20 



THE BEE-KEEFEKS- UKVIEW. 



stored five pounds of comb honey, went into 

 winter weak, and died in February.' Did 

 anyone ever see a testimonial like that ? 

 Now, queen breeders, be honest. Tell pur- 

 chasers that they do not want golden bees 

 just because they look pretty, but induce 

 them to purchase the kind of bees that will 

 store the most honey and make ihe most 

 money for them. Five or leu extra pounds 

 of honey per colony are worth more than 

 thousands of yellow bands on the bees' 

 backs. I know that most purchasers want 

 the yellow bees, but discourage rather than 

 encourage them in this, for it is only the de- 

 mand for these yellow bees that has created 

 the supply, and in breeding for yellow bands 

 many of the better qualities of the Italians 

 have been lost sight of, at least by many 

 breeders. Truth is mighty, and will prevail, 

 and put us on record as saying that when 

 people get over this craze of buying fashion- 

 able bees, the leather-colored Italians will 

 take the place that they justly deserve. We 

 know that Mr. Doolittle is a successful bee- 

 keeper, and I suppose has secured his laree 

 crops of honey with the yellow bees, but as 

 Mr. A. I. Root often remarks of certain per- 

 sons, Mr. Doolittle is one of those who would 

 make a success of almost any business, and 

 had he bred from imported stock, and given 

 the same painstaking care that he has given 

 to the yellow strain, is it not quite probable 

 that he would have given to the world a bet- 

 ter strain of bees than that which he now 

 has ? No doubt, in his apiary they are a su- 

 perior strain, but when they fall into the 

 hands of other breeders, they, in their eager- 

 ness to produce the very yellowest bees, lose 

 sight of many of the more valuable qual- 

 ities. 



Now, Mr. Editor, if this note is blown too 

 long to fill the siiace allotted to it. just crowd 

 out some of Somnambulist's Fragments. 

 He will never know the difference, for lie is 

 only dreaming anyhow. 



I could say much more on this subject, but 

 I fear that space forbids. 



Blufifton, Mo." 



All Yellow Bees Do Not Contain Cyprian 



Blood and They May be Gentle and 



Good Workers. 



Those who think that all yellow bees must 



from necessity contain Cyprian blood, and 



be of a vicious disposition, as well as poor 



workers, should read the following from the 



pen of Mr. Doolittle and published in the 



Progressive. 



"In the Progressive Bee- Keeper for No- 

 vember I find some statements which I can 

 look upon in no other way than being falla- 

 '•ious or mistaken, and with your permis- 

 sion, Mr. Editor, 1 will try and correct 

 them. 



In an editorial on page 304 1 find some- 

 thing relative to yellow bees quoted from thfe 

 pen of Mrs. Atchley, to which the editor 

 ak es exceptions, concluding that sister A. is 



guessing at what she states. As to Mrs. A.'s 

 guessing, I have nothing to say, as she is 

 competaat to speak for herself, but when the 

 editor goes into print with these words, ' She, 

 or no other person, can produce these yel- 

 low bfes from a pure Italian queen. Ital- 

 ians mixed with the Cyprians have a tenden- 

 cy to yellow, and without this mixture of 

 Cyprian blood, no five-banded bees can be 

 produced,' then I have something to say, as 

 the truth in the matter is directly opposed to 

 such an assertion. 



I commenced bee-keeping in 18G9, having 

 nothing but black bees at that time. Dur- 

 ing the summer of 1870 I noticed that some 

 of my young queens were producing a part 

 yellow bees, so I began to look about to see 

 where the drones could be which, by meeting 

 ray black queens, gave their progeny these 

 yellow bands. I was not long in discovering 

 that there was an apiary of Italian bees four 

 miles from me in a direct line, the owner of 

 which had luirchased his first Italian queen 

 the year before, rearing many queens from 

 her. As none of his swarms h^d gone to the 

 woods, and as there were no Italian bees 

 nearer than these to my apiary, it was evi- 

 dent that niv queens had met the drones 

 from this ^talian apiary, and I give this fact 

 here, partly to he^d off the assertion made 

 by Henry Alley and others that one and one- 

 half miles is a distance enough between api- 

 aries to secure the pure mating of queens, 

 and partly to tell yon that this queen that 

 was mother of the dronp« which mated my 

 queens was from H. A. King, then living at 

 Nevada. Ohio. In 1872, two more queens 

 were purchased from Mr. King, and i^y the 

 breeding of the«ebees, together with a queen 

 purchased of Ellen S. Tupper. of great api- 

 cultural fame at that time, this man four 

 mileci distant and myself had bees so yellow 

 that they showed the yellow down to the fifth 

 segment on the abdomen, the first four seg- 

 ments, counting from the thorax, being near- 

 ly a solid yellow on a few of the best speci- 

 mens, except small dark or black lines on 

 the rear of each segment, the most dark be- 

 ing on the fourth. After a little Mr. King 

 was lost sight of by the apicultural world, 

 and so I kei)t on with the stock purchased of 

 him till near the eighties, when by exchange 

 I procured a queen of Joseph M, Brooks, of 

 Columbus, Ind., which queen gave fully as 

 yellow bees as any I had been able to pro- 

 duce previous to this exchange. A year or 

 two afterward I bought the last very yellow 

 queen Mr. Brooks had, for at that time he 

 was about to go out of the business, so he 

 let me have what he had selected as the very 

 best queen he liad. I find by going to my 

 diary that I had good four-banded worker 

 bees, drones having the abdomen fully one- 

 half yellow, and queens entirely yellow to 

 the tip, in the year 1880, which was the very 

 year Frank Benton and D. A. Jones set sail 

 for Cyjirus, in search of the Cyprians, which 

 did not reacli this country till 1881, and yet 

 you have the boldness to assert, Mr. Editor, 

 that these yellow bees cannot be obtained 

 except through a mixture of 'Cyprian blood.' 

 You will pardon Mrs. A. and myself for stnil- 

 ing at such an assertion. 



