January 



American Hee Journal 



there is not money enough in it. As I 

 understand the honey-business, the 

 $20,000,000 to $;30,OnO,000 output of 

 honey in tlie United States is eslimaU-d. 

 There are perhaps not 200 men in the 

 whole country who devote all their 

 time to producing honey, and those 

 have long ago learned how to do their 

 own advertising and selling ; we smaller 

 fry generally sell our crop to the local 

 stores, the farmers and townfolk, and 

 get a very much better price per pound 

 than the big producers. 



If we could manufacture honey as 

 glucose is made, it would pay to adver- 

 tise, for we could be sure of a supply, 

 but we can not, and that is the bar to 

 advertising. Let me ask again, to an- 

 swer your question, " It not, why not ?" 

 Would we bee-keepers dare contract 

 even $50,000 worth of space in the fall 

 or early spring, said advertising to run 

 for a year, when we consider that we 

 can frobably look for but about one 

 good, big yield in four or five years ? 



There is no sentiment in business. 

 The Karo or glucose people prosti- 

 tuted the Pure Food Act by overcom- 

 ing Dr. Wiley's objections, and glu- 

 cose — a name for an impure thing — ■ 

 was allowed to be called " Corn Syrup." 



Let me ask some questions : 



Why can not we, now that Dr. Wiley 

 has come to his own, have this matter 

 taken up again, and the damage these 

 falsifier-advertisers do reduced to a 

 minimum ? I do not care to pay any- 

 thing for advertising. However, I will 

 donate $.j.00 toward a fund to prosecute 

 the Karo people for using the mails to 

 defraud, for lying about honey, for 

 violation of the Pure Food Laws, or to 

 hire a lawyer to have the matter of 

 " Corn Syrup " taken up again, what- 

 ever a good lawyer advises. While I 

 know full well that they will have dol- 

 lars for a fighting fund where we will 

 have dimes, / beliei-e zvc can beat them. 



Buck Grove. Iowa. 



L.\TER. — A day or two after receiving 

 the foregoing, the following came in 

 from Dr. Bonney : 



I did not think when I suggested 

 that we force the glucose people to quit 

 untrue advertising, that I should so 

 soon run across something of the kind 

 in the daily press, but see the enclosed 

 article. 



There is hardly an advertisement 

 printed but what falsifies in greater or 

 less degree. In bee-literature, note 

 about "yellow- all - over -bees," "non- 

 swarming bees, etc., though, happily, 

 such advertisements are becoming rare. 



Can not we again take up this mat- 

 ter of glucose with the Pure Food Com- 

 missioners ? Can not we eliminate the 

 lies about honey by the aid of the pos- 

 tal authorities ? Can not we join with 

 the Implement Dealers in this fight on 

 dishonest advertising ? That glucose 

 is unhealthful as a food I think can be 

 demonstrated. I am ready to subscribe 

 to a fund for the purpose, and "money 

 talks." A. F. BoNNEY. 



[The "daily press" item referred to 



by Dr. Bonney reads as follows, taken 



from the Omaha Bee:] 



Dishonest advertising should be stopped 

 by law. said President Paul Herpolsheimer. 

 of Seward, in his annual address to the Mid- 



West Implement Dealers' Association yes- 

 terday, and he asked the association to go 

 on record in favor of a national law directed 

 against the practice. 



" We are in sad need of a national law." 

 said Mr. HerpLlsheimer. "which will com- 

 pel houses which use the United States 

 mails to furnish the goods as per iheir ad- 

 vertisements, and not to allow them to ad- 

 vertise one thing and furnish another, or to 

 advertise in a misleading or deceptive man- 

 ner. 



"The national federation has taken the 

 necessary steps to obtain such a law. and we 

 should endorse its efforts and prevail upon 

 all senators and legislators toassist in bring- 

 ing about such a law." 



[We wish that something might be 

 done along the lines suggested by Dr. 

 Bonney. Misrepresentation seems to 

 have become a confirmed habit on the 

 part of many advertisers. A National 

 law might help much to stop it. Per- 

 haps the National Bee-Keepers's Asso- 

 ciation could aid in this matter. — Ed.] 



No. I.— Improving the Honey- 

 Bee 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



The first consideratiou on the sub- 

 ject of improving the honey-bee is, 

 "What is there to improve ?" Are your 

 bees Blacks, Hybrids, or Italians of 

 sundry strains ? 



Our bees are, in a general way, much 

 like a field of corn — made up of all 

 sorts, at a casual glance fairly uniform, 

 but on close inspection scarcely any 

 two specimens alike. Obviously the 

 first thing to do is to select stock from 

 which to breed. Blacks, by most of us, 

 will be promptly discarded, as their 

 faults outweigh their virtues. Hybrids 

 are too variable and too uncertain as 

 to their offspring to be desirable if we 

 can get anything better. Of the so- 

 called " pure " races, it needs a stretch 

 of the term to entitle them to be called 

 "pure." A pure strain of animals or 

 plants is one. which, in the majority of 

 cases, will yield offspring like itself, 

 and this can seldom be said to be true 

 of any so-called pure strain of bees. 



You may say, " I have a tested queen 

 from KIr. Blank, which produces uni- 

 formly marked bees, and she must be 

 pure." But what is her ancestry ? Mr. 

 Blank says that he regularly introduces 

 new blood to keep his bees from de- 

 teriorating by too close beeeding, so 

 that you may find your "tested" queen 

 has a dozen different strains of blood 

 in her make-up. But such a queen will 

 probably be the best that can ordinarily 

 be obtained because commercial queen- 

 rearers are not skilled breeders. They 

 are perforce producing a fair average 

 grade of good appearance, and from 

 the very nature of their business must 

 rest there, and can not afford to devote 

 the time to such tests as are needed for 

 the higher degree of breeding. Taking 

 all things into consideration, we will 

 do quite as well to go among the bees 

 we have and select, as we will to buy 

 high-priced breeding-queens, provided, 

 of course, that he have something bet- 

 ter than low-grade hybrids. 



How and what shall we select ? On 

 the answer to that question hinges our 

 success. I can tell you what factors 

 constitute a good bee, but I can not 

 give you discernment — that is some- 



thing which, if you acquire at all, mus 

 be by your own efforts. Mr. Burbank's 

 success with plants lies in his wonder- 

 ful ability to see factors which to less 

 gifted persons are quite non-existent, 

 and to the enormous scale on which he 

 works. He has no new methods, no 

 magic, other than those two things. 



To return to the bees. Color is us- 

 ually the first point looked for, partly 

 because we base our idea of purity on 

 the markings, and partly because uni- 

 formly-marked bees appeal to us. As 

 a means of identifying the presence of 

 certain strains it is helpful, but do not 

 place too much dependence upon it. 

 What we want is honey, so let us find 

 the colonies which have yielded the 

 best. If you have not practised annual 

 requeening you are handicapped, for a 

 colony of a superior value may show to 

 as good advantage as one of inferior 

 merit merely, because the first had an 

 old queen and the second a young one. 

 However, we must start somewhere, so 

 let us pick out the colony which ap- 

 pears to possess the most of the traits 

 we desire to perpetuate and increase. 



The next step is to requeen every 

 colony from that queen, and no care 

 need be e.xercised as to how they mate. 

 Except to take particular pains to se- 

 cure the safe wintering of the breeding 

 queen, the first year's work closes 

 there. In some few localities, or in 

 some exceptional seasons, we may get 

 two breeding seasons in one year; 

 that is, all the drones of the first part 

 of the year are killed, and later a new 

 lot are reared, and if we reared our 

 queens early, and the second breeding- 

 spell comes a considerable time after 

 the first one closed, our young queens 

 may give us a fair number of drones. 

 If such a thing happens we can gain a 

 year. 



The second season we proceed as- 

 foUows : As many queens as we will 

 need, and a few more, are reared from 

 the original queen and allowed to mate 

 in the home-yard, for all colonies are 

 headed by daughters of the original 

 queen, and all their drones possess the 

 same combination of bloods as the 

 queens to which we wish to mate them. 

 The only drones we need suppress are 

 the drones of the breeding-queen, for 

 her drones represent only her blood, 

 while her queen-daughters represent 

 both her blood and that of the drone 

 to which she was mated, and their 

 drones also carry both lines. 



After requeening all colonies with 

 the young queens (except the breeding 

 colony), the next step is to watch care- 

 fully to see what the offspring are to 

 be. Mismated queens are soon detected, 

 if the mating is much different from 

 our selected stock, but some cases may 

 for the time escape us; however, most 

 of them will eventually be detected. 

 From now on keen, careful watch 

 should be kept of all colonies, and 

 upon your ability, natural or acquired, 

 depends your success. Your first effort 

 must be to select a half-dozen queens 

 from which later again to select a 

 couple of breeders, one for use and one 

 for reserve in case of accidents. If the 

 old original breeder lives through to 

 another season, good; but the chances 

 are that she won't, for quite probably 

 she was a year old when first selected. 



So far as mere breeding goes, from 



