to the dock. It was at this point where 

 Harry DuBois met us, and from which our 

 party went up the Loxahatchie River to 

 inspect his beeyards. 



Perhaps some of our readers will wish to 

 know what that cruiser cost. Somewhere 

 about $5000. It is constructed to stand 

 heavy seas; is furnished with full equip- 

 ments in the cabins for sleeping, eating, and 

 cooking. Cruising is the most enjoj-able 

 way of seeing the country in Florida that 

 I know of. In this particular case we did 

 not buy the cruiser, but chartered it for a 

 couple of weeks. 



With all that has been said at fruit- 

 gi'owers' eonveiitions and written in fruit- 

 growers' magazines, it is hoped that the 

 horticulturists this year will recognize more 

 fully the indissoluble connection between 

 their interests and those of the beekeepers. 

 Since the winter has not been so severe as 

 to kill off great numbei's of colonies, the 

 outlook is favorable for the pollination of 

 fruit-blossoms. From that, it follows a 

 good fruit year is due. 



In this connection a specific example 

 reported by Dr. B. N. Gates, at the Iowa 

 State Beekeepers' convention last Novem- 

 ber, is of exceedingly timely interest : " In 

 one of the western states there are two 

 comparable apple orchards of about equal 

 aet^age, of similar location and age, each 

 in a pocket in the foothills of an admirable 

 fruit land, both well drained, and protected 

 from frost. One orchard bore heavily for 

 successive years. On the other there was 

 110 crop, although the trees blossomed heav- 

 ily each sirring. In despair of financial 

 ruin, the owner called the assistance of the 

 State Experiment Station. A pomologist 

 and entomologist was sent to examine crit- 

 ically all of the conditions at each of the 

 orchards. He was about to return without 

 solving the problem of failure, when the 

 question arose, ' Were there ever any bees 

 maintained in the orchard which had fruit- 

 ed? ' It was assei'ted, however, that neither 

 orchard had bees. However, the problem 

 was not given up, and the ground was again 

 gone over. As the experiment station man 

 was about to leave without finding any 

 apparent reason for failure he chanced to 

 see a stream of bees coming in one of the 

 orchards from a swale under a pile of un- 

 derbrush. Further investigation revealed a 

 hollow log sunken in the soil sheltering a 

 large colony of bea?. It is needless to say 

 in which orchard the log was. Iiumediatelv 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



bees were secured for the failing orchard. 

 The owner then netted $3800 on his crop." 



Have we Really been Testing Queens? 



In Science for February 5, Wilmon 

 Newell, state entomologist for Texas, who 

 has been studying inheritance in the honey- 

 bee, has announced a few interesting obser- 

 vations which have been brought out by 

 four years of research. At an isolated sta- 

 tion along the Gulf Coast, crosses between 

 pure Carniolans and pure Italian stock are 

 being observed. 



Mr. Newell finds that the workers of 

 typical Italian color, p^roduced by an Ital- 

 ian queen, are not evidence that she has 

 been purely mated, although this has long 

 been the assumj^tion of queen-breeders. 

 Italian queens mated with Carniolan drones 

 produce workers and queens often indistin- 

 guishable from Italians so far as color is 

 concerned. When Carniolan queens are 

 mated to Italian drones the yellow color is 

 also predominant. He has not experimented 

 with blacks. 



Offspring of the first of these crosses 

 show a proclivity of the Carniolans for 

 using wax instead of propolis. Bees from 

 the second show it also, but in less degi'ee. 



Daughters of these two crosses each pro- 

 duce drones of both races in equal numbers, 

 but produce no hybrid drones. "The actual 

 application of this is that the only test of 

 an Italian queen mated is found iu the 

 color of the drones produced bv her daugh- 

 ters." 



This statement of Mr. Newell's is some- 

 what tempered by the consideration that 

 when more data are secured on the wide 

 variation in color of drones from purely 

 mated queens, more light will be thrown on 

 several phases of the problem. At best it 

 is rather discouraging to queen-breeders to 

 learn that the only way to discover whether 

 a queen has been ]iroperly mated is to ex- 

 amine her grandsons. 



snmed in lllie United 

 States 



Fkom the Bureau of Foreign and Domes- 

 lie Commerce of the Department of Com- 

 merce at Washington we learn that in 

 twenty-five years the sugar consumption of 

 the countrj' has almost trebled, and has in- 

 creased from 50.44 pounds per capita, in 

 1889, to 86.85 pounds in 1914. In that 

 period of twenty-five years Cuba has in- 

 creased its coiiti ibulioii to the domestic 

 market from l,0:r2.00n,000 to 4,927,000,000 



