often than otherwise, which secures a cross 

 which prevents too close in-and-in breeding, 

 and gives us a race of bees capable of doing the 

 best work. That it would seemingly be more 

 to the questioner's interest if it were otherwise, 

 I am well aware; but for the honey-producer, 

 and for the perpetuation of a hardy race of 

 bees, the Creator has ordered things aright, in 

 this as in other matters. 



ITALIAN vs. BLACK OR HYBRIDS FOR HONEY. 



Question. — I wish to know whether the light- 

 colored, or what are termed Italian bees, are as 

 good honey-gatherers as the black or dark hy- 

 brid bee. I have heard that the first-named 

 bees are lazy. 



Answer. — I have had plenty of black and hy- 

 brid bees in my home apiary in years gone by, 

 and still have them in my out-apiary, as they 

 do not interfere with my queen-rearing busi- 

 ness, as that apiary is so far away; but as the 

 years go by I am becoming more and more con- 

 vinced that the nearer wholly Italian my bees 

 are, the belter honey gatherers they make. To 

 illustrate: Several years ago, when the bass- 

 wood bloom was all gone I did not have a sin- 

 gle section filled with honey. After a week or 

 so the seed crop of red clover came into bloom, 

 and the Italians and hybrids commenced to 

 work on it; but the blacks did almost nothing 

 but consume their stores and carry what little 

 honey they had in the sections into the hive be- 

 low. The best Italian colonies filled their hives 

 and stored from 30 to GO lbs. in the sections, and 

 the hybrids stored nearly in proportion, as they 

 had Italian " blood " in them. Those that were 

 apparently only a fourth Italian secured about 

 enough to winter on, while I had to feed all the 

 blacks, taking frames of honey from the Italian 

 colonies to do the feeding with. Right here is 

 where many make a mistake when they claim 

 that hybrid bees and blacks will store more 

 honey than the Italians, as it sometimes hap- 

 pens that the Italians, under poor management, 

 fail to put as much honey in the sections as do 

 the hybrids or blacks. Looking at the sections 

 It would appear as if these bees were the best; 

 but when we come to prepare the bees for win- 

 ter, then we find that, while we have to feed 



these to fix them so they will not starve before 

 spring, every hive having Italians has an abun- 

 dance of stores, and often enough to spare to 

 put the others in good condition as to stores 

 also. Some think that it is best to have the 

 brood-chamber of ihe hives nearly or quite 

 empty in the fall, as the hybrid and black bees 

 often have them, so that they can sell the hon- 

 ey and feed the bees for winter, appearing to 

 think that bees will winter better on sugar syr- 

 up.lhan they will on honey. I know that bees 

 will winter well on sugar syrup; but so far as 

 my experience goes during 27 years of bee-keep- 

 ing life, I am convinced that they do equally 

 well on honey. It is a joo to feed a whole apia- 

 ry in the fall of the year when the bees have 

 stopped gathering honey, and one that is not to 

 my liking, after having tried it several times 

 from necessity. My belief is, the Italian bees 

 are the very best in the world, taking all things 

 into consideration. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



Our bees are now in their winter quarters 

 outdoors in double-walled and single walled 

 hives with winter cases. For packing we are 

 using planer-shavings instead of chaff. The 

 latter is lighter but not as easy to get. For 

 actual wintering I can not see but that one 

 does as well as the other. 



THE GENERAL MANAGER, AND HIS OPINION OF 

 THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION. 



Mr. Newman, General Manager of the Bee- 

 keepers' Union, seems inclined to blockade the 

 movement, already set on foot at Lincoln, look- 

 ing toward the amalgamation of the two socie- 

 ties, lie characterizes the proposed constitution 

 as "so incongruous and incomplete tnat it 

 seems necessary to refer it back to the next 

 convention at Buffalo for revision." His criti- 

 cisms, too late for this issue, will be given in 

 our next. In the mean time I might say that 

 neither the constitution committee, nor the 

 Lincoln convention that approved it, expected 

 that the instrument would be so perfect that it 

 might not require some revision by the Union. 

 At all events. I can not believe for a moment 

 that the intelligent body of bee-keepers at Lin- 

 coln who discussed the constitution section by 

 section would approve and indorse a document 

 that was both " incomplete and incongruous." 

 The more we haggle over details, the longer we 

 shall delay the formation of the new society. 

 It has been delayed long enough already; and 

 if there are "'incongruous" and " incomplete " 

 sections in the proposed constitution, let the 

 Union patch them up. But when the objec- 



