OCTOBKR 1, 1915 



787 



oiTei"?." We simply raised tlie question as 

 to wlietlier one can maintain the ])iiee of 50 

 cls. all through the season. 



Still another party — a well-known queen- 

 breeder of firsi -class srolden stock, and one 

 cf the best-known men in our ranks — com- 

 ])lains because we have given it as our 

 opinion that many of the extra golden- 

 yollow bees are not as good as the leather- 

 colored stock. It seems we wrote this par- 

 ty, congratulating him on the excellence of 

 Iiis stock, because it was resistant to Euro- 

 liean foul brood. Immediately he came 

 back at us, saying we were inconsistent in 

 ])raising the thing we had condemned. We 

 tried to exjilain to him that we could not 

 afTord to .'^mother our lionest opinions, right 

 or wrong, simply because of the few extra 

 dollars we might make in our advertising 

 columns. Moreover, we have never declared 

 that all goldens are inferior to the leather- 

 colored stock. 



In almost the same mail came a letter 

 from a breeder of extra-yellow bees, com- 

 mending us for the fearless stand we had 

 taken in our various editoi'ials, and saying 

 that he expects to take Gleanincs for the 

 rest of his life. He, evidently, does not 

 consider that we are condemning all gold- 

 en.'-. The fact is. if a breeder sells good 

 storlc. golden or leather-colored, the trade 

 will discover it atid patronize him. This 

 is shown by the fact that some breeders 

 have adxertised willi ns for years. 



To make our stand clear, it may be well 

 to reiterate that, although we have spoken 

 disparagingly at times of soine goldens, we 

 have not condemned all. That is only an- 

 other way of saying there are some goldens 

 that are not only beautiful, but good work- 

 ers, and some goldens that seem to resist 

 European fo'.d brood as readily as leatlier- 

 colored Italians, and possibly better. We 

 A-ould gladly give the names of some of 

 those breeders who are fnrmshing this kind 

 of stock; but if we did so, this poor editor 

 would have more trouble on his hands from 

 the other fellow whose name was conspicu- 

 ous by its absence. 



If the reader cares to look over our 

 editorials he will see that we have frequent- 

 ly condemned the policy of advertising live- 

 banded bees, and furnishing only three and 

 four banded stock. While there is such a 

 thing as a " five-banded " or " yellow-to- 

 the-tip " bee, it is almost impossible to 

 make all the bees of a queen show up like 

 that. The effort on the part of some to get 

 the "yellow all over" has naturally led them 

 to sacnfice rfTiciency and longevity for 

 rolor. As a natural result, many of the 

 xtra-yellow l)ees have been markedly in- 



ferior to bees bred for business, color being 

 maintained only as a secondary considera- 

 tion. 



It is the policy of breeding for one thing 

 only, and tliaf thing not a business qualifi- 

 cation in our bees, that we have condemned ; 

 and we still stand on the same platform. 

 Wc do not condemn beautiftd bees that are 

 also good v:orlcers, nor the breeders of 

 them. Some of these people have developed 

 some vei\v line stock, including our adver- 

 tiser who com.plaii:?. 



Dr. E. F. Phillips and the Editor of 

 Gleanings at the Home of Dr. C. C. 

 Miller, of Marengo, 111. 



Dr. Phillips and ourself had the pleas- 

 ure of pajdng a vei-y short visit at the 

 home of Dr. C. C. Miller, on the 6th of 

 September last. We were on our way to 

 tlie field meet al Hamilton, 111., the home 

 of the Dadants, and stopped off one day. 



There may be other beekeepers who pro- 

 duce honey in sections who harvest larger 

 crops. There certainly are many such. There 

 may be others who can produce an equal 

 quality and possibly better; but practically 

 all of them are using some of the methods, 

 at least, of the sage of Marengo. P'r. 

 Miller, in the opinion of Dr. Phillips, has 

 evolved a system of comb- honey production 

 that is very nearly perfect. He has no 

 trouble about getting bees in comb-honey 

 supers, and very little difficulty in control- 

 ling SAvarming. He will secure a crop of 

 comb honey when other beekeepers get al- 

 most nothing. 



The secret of his success lies in securing 

 a large force of bees in time for the harvest. 

 Said Dr. Phillips, '•' Too much emphasis 

 cannot be placed on that point." His other 

 secret is conserving the force of bees after 

 he gets it. " Secret," did we say? Dr. 

 Miller has no secrets and never did have; 

 but he does have tricks of the trade that 

 every producer of comb honey in the Unit- 

 ed Slates should know. Thousands of bee- 

 keepers who have been running for section 

 honey have given it up in disgust. Some- 

 thing is wrong. They complain that they 

 '^annot get the bees into the supers; that 

 their honey-flows are too short and inter- 

 mittent; and that the swarming pi'oblem is 

 too much for them. But Dr. Miller handles 

 all of these problems at the ripe old age of 

 84, with no other help than thai of his 

 sister-in-law. In fact, he has been doing it 

 yeai' after year for thirty years. 



At the lime of our visit there was sucli 

 a roar of bees about his yard that it looked 

 as if there was a big swarm in the air — in 



