THE BKE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



105 



ever got to this contiuent alive — aud, more- 

 over, that crossing that bee with ordinary 

 bees was never accomplished anywhere, and 

 is unlikely to be ever accomplished. Let no 

 advertiser think to run his bare cheek against 

 this well settled understanding. Or does he 

 claim that a caged dorsata queen came 

 through by mail, and was successfully intro- 

 duced to common bees ? If that is it let him 

 not be unduly modest about saying so. But 

 if he only has bees which somebody hopes 

 have a dash of dorsata blood about them he 

 should be honest enough to say just that — 

 else wait till impartial experts have exam- 

 ined and reported. Professors of entomol- 

 ogy are not so exceedingly scarce : and 

 samples of bees in a little box are not hard 

 to send. At all events before you send him 

 the eight dollars for a queen make him send 

 you by mail a few live workers. If he's 

 straight he will be willing to do so ; and if 

 he's crooked he canH. 



CANADIAN Bee journal. 



A certain worthy old chap used to meet 

 the endless query, " How are you this morn- 

 ing ?" by saying blandly, " About as I was." 

 The Canadian is about as it was, and does 

 not call for any long paragraph of general 

 remark this time. 



Friend W. C. Wells, on page 4<)7, gives 

 such hobbyists as myself a rather uncomfor- 

 table dish of facts aud things about drones. 

 Having over a hundred hives of blacks, he 

 raised two nice Italian queens late in the 

 fall, and clipped their wings before they 

 could become fertile. This was on purpose 

 to make drone-layers of them, and get a 

 tine lot of Italian drones very early in the 

 spring, before black drones were abroad. 

 He succeeded so far, and also in getting a 

 fine lot of Italian virgins to meet them — and 

 they liew, and flew, for nearly three weeks, 

 yet nary a one became fertile. At that point 

 the black drones came on deck, and all the 

 queens mismated. Well, we don't confess 

 summer at the twitter of one swallow ; but 

 if many of the pesky little things twitter 

 around like that I shall have to say — 



'' Now is the summeu of my discontent," 



At present I'll be spunky enough to say 

 that this experiment, aud Willie Atchley's, 

 given last month, do not "jibe." If one is 

 O. K. the other is K. ( ). ( Konsiderably OS.) 

 There is no imaginable probability of the 

 imperfect unfertilized female having more 

 of the reproductive power than the perfect 



female unfertilized, that thus her sons should 

 be competent, while the sons of the latter 

 are incompetent. 



( )n page 4G«, N. D. West, the spiral pro- 

 tector man, says that his long spirals are the 

 best bee escapes in use. Quite an idea. I 

 suppose a thin board with one or more holes 

 in it is used, and that the spirals are fastened 

 under the holes so as to trail down between 

 the combs below. A little awkward to put 

 on properly I should fear. Perhaps he 

 avoids this by using both board and empty 

 half story. He furnishes also this valuable 

 little kink. When you cut queen cells keep 

 your knife warm by holding it against the 

 smoker barrel. 



" Every unnecessary disturbance or excite- 

 ment is damaging at any time in the year, but 

 mostly so in the spring ; and we cannot feed 

 bees without creating more or less disturbance 

 and excitement.'' ("!hristopher Grimm, 466, Caua- 

 diau. 



He says he would never feed for stimula- 

 tion merely, if plenty of stores were within. 

 No spreading — 



Let them make their own nest 



Just as suits them best. 



No vernal robbing of Peter to pay Paul, 

 with frames of brood, unless Paul needs a 

 queen. No uniting of dwindlers until set- 

 tled weather comes. All of which gives me 

 Grimm satisfaction, as coming from one of 

 the bee fathers of bee- Israel. 



The editor on page Wl thinks West's spiral 

 protectors and queen cages worthy of more 

 general use than they have yet attained. 



Another editorial on the same page warns 

 us to look out for queenlessness when bees 

 won't carry down feed which they need in 

 the fall — providing, of course, that things 

 are arranged rightly, and it isn't too cold. 



Whatever one may think of McEvoy's 

 theories of foul brood, his success as a foul 

 brood eradicator seems to be admirable. 

 Spread himself over thirteen counties last 

 year ; and met the enemy in thirty-nine api- 

 aries. Needless to say that the enemy was 

 " his'n." Only in about four cases did he 

 have to burn up colonies— and to a total of 

 about thirteen hives. Occasionally of course 

 he would meet with don't-care folks, who 

 understand with their elbows, and go and do 

 the very things they must not do, and utterly 

 omit essential things which must be done ; 

 but he praises the zeal and intelligence with 

 which nearly all took hold to get clear of the 

 plague. The wrong manin the place would 

 surely stir up more human hornet's nests 

 and I'm thinking McEvoy himself 



