664 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTLEE. 



Sept. 



ory to its fullest extent, yet it is sut'liciciitiy 

 accurate so tiiat, practically spealdng. the 

 drones and {]ueens from any motlier-(iueen can 

 not be Ijrotlier and sister. Now. if oiii' corr(»s- 

 pondent. raises his queens and drones from t]i(> 

 same motlier. the queens can do no more than 

 mate witli a lialf-brotlier. unless this motliei-- 

 (|ueen mated with a drone from her own moth- 

 er. In tliis case lie would get only thi'ee-fourths 

 blood, unless the grandmother to our young 

 queen mated with a drone produced by her 

 mother. Should such a thing as this happen,- 

 he would get only seven-eighths blood by 

 breeding drones and queens from the same 

 mother. Here is a point not generally luider- 

 stooil by many of our bee-kee])ers. and one 

 which sliows tlie wisdom of the Creator of the 

 bee. To return to the original question: 



Suijpose he rears his queens from one (jueen 

 and the drones from the other as he proposes. 

 It is no way likely that both of the queens 

 mated with brother-drones; henc(^ the young 

 queen will be only half-blood relation to the 

 sister of the mother-queen: and as the drones 

 will be only lialf - blood relation to the 

 mother of tlu' queens, he can not possibly get a 

 relation nearer than one-fourth. Hence it will 

 be seen that, with no control of the drone, our 

 iraproviiig our bees in any one S]jecial direction 

 must be only a slow alfair at the best, and one 

 in which in-and-in breeding has no veiy im- 

 portant bearing. Now, su)jpo.se we have it all 

 arranged as we \\ish, and on July 1st we com- 

 mence to rear oui' queens, we having plenty of 

 drones flying from the aunt of these young 

 queens. And to make matter.s more siu'e. sup- 

 pose that we have drone-traps on each hive in 

 the apiary, except the one we have selected for 

 our drones: what proportion of these young 

 queens will mate with the drones we wish" them 

 to? Well, that will depend upon how neai' 

 there are othei- bees to our a))iary. If. as we 

 find it usually, not one queen in five will mat(» 

 the d( siriMl diones at this time of year. It is a 

 rar(^ thing to find an apiary where there are 

 not some bees kept w ithin three or four miles of 

 it. or where there is not some tree in the \\'oods 

 that contains bees. This tree, or one of the 

 hives ke])t l)y most bee-keepers, will fui'uisii 

 mor<' di'ones than the breeder will get from his 

 selected colony, as a rule: for colonies that have 

 no attention given them are very proliflc in 

 drones. I am satisfied that all the di'ones of 

 one vicinity have a certain |)lace where they 

 congregate, and that the queens go to this con- 

 gregating-place when they fly out, which re- 

 sults, as I said before, in the chances being 

 against queens mating as the breeder wishes. 

 To illustrate: 



In 1873, Italian drones were reared U)v the 

 Hrst time as near as three miles of my apiary. 

 That season I purchased an Italian queen, but 

 she gave no drones, as I did not get her till 

 July. There were none but black bees about 

 me up to this time, and no qu(>ens had evei- 

 shown any yellow in their ott'spring. This year, 

 about one queen in eight gave workei's that 

 wei-e hybrids, many of them being flnely mark- 

 ed Italians. With this positive proof before 

 inc. that bees mix to a large extent \\hen sepa- 

 rated three miles. I can hardly feel pheasant 

 when reading the statement of some, that half 

 a mile in distance is enough to k(H^p two races 

 of bees pure. I find that this congregating of 

 drones and queens occurs only during our sum- 

 mer rnontlis. with perhaps a i)art of September. 

 As the weather becomes uncei'tain. thi' loud 

 humming that has been heard on all jjleasant 

 days, at a certain place, between the hours of 

 noon and three o'clock in the afternoon, ceases. 

 I find tlutt from then out I am much more sni'e 

 of having my queens mated with the desired 



drones than at any other time of the year, un- 

 less it be in early si)ring. 



Again, at this season of the year nearly all 

 the drones are killed off except those especially 

 kept by the ajnarist. so that, when it is possi- 

 ble to rear good queens at this season of the 

 year, and we have a few jileasant days, in-and- 

 in breeding can be more neai'ly accomi)lished 

 than at any other time: yet, as I have shown 

 above, not enough so to cause our bees to dete- 

 riorate very much in some time. If, after we 

 And all drones killed off (>xcept those we have 

 ]jreser\'ed. we go to the hive having our drones, 

 some ratlu'i' cool cloudy day when the hives can 

 lie kept oijen as long as we choose without dan- 

 ger of chilling the bees, and without danger 

 from robbers, and pick out all the inferior 

 drones as to size, color, or any other imiierfec- 

 tion. and kill them, we shall then have some- 

 thing from which w(> can impi'ove our stock' in 

 the way we ai'e desirous of doing, and still have 

 it becoming more valuable along other lines as 

 well. 



I admit that this is a sort of rambling talk, 

 but perhaps the reader may flnd sonu'thing of 

 interest in it after the chatf has been sifted out. 



G. M. DooI.ITTLE. 

 Borodino, N. Y.. Sept. 2. 1890. 



You are doubtless right, friend D. Queens 

 are very apt to be fertilized at a distance from 

 home, and they no doubt seek a place where 

 drones congregate. An interesting point comes 

 up here. There are a good many now who are 

 breeding untested queens for market. Those 

 who have just begun in a new locality will 

 probably find that a very large percentage of 

 their queens will turn out to be hybrids. It 

 takes years for a locality within three or four 

 miles of the breeding-yards to become so thor- 

 oughly Italianized that nine-tenths of the un- 

 tested queens reared and sold will prove to be 

 purely mated. There will be bee-trees con- 

 taining blacks or hybrids, and it will be a long 

 time before thes(^ will be Italianized by the 

 slow process of sujiersedure of old queens or the 

 infusion of new Italian blood in the progeny of 

 young queens. 



. -^ — ^ — ov**^ — 



BEES TAXABLE PROPERTY, 



AND FOl! (iOOI) ItKASONS. 



A. I. Root: — Your name has become quite fa- 

 miliar to me through the agricultural press. It 

 seems that your interests nmst be varied. I 

 have a friend who frequently sends to you for 

 bee-supplies. I S(>e notices of your opei'ations 

 as a farmer, and. if I mistak" not. a few years 

 ago I saw an item telling of your experiments 

 with A. N. Cole's sub-aqueous culture, in which 

 I have tak(m a deej) interest. Have you given 

 to the public the results of those last experi- 

 ments? 



What could have suggested the discussion of 

 the advisability of taxing bees, now going on in 

 your columns? Is some bee-ownei' trying to es- 

 cape bearing his just share of the burdens of 

 government? The theory of the law in this 

 State is. that every thing that can he converted 

 into i)roperty, and that nuiy be made useful to 

 nuin. shall bear its pi'oijoi'tion of tax. There 

 are no exceptions. Every \ng, chicken, horse, 

 or ox, must be listed: every bushel of grain, 

 every pound of wool, every yai'd of cloth, every 

 wagon, cart, watch, or clock must be put down 

 in the list at its true market value, and to its 



