1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



243 



blooming season, and then cut, twice as 

 much honey might be secured, perhaps. 

 But I fear the matter is working the other 

 way. It is well, therefore, for those who 

 think of going to.the West, to consider most 

 seriously whether the production of alfalfa 

 honey will not be largely a thing of the 

 past. If I am setting forth the situation 

 worse than Mr. Green or Mr. Gilstrap have 

 in their article (and I think I am not) I 

 should be glad to be corrected. 

 >■'■ The time may come, however, when bee- 

 keepers can afiford to pa}' the ranchmen 

 something for letting their hay crop go into 

 bloom before cutting. Whether that would 

 be feasible or not remains to be seen. — Ed.] 



DOOLITTLE'S FOUR COLONIES; A QUESTION 

 ASKED." 



Why Some Colonies Gather More Honey than 

 Others ;'Brood=rearing under Control. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Under the above heading, Mr. W. C. 

 Eastwood, in the January l5th issue, has 

 this to say: " Should not" G. M. Doolittle, 

 in that communication of his, ' The season 

 of 1901,' page 976, when giving his account 

 of the comparative test of those four lots of 

 bees as to the length of their tongues, and 

 honey prodvict, have furnished us an explic- 

 it statement of the quantity of bees and 

 brood in each hive at the start? He has 

 left us to assume that all started even, but 

 he'does not say so. The omission is a se- 

 rious one. It renders the account given 

 valueless. . . The comparison made is 

 not between the total amounts gathered bj' 

 the several colonies, but between the amount 

 of their several surpluses over and above 

 the quantity needed for the support of each 

 colony — quite a different thing. . . And 

 the editor adds, Mr. Doolittle says the four 

 were worked as nearly alike as possible. 

 He might mean by this that they were near- 

 ly alike in brood and bees; but the state- 

 ment, as you say, is not explicit." 



When we come to technicalities, both of 

 the above are right; yet I expected it would 

 be inferred, as was really the case, that 

 the four colonies were as near alike as 

 "two peas," b}'^ the words " were worked as 

 nearly alike as possible," for, surely, no 

 one would think of comparing colonies of 

 unequal strength on the start. No, the 

 trouble was not in the colonies being of un- 

 equal strength the first of May, but was in 

 just the thing touched on by Mr. E. in his 

 last sentence quoted. Ouite likelj' all four 

 of the colonies may have gathered some- 

 where near the same amount from the field, 

 but of what use was that? It is only the 

 surplus which counts to the one keeping 

 bees for profit. I really thought, on June 

 first, that the colony which gave the least 

 surplus was the one which was going to do 

 wonders for me. And why? Because it 

 had the nicest lot of brood, and that in the 

 most compact shape. And why did it not 



do the best? Ah, there is the rub. And 

 right here is the thing which most bee-keep- 

 ers have failed to grasp in their breeding 

 and selection: That supposedly better col- 

 ony used nearly all of its energy rearing 

 brood when the honey harvest arrived, which 

 resulted in a host of restless bees, which 

 began to swarm in the height of the honey 

 harvest. And at brood-rearing they kept, 

 and day after day they would swarm, in 

 spite of all Doolittle could do, without up- 

 setting the plan started with, and upon 

 which the others were worked, until the 

 whole season was frittered away (except 

 40 lbs. of poor surplus) in this brood, and 

 the swarming of the bees, which became 

 useless consumers later on, so that there 

 was not honey enough for winter stores. 

 Will Bro. Eastwood — yes, or any one else, 

 tell me what use there is of bees, gathering- 

 from the fields, using the honey in such a 

 way as that? 



Now let us come to the other colon j^ that 

 gave the 261 lbs. of surplus, all nice for 

 market. What of those? The_v put in good 

 licks at brood-rearing, up to the time the 

 honey- flow had been on for about a week, 

 when the brood gradually lessened down to 

 just enough to keep the colony in good con- 

 dition for wintering, while every energy 

 was bent in putting in all the nectar possi- 

 ble as a surplus, supposedly for themselves, 

 but which I took advantage of at a rate of 

 $33.42, and after that they had double the 

 amount they required for winter. '"No use 

 talking-, brethren," the queen that will put 

 her bees on the stage of action, in a maxi- 

 mum number or amount, right at the begin- 

 ning of the honey-flow, then decrease her 

 brood so that this brood, and the bees from 

 it, shall not consume a larger share of the 

 nectar gathered, while the maximum amount 

 of bees work energetically, with little or 

 no swarming, for the accumulation of a 

 surplus — such a queen is of more value than 

 any other one thing in all the realm of bee- 

 keeping, if not more than all of the other 

 things combined. And this is the o;/d? thing 

 I have been breeding for, and the result of 

 the season of 1901 proved that I had not 

 worked in vain. The queen colony which 

 is susceptible to the manipulation of the 

 apiarist along the line above spoken of is a 

 power in the apiarist's hands to roll up un- 

 told amounts of honey. But the colonv- 

 which is not susceptible to such manipula- 

 tion will prove to be a disappointment the 

 larger part of the time. And I wish to 

 thank Mr. Eastwood for drawing this mat- 

 ter out. Here is something I hiive been 

 trying to get the brethren to think seriously 

 about for many 3'ears, but my words have 

 seemed to them as "idle tales." I have 

 had queens from all over the United States, 

 and even from Austriilia, which would do 

 nothing but go to booming brood-rearing at 

 just the time they should be bending every 

 energy to the storing of nectar, if I was to 

 reap any reward for my trouble in keeping 

 them. That queen from Australia would 

 put brood in only four combs prior to our 



