38 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



SOME SWISS COMMENTS UPON AMER- 

 ICAN STATEMENTS. 



A Translation of a Letter from Dr. K. 

 Bruennicli. 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



I have received from Dr. K. Bruennich, the 

 Swiss authority, an interesting letter in which 

 are some comments upon things Swiss and 

 American that I am sure will be of general 

 interest. I'm too poor a German scholar to 

 give a literal translation, but will take the 

 liberty of giving a very free translation, beg- 



fing the good doctor's pardon if in any way 

 misinterpret him. 



"Americans are apt to depreciate our 

 hives (which are mostly handled from behind 

 instead of above), but unjustly. They forget 

 that the high price of land here forbids 

 spreading out hives of the American pattern, 

 and so we are driven to the use of the pavil- 

 lion, which allows colonies to be tiered up. 

 This plan is not without advantages. In the 

 pavillion there is the mutual conservation of 

 heat, and practical operations may be car- 

 ried on under cover, without any fear of rob- 

 bers — two very important advantages." 



Yes, I've no doubt, doctor, that some of 

 our leaders would view things quite differ- 

 ently if they should for a time take up their 

 abode in Switzerland; and possibly a sojourn 

 in this country would also change some Swiss 

 views. There's a good deal in the way one 

 is brought up; a good deal in fashion. For 

 example, in this country we have an outland- 

 ishly absurd way of spelling; but when Pres- 

 ident Roosevelt, who has pretty much his 

 own way in every thing, attempted to spell 

 a few words in a decenter manner, it raised 

 such a hubbub that for once he had to back 

 down and give up to the fashion. 



"Referring to Gleanings, p 823, I must 

 say that, with all due respect to you, I am 

 not yet convinced that a pure strain of blacks, 

 as we cultivate them here, would not be the 

 best for you, even under your conditions." 



I wonder upon just exactly what you base 

 that belief, doctor. Perhaps upon the fact 

 that the great majority of Swiss bee-keepers 

 have found that the native blacks in their 

 purity give better results than any other 

 race or mixture of races. But facts all run 

 the other way here. In hundreds and hun- 

 dreds of cases Italians side by side with the 

 blacks have shown their superiority over the 

 blacks so plainly that there can be no ques- 

 tion left; and when I can get 10, 20, or 50 per 

 cent more honey from Italians, or from a 

 cross containing Italian blood, do you blame 

 me for not wanting pure blacks? 



I think you Swiss put considerable stress 

 on the matter of native stock as being better 

 adapted to the country. Please remember 

 that blacks are no more native than Italians 

 in this country, all bees being imported. 

 Perhaps, too, we Americans are too new a 

 nation to have very much reverence for 

 things old and established. At any rate, the 

 word "imported" has quite a charm for us. 



I sometimes pay double price for a pound of 

 Swiss cheese, and I suspect that just a little 

 of its superior flavor is due to that magic 

 word "imported." Perhaps it would not be 

 a bad thing to "import" from Switzerland 

 some of the best black stock and see if it 

 might not be arf improvement Almost cer- 

 tainly it would be an improvement over the 

 black stock we have had, if not over the 

 Italian. 



Dr. Bruennich wonders that so excellent a 

 journal as Gleanings should publish what 

 he does not hesitate to call "blooming non- 

 sense" on p. 831, under the heading "An Im- 

 proved Strain of Bees." There is a " blend " 

 of three different kinds: "Cyprians for their 

 get-up and get; Carniolans for gentleness and 

 white cappings of comb honey, and Italians 

 for compact brood-nest, non-swarming dis- 

 position, and color." 



Well, doctor, an ignorant German Swiss 

 like you can not understand such things. It 

 takes those Texans. They say some magic 

 words, and from each variety comes its spe- 

 cially good virtue and none of its faults. 

 Now if you should try the thing over in 

 Switzerland, without the magic words, it 

 might turn out something like this: "Cyp- 

 rians for their vile temper, Carniolans for 

 swarming, and Italians for any bad trait 

 they happen to have." 



Seriously, in this country we pay too little 

 attention to theory, and among those of us 

 who have been working the hardest to get 

 crops of honey there is very little known 

 about breeding bees in any thing like a scien- 

 tific way. 



"Page 895 needs a correction, where it is 

 said that Switzerland is the homeland of the 

 leather-colored Italians. These bees never 

 appear across the Alps from Tessin, and so 

 are quite isolated in that canton from Swit- 

 zerland in general, where we cultivate black 

 bees and will have nothing to do with the 

 yellow bees, which have absolutely not stood 

 the test with us, and are far outstripped by 

 the blacks." 



"Among the names of prominent scientific 

 men connected with the bee industry in 

 Switzerland, as given on page 895, Kramer 

 should have taken first rank, who by his co- 

 lossal labors has accomplished more than all 

 others. He it is who established our apisti- 

 cal stations, sifted and collocated their re- 

 sults; he it is who established our ' beleg sta- 

 tions,' drone-proof places where virgins are 

 sent for fertilization; and he yearly assem- 

 bles more than a hundred queen-breeders for 

 a conference regarding matters connected 

 with queen-rearing and improvement of 

 stock. A great mass of valuable discussions 

 and investigations come from his pen. Prof. 

 Burri is no bee-keeper— only a bacteriologist, 

 but a fine one. 



"Page 1018 also has its errors. The mov- 

 able frame was invented by Berlepsch (in 

 some unaccountable manner no biography of 

 Berlepsch occurs in the ABC), next to Hu- 

 ber the most important investigator in the 

 realms of bee culture." 



Whatever Berlepsch may or may not have 



