34 



''NOVICE'S 1 ' GLEANINGS IN BEE Cl/LTUHE. 



out ; also, a small door over one of the 

 large ones gives access to the loi't by 



means of a light ladder. P. S. — Don't 



leave the ladder up Saturday nights for 

 (he children might climb up and play in 

 the sawdust on the Sabbath. 



But. Mr. Novice, .you haven t consid- 

 ered 'box-honey' at all, yet.'' 



" Why, yes we have ; see Jan. No. page 

 5. When we get our hives full of brood 

 and young bees we are just rijrht to put 

 them into the hives double width and put 

 on boxes, etc.." 



" But how will you prevent swarming? 

 Our bees always swarm, or generally do 

 when their combs are filled, in spite of 

 boxes, and in an apiary of 50 or 100 stocks 

 i- lipping the queen's wings does not pre- 

 vent her bees from joining in with some 

 other swarm. You have also said that 

 Mich arrangements as Quinby qiiien-yard 

 and Mrs. FarnhamUs non-stUm'mer would 

 not prevent, the bees from killing their 

 queen when retained in that way." 



' Yoti are right, and we cannot think it 

 good policy to use any means to restrain 

 swarming that is apt to induce the bees to 

 replace their queen. It our hives are 

 worked for box honey, for aught we can 

 fee natural swarming must be allowed, 

 and to be frank, we have as little patience 

 with one operation as the other, for both 

 "seem to us too disorderly and wasteful to 

 be tolerated in a well conducted apiary." 



Kind readers all. our opinion in regard 

 to the value of the Extractor may be a 

 mistaken one, but it is honest, neverthe- 

 less. Should we presume to teach the 

 method of securing the largest amount of 

 box honey with least labor and expense, 

 as we now do extracted, we should lie at- 

 tempting that in which we have, of late 

 years, had but little practical experience, 

 and so we hope to be excused: but we 

 shall watch for and welcome anything new 

 that may come cp, and try to keep our 

 readers posted on the subject. That ex- 

 tracted honey (with the market we have 

 now fur il) can be made to pay, even poor 

 season's, we haven't a doubt, and trust thai 

 the pa me may be true of box honey. 



CAS OUR BEES BE IMPROVES? 



" JyX/" I> think that any candid, reasoning 

 '* individual will be perfectly satisfied 

 fbal our Italian, Egyptian and native bee*! 

 time descended from a common parent- 

 age, by reading an article in the Popular 

 Science Monthly for May, 1872, entitled: 

 'The Unity of the Human Species.'' Any 

 b<e-kecper who has any doubts on the 

 subject .will find it profitable to send to 1>. 

 Af'plcton.V Co., 549 Broadway, for the 

 number in question, and we shall assume, 

 in all our future writings, that the Italians 

 are only distant relatives of our common 

 bees, having accidentally acquired valua- 

 ble qualities while closed in from the rest 



of their family by the encircling moun- 

 tains. 



The three yellow bands, then, are only 

 an indication of the branch from which 

 they came, and for superior honey gath- 

 erers it is much more important that we 

 select colonies to rear queens from, that 

 have desirable qualities practically con- 

 sidered, than that they have three or more 

 yellow bands, or, in fact, that they have 

 yellow bands at all : only that, at present, 

 our best honey gatherers are yellow band- 

 ed. 



We will give afewfacts to illustrate ibis, 

 and we presume almost all intelligent and 

 observing bee-keepers can give as many 

 similar one-'. 



About three years ago we bad a fine 

 colony of cross hybrids that persisted in 

 building little bits of comb at right an- 

 gles to the main comb, and by no manner 

 of means could we cure them of it. \\ 

 they built a new comb, it was sure to be 

 abundantly interspersed with these ''fins," 

 and on giving them a complete set of the 

 finest comb we had, placed as near as they 

 could be used, we found them in three 

 days all "edgewise" again, and all we 

 could do was to pinch off these extras 

 every time the comb was "extracted." 

 The next season, in that hive and no oth- 

 er, we found the same peculiarity, but as 

 they were strong and industrious, we rath- 

 er liked to study their idiosyneracy. 



In June their queen was lost carelessly, 

 and another substituted immediately: and 

 strange to say, when the new workers em- 

 erged, Ave had sensible comb builders once 

 more, and have had since. 



1'oes any one doubt but that queens 

 raised from this queen might, some of 

 them, have shown the same trait, and 

 that constant encouragement might have 

 developed, in a brief time, a race of bees 

 all having that trait developed in such di- 

 rection as we chose to encourage ? 



Again, most bees, when shaken in front 

 of the hive, crawl directly in ; yet \\g 

 have had two colonies that always per- 

 sisted in crawling into some other place: 

 and one of them was a "perfect bother' 

 for a whole season, until she crawled off 

 with a few followers and "lost herself. 



When the young bees hatched from n 

 succeeding queen in the same hive, they 

 showed no such disposition, and as the 

 former were dark hybrids and the latter 

 yellow, we had the spectacle of the dark 

 old bees crawling away, and the young 

 yellow ones going home as "honest bees 

 should do." 



We presume Mr. Darwin would say, in 

 both cases we have mentioned, that these 

 sports would cure themselves unless man 

 steps in and encourages tlTem, for the bad 

 comb-builders would die in bad seasons in 

 consequence of poor economy in the use 

 of their wax, and the "perambulating" 

 queens, when the extractor is used, would 

 oltenest gel lost. 



Now, fellow bee-keepers, do we not 

 sometimes play the "mischief by saving 



