1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



745 



market. You can transfer safely now, although 

 you will have to be careful, on account of the large 

 amount of honey in the combs, to keep robbing 

 from getting started. A six-inch saw would ans- 

 wer your purpose for hive-making. Of course, a 

 larger one would be many times convenient. 



0a^ (|aEgJFi0]\[-B@& 



With Replies from our best Authorities on Bees. 



All queries sent in for this department should be briefly 

 stated, and free from any possible ambiguity. The question 

 or questions should be written upon a separate slip of paper, 

 and marked, " For Our Question-Box." 



Question 143.- a. June* prefers hybrids because 

 they are as good or a " leetle better " workers than the 

 pure Italians; and, further, because he can shake them 

 {the hybrids) off the combs easier, for extracting. Be- 

 si<hs till Hi is, lie snus it is considerable trouble to keep 

 Italians pure. Brown does not agree. Whitehead- 

 mits that the hybrids are, as a general thing, as good 

 workers as the pure daughters of Italy, he prefers ttie 

 latter; because, as then are less inclined to sting and 

 rob, he can get through with mure workinaday. He 

 avers that the time gained in handling gentle hees more 

 than compensates fortheextra trouble and expense in 

 keeping tin- race pure. N<>w, tlie question is, whose 

 Side would you taket l>. Whose side do you take Vn act- 

 ual practice'.' 



a. Jones; b. Jones. 



H. R. BOARDMAN. 



I side with Brother Brown, every time. 



C. F. Muth. 

 a. Jones, b. Jones, Jones, Jones. 



P. H. Elwood. 

 My bees are mostly pure Italians. 



S. I. Freeborn. 

 In theory or actual practice I take Brown's side. 



P. L. Viallon. 

 Brown's side, every time. We are always sorry 

 when we neglect to keep up the purity of our stock. 



Dadant & Son. 

 Brown's side, as I find that the dark Italians are 

 as good workers as hybrids, and they are equally 

 hardy. A. E. Manum. 



a. Jones's side; yet my dislike of so much sting- 

 ing, and my love of the beautiful, have led me in 

 practice to follow more after Brown. K. Wilkin. 



a. As a honey-producer, I am with Jones; as a 

 queen-breeder, with Brown, b. In practice I have 

 only hybrids between Carniolans and Syrians, with, 

 quite likely, some Italian and some German. So 

 far as I have got, I like my present bees. 



A. J. Cook. 



a. Brown is right; while some hybrid swarms are 

 as good workers as the Italians, I do not think they 

 will average as good; besides, there is the pleasure 

 and comfort of handling gentle bees. b. Brown's; 

 my " other half " says, " Durn the hybrids." 



Mhs. L. Harrison. 



a. Brown's, b. Brown's, as near as I can; but I 

 question whether, in ordinary practice, it pays to 

 supersede every queen not absolutely pure. All 

 good methods can be carried to an excess, and 

 judgment has to be used in this as well as in many 

 other matters connected with bee-keeping. 



O. O. POPPLETON. 



a. I prefer the hybrids, or a bee that will show 

 two bands, and many three bands. They look well 

 and work well. 1 have bad very bright Italians, 

 and the results from them were not so satisfactory. 

 I take but little pains to keep my bees up to a gold 



en standard. I am discarding the shaking aud 

 brushing plan for something better, where even 

 cross hybrids keep their temper, b. Jones. 



Rambler. 

 Both my theory and my practice favor the hy- 

 brids. I dissent from the theory that hybrids are 

 specially vicious, so far as it concerns carefully 

 bred ones. I think, also, that the reputation of the 

 Italians for gentleness needs a good deal of dis- 

 counting—their gentleness being a matter of ap- 

 pearance rather than of reality. I fear that very 

 gentle bees of any race will be found deficient in 

 energy. E. E. Hasty. 



I think Mr. Jones'6 main reason for preferring 

 hybrids is the one least emphasized—" considerable 

 trouble to keep Italians pure." There is little dif- 

 ference between some hybrids and Italians gener- 

 ally. Italians sell better, and are a little nicer to 

 handle. The working qualities average up about 

 even with hybrids. On the whole, for practical 

 purposes I would not take the trouble to keep 

 them pure; and this is what I practice. 



Geo. Grimm. 



Now look here, i'ou're not going to get me to 

 side with either. For a number of years I have 

 tried to increase the Italian blood in my apiaries; 

 but without a good deal of trouble there will be 

 plenty of hybrids, and I think well enough of them 

 to take very great pains to be rid of them. As to 

 the matter of gentleness, I take them as they come; 

 only when some colony shows a bad pre-eminence 

 in the way of crossness, their queen's head comes 

 off at the first convenient opportunity. 



C. C. Miller. 



a. Brown's. Jones is certainly mistaken, in my 

 opinion, in regard to hybrids being better workers 

 than Italians. If he will weigh all the honey in 

 all parts of the hive from either race, he will find, 

 if I am not very much mistaken, that there will be 

 a little amount in favor of the Italians, especially 

 in a poor season. Because the hybrids put all of 

 their honey in the sections, thereby leaving them 

 in a starving condition after the sections are taken 

 off, does not make out that they are the best work- 

 ers, b. After trying all the different races of bees 

 which have come to our shores, I have now nothing 

 but Italians. G. M. Doolittle. 



a. I'd take Jones's side; but I want some pure 

 bloods to raise queens from. I don't raise drones 

 (I guess 1 will this year, though, in spite of mysell, 

 for the bees are playing hob with the lower corners 

 of most combs), and not one in five of my queens is 

 purely mated, b. Jones's. My hybrids are not so cross 

 as many write about. 1 have opened the hive of 

 every colony 1 have, and examined them at least 

 once each week, since March 24th, and have used 

 smoke only twice on a few colonies. I generally, 

 but not always, wear a veil, and I've been stung 

 but little. The crossest colony I have has an im- 

 ported Italian queen from A. I. Root. Do you 

 know him? May be my bees are good-natured be- 

 cause I don't scold them. A. B. Mason. 



a. Jones; b. Jones. Our bees are, most of them, 

 more or less mix ''d Italian and blacks, or brown bees, 

 and the nearer they come to being pure brown 

 bees, the better I like them. I have several Italian 

 queens from queen-breeders, and I bad two import- 

 ed Italian queens, and I never had a strain of Ital- 

 ian bees yet that were as good natured as the 



