246 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVlEU^. 



explain how he should be able to double on 

 his money, unless, at least, those bee keepers 

 who complain of their home markets have 

 made no effort to develop them. Perhaps 

 they are not read up — or at least have not 

 read the series of valuable articles that have 

 been running in Gleanings and the other bee 

 journals of late. Understand, I do not ques- 

 tion Mr. B.'s right to double on his money. 

 It is his privilege and right, if the other fel- 

 lows won't post up and do something. 



"Mr. Buchanan calls attention to another 

 significant fact, namely, that in nearly every 

 case he has been able to buy honey of a given 

 quality from commission merchants in large 

 cities cheajier than he could buy the same 

 honey direct from the producer. This is too 

 true. It can be explained only on the 

 ground that so much honey is sent to the 

 cities that it gluts the market, and the con- 

 sequence is that the bee keeper is glad to get 

 anything if he can only get somefliing. Too 

 Often he is deceived by quotations that are 

 above the market. Big promises for im- 

 mediate returns at glittering figures allure 

 him. Why will not bee keepers learn to be 

 careful? Nine-tenths of the producers know 

 the art of securing honey, but I almost be- 

 lieve that nine-tenths of them do not know 

 the art of seHing. Why, we are to-day hav- 

 ing the finest qualities of comb and extract- 

 ed honey offered to us at prices that are 

 ridiculously low. Sometimes we buy and 

 sometimes we do not. We very much dislike 

 to be lugged into the 'general swim ' with 

 those who are trying to buy closely, at the 

 expense of the hard-working bee keeper. It 

 is too bad, but need not be if producers 

 would not be so fast to lump their honey off 

 in large lots for the sake of getting a ' big 

 pile' all in one lump." 



When honey is sold direct to consumers it 

 is easy to avoid the taking back and re- 

 liquefying of candied honey, but when sold 

 to dealers there is no other way quite so sat- 

 isfactory, and by exercising care the work 

 can be done with but little if any injury to 

 the honey. 



Can Black Bees be Improved'!— The Italians 



Not a Fixed Race. — Large Queens 



Undesirable. 



One of Mr. Doolittle's correspondents asks 

 him if he thinks that black bees might not 

 be improved, the same as the Italians have 

 been improved, if breeders had given them 

 the same care in breeding as they have the 

 Italians. If they had been given this care, 

 his correspondent thinks that the black 

 queens might now be larger, finer and more 

 prolific. Mr. Doolittle replies as follows in 

 the American Bee Journal: 



"Probably there would have been some 

 improvement in the black or German bee, 

 had the apiarists of the United States taken 



hold of the matter with the same will in 

 breeding which they have shown in breeding 

 the Italian bee up to its present standard. 

 Bat I do not think that the effect would have 

 been as marked on the German bee as it has 

 on the Italian, for the reason that the black 

 or German bee is a fixed race or variety, 

 while the Italian bee is nothing more than a 

 thoroughbred, or hybrid, in my opinion. 

 Any race of animal which is fixed and con- 

 stant in its breeding, cannot be improved 

 nearly so easily as can one which is liable to 

 sport. The same holds good in the vegetable 

 kingdom, all of our best varieties of vege- 

 tables being obtained from 'sports.' 



"Breed black queens as carefully as you 

 may, they will not vary a particle as to 

 color, while the Italian queens vary from a 

 queen nearly if not quite as dark as any 

 black queen, to one whose abdomen is of an 

 orange yellow throughout its whole length; 

 hence those who breed for beauty as well as 

 other qualities have been able to succeed in 

 producing queens that will give all yellow 

 queens every time, and whose worker proge- 

 ny are nearly as yellow as were the best of 

 queens a score of years ago. Those who 

 have paid no attention to color-breeding 

 have seen their bees eo from those with 

 three yellow bands back to bees with scarcely 

 any yellow on them; and yet we often hear 

 people talking about ' pure ' Italian bees. 

 If Italian bees are a pure race they are given 

 to sporting beyond any other known pure 

 thing. It seems to me it is impossible for 

 these bees to be anythine: else than a thor- 

 oughbred. This inclination to sport as to 

 color gave the assurance that they would 

 sport as to quality as well, so we have breed- 

 ers who have worked for a very industrious 

 bee, and have seen industry come to the 

 front with them. 



" ( )thers have worked for wintering qual- 

 ities, gentleness in handling, white capping 

 of section honey, etc.. and still others for a 

 combining of all the good qualities which 

 go to make the perfect bee in every respect, 

 seeins this work so prosper that to-day, 

 take it all in all, the Italian bee, as bred in 

 the United States, undoubtedly stands at 

 the head of all the bees known to the world; 

 and could they be shipped the same as can 

 non-perishable articles, there would not be a 

 country on the face of the earth where bees 

 could exist where they would not be found. 



"Now, the same thing which keeps the 

 black bees from sporting as to color, hinders 

 them from sporting in other directions de- 

 sired by the bee keeper, so that to a certain 

 extent they are nearly if not quite identical- 

 ly the same as they were when they first left 

 the hand of the Creator. There is a certain 

 amount of improvement by the 'survival of 

 the fittest,' and yet such improvement has 

 not advanced these bees as much during all 

 the centuries which have passed as has the 

 hand of man the Italians during the last 

 thirty-five years; nor has the hand of man 

 ever made as much improvement on them 

 during all tne long past as has been made 

 with the Italians during the last ten years. 



" There is one thing which I wish to notice 

 in my correspondent's communication be- 



