THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



19 



health-giving food aud in increasing its 

 fruits aud seeds, and his freedom from pro- 

 scriptiou will not be long delayed. 



Again, iu its modern phase apiculture is a 

 comparatively new mdustry. For ages the 

 box, or other comb-bound hive, kept faith- 

 ful watch over most of the secrets of the hon- 

 ey bee. It is but recently that these secrets 

 are becoming open, but there are still many 

 important knotty questions about the bee 

 aud the new appliances of the hive that are 

 in pressing need of final answers. There is 

 a wide Held here yet to be explored. Shall 

 bee-keepers aloue of those engaged in rural 

 pursuits be 1-. ft to make the explorations 

 unaided, though thus handicapped by many 

 new things ? 



To be sure, an opening has been made and 

 something has been granted, but united and 

 persistent efforts ought to be made for an 

 allowance commensurate with the work, for 

 a more permanent standing aud for recogni- 

 tion a many more of the North American 

 Experiment stations." 



The Bright Yellow Bees Not the Equal of 

 the Darker Varieties. 

 In this matter of color in bees I have no 

 axe to grind. (I presume that few bee-keep- 

 ers have, as it is just as easy to rear one kind 

 of bees as another.) I wish to present both 

 sides of the question as fairly as possible, 

 hence I take pleasure in givmg the following 

 from Mr. S. E. Miller published in the Pro- 

 gressive. 



" I am asked for my opinion of the yellow 

 or so-called golden Italian bees, but perhaps 

 a little of my experience with them would be 

 worth more than my opinion. I would say 

 that we (my brother and I) have never gone 

 strongly in the yellow bees, but what queens 

 we have tried of this strain were purchased 

 direct from the originator, or the one at least 

 who has taken more time and trouble to 

 breed them up to this standard of color than 

 anyone else in the land, Mr. G. M. Doolittle. 

 And I might mention iu passing that Mr. 

 Doolittle up to a short time ago made no 

 claim to being the origiuator of this strain, 

 but I thought as much for some years past, 

 as nearly all breeders of these yellow bees 

 are proud to say they have the Doolittle 

 strain. In a recent number of Gleanings 

 (page 840, Nov. 1st) Mr. Doolittle explains 

 how his strain has been bred up for over 

 twenty years, and no doubt if there is a good 

 strain of yellow bees, he has them. It is no 

 more than fair to say that we have never pur- 

 chased any of the highest priced queens, but 

 sufficiently high to give us a start of the 

 strain. Now I would like to say for Mr. 

 Doolittle's sake that the queens were the 

 mothers of the best colonies in our apiary, 

 or that the queens purchased from him were 

 such, as I have no doubt that with him they 

 are an entire success yet I am not at liberty 

 to state anything of the kind, unless I should 

 wish to depart from the truth. I have bred 



queens of this strain with great care, and 

 have succeeded in breeding some whose bees 

 were as yellow as I believe could be produced 

 anywhere, but never yet have these very yel- 

 low oues come up to the darker Italians in 

 gathering honey. We usually keep an im- 

 ported Italian queen in the yard as a breed- 

 er, but for two years past we have bred main- 

 ly from the yellow strain, yet with the yel- 

 lows predominating in numbers, our largest 

 yields from a single colony are from the 

 darker colored bees. This year we had two 

 colonies of those inclined to be yellow, that 

 did almost as well as the best leather colored, 

 but the yellowest bees in the yard were about 

 the poorest colony. The yellow bees are in- 

 clined to breed up strong early in the spring, 

 aud seem to be preparing for a great har- 

 vest, but when they get to a certain strength, 

 they appear to get no stronger, and when the 

 harvest comes, the leather-colored bees do 

 most of the gathering. 



I have tried to have certain colonies swarm 

 early, so as to have queens reared by natural 

 swarming, and for this purpose kept them 

 rather crowded for a time, but generally 

 failed to attain the desired success, for after 

 getting just about strong enough to swarm, 

 they seemed to stop increasing in number. 

 I have given them room to store honey in 

 sections, and in this have been disappointed 

 ofteuer than pleased. 



The season of 1893 was practically a total 

 failure here. Two colonies almost complet- 

 ed a case of twenty-four sections each. These 

 two colonies contained queens that were 

 daughters of an imported Italian mother. I 

 note in this connection what Mrs. Atchley 

 has to say about the yellow bees. She says, 

 ' I thought any well posted bee- keeper knew 

 that Italians kept pure would soon become 

 almost solid yellow.' How different people 

 look at certain things. I thought that any 

 well posted bee-keeper knew nothing of the 

 kind. I should like to hear through the Pro- 

 gressive what well posted bee-keepers have 

 to say on the subject. It has taken that 

 champion of queen breeders, Mr. Doolittle, 

 some twenty years to develop a valuable 

 strain of yellow bees, but others with less 

 experience, and not as well posted, would un- 

 dertake to produce them in three or four 

 years, and this is what has brought them to 

 the place they now occupy — a superior strain 

 on paper and in advertisements, but inferior 

 in the apiary. Here is about the way this 

 golden bee business goes : A has a flashing 

 advertisement of golden queens iu the jour- 

 nal. B sends an order for one, and is pleased 

 with the color. As soon as the bees begin to 

 hatch, he writes a testimonial that is good 

 to use as an advertisement, and we hear no 

 more from Mr. B. C, D, and E also order 

 queens, and after thoroughly testing them 

 and being disappointed, they keep their 

 mouths shut about it. or if they should write 

 a complaint to the breeder, it is never used 

 as a testimonial. How would this sound ? 

 ' Dear Bro. A ; — I jjurchased one of your ex- 

 tra select, bred-for-business, 8 or 10-banded, 

 golden Italian queens over a year ago. Her 

 bees were the yellowest I ever saw. They 

 bred up early last spring, did not swarm. 



