1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



59 



CAN OUR BEES BE IMPROVED? SOME PLAIN 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ON HOW IT 



CAN BE DONE. 



" Good evening-, Mr. Doolittle. Awfully 

 cold outside to-nij^ht. " 



"Yes, very cold; but not so cold as it 

 was this morning', is it, Mr. Brown? " 



" Well, perhaps not ; but I see it was 

 down to zeio a little after sundown, and 

 that is what I call awfully cold for the 7th 

 day of December. What was it here this 

 morning? " 



" It was 6 degrees below zero here; 9 be- 

 low at the Willow Dale Mills, and, I am 

 informed, it was 22° below at Homer." 



"Whew! that is the coldest I ever knew 

 it thus early in the winter. And they tell 

 me that Otisco Lake is frozen over the en- 

 tire length of it, the ice being two inches 

 thick — something never known to the oldest 

 inhabitant. Have you got those bees in the 

 cellar 5'et, over at the out-apiary? " 



"No, and I am feeling quite concerned 

 about them. To be sure, they are all in 

 good condition for cellar wintering, but in 

 just no condition at all for outdoor winter- 

 ing ; but as most of them have snow all 

 about them, nearly up to the top of the 

 hives, this will help some during this se- 

 vere weather. No one thought that, with 

 the night of Nov. 10, when our weather had 

 been so nice for four weeks, winter could 

 drop on us with the morning of the 11th. 

 But so it was; and as the hives were all 

 covered with snow, which was frozen on, I 

 thought it best to leave them till it warmed 

 up enough so the snow would fall off, and 

 am still waiting. The fact is, it is a hard 

 matter to tell just when is the right time to 

 put the bees in the cellar, and it is as often 

 perplexing to tell when to take them out." 



"Yes, that is so; and I hope yours will 

 not suffer materially from being out till a 

 warm spell comes, which I expect before 

 the middle of the month. But I came over 

 to have a little talk about improving my 

 bees. Do you think I can make any head- 

 way in the matter if I try? Neighbor Smith 

 says he has tried for ten years with his, 

 but he does not see that thej' are any better 

 now than when he commenced." 



" I fear Smith has not put the effort into 

 this matter that he did when he made such 

 an improvement with his cattle. He could 

 easily see that a part of his cows were not 

 nearly as good inilkersas were others, and 

 so he went to work to have all as good as 

 the best, and he told me that he succeeded 

 too. Can you see any dift'erence in the 

 gathering qualities of j'our bees? " 



" Yes. Some colonies gather from one- 

 third to double as much as others." 



"And svich is the case with very many 

 bee-keepers, especially those who have ta- 



ken no really advanced ground in trying to 

 improve their stock. Probably there is not 

 an apiary in the United States, containing 

 twenty colonies or more, but that the owner 

 thereof is compelled to acknowledge that 

 certain colonies do better than others near- 

 ly every year in producing honey, unless 

 said owner has taken pains to bring his 

 stock up to a high point of excellence along 

 this honey-gathering line. Were it other- 

 wise, we should not so often hear it re- 

 marked, ' If the whole apiary could have 

 done as well as such a colony, I should 

 have had a big yield.' " 



"But don't you think that the hive used, 

 and the strength of the colony, have nearly 

 all to do with this matter? Smith says 

 that such is the case." 



" I am inclined to think that the race of 

 bees has the greater influence over these 

 things, and that certain traits of character 

 exist in certain colonies of bees that do not 

 in others. If this is so, there is a chance of 

 improvement in our bees, and I am inclined 

 to think it will be to our credit in the future 

 to work more for the improvement of our 

 bees, even though we ' slack not our pace ' 

 on the improvement of hives." 



"But how can we accomplish this im- 

 provement? " 



"I know of only one way at present for 

 the rank and file of bee-keepers to accom- 

 plish this, and that is through the queen. 

 If we could control the drone, as we can 

 the male in our other animals, the matter 

 would be much easier; but as we can not 

 control the drones to any great extent, we 

 have only the queen to aid us materially in 

 the improvement, as a certainty." 



" Well, such being the case how shall we 

 proceed? " 



" I do not know that I can give you my 

 views better than to relate some of my ex- 

 perience. A score or more years ago I be- 

 gan to turn my attention to this matter, and 

 soon adopted the following plan : At the 

 close of each honey season I struck an av- 

 erage of the number of pounds of surplus 

 honey produced by the whole apiary; and 

 then all colonies which did not come up to 

 this average were marked. These colonies 

 were united, either in the fall or spring, 

 with others, which had produced an aver- 

 age amount, or above, if such uniting was 

 deemed advisable, through colonies light in 

 bees or scarcity of honey. If all were not 

 disposed of in this way (of course I always 

 destroyed the poorest queen and retained 

 the other), I superseded the inferior queens 

 by those reared from colonies known to have 

 produced the very largest amount." 



"But such a course would require the 

 keeping of a record of each and all colonies 

 in the apiary." 



' ' Yes, and the keeping of such a record 

 would be of much benefit in several waj's 

 besides the one I have spoken of." 



"This keeping a record is something I 

 have often thought about, and spoke to Mr. 

 Smith about it onl3' the other day. He said 



