GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations with Doolittle 



At Borodino, New York. 



IMPROVING THE BEES. 



" Mr. Doolittle, the ideas you advanced 

 in regard to longevity of bees, and selecting 

 stock along that line, are well Avorth study- 

 ing and putting into practice. But are 

 there not other lines of improvement which 

 should be worked out as well as this one? 

 Be kind enough to tell about some of the 

 other things which go toward making better 

 bees, and how you were led to your present 

 standard of excellence." 



" Without question, the prime idea of all 

 who keep bees is the profit they will give. 

 ] tliink I should be quite safe in saying that, 

 if they cease to yield a profit to their owner 

 for several years in succession they would 

 cease to have owners. That there is a vast 

 dii¥erence in the profits from the different 

 colonies in the same apiary was something 

 I found out fully forty years ago when I 

 had nothing but the old black bees to work 

 with. One colony, or a majority of the 

 colonies in the same apiary, would often 

 give satisfactory returns at the end of the 

 honey season, while others just as favorably 

 situated, and in equally good condition in 

 the spring, so far as I could see, gave little 

 or no profit. This trouble was laid at the 

 door of the German or black bees when the 

 high praise of the Italians was first being 

 sung in the sixties and early seventies. But 

 a careful trial of the Italians showed that, 

 while they were a more i3rofitable bee than 

 the blacks, yet they were no less subject to 

 this variableness in yield at the end of the 

 season. 



" A similar difference in stock is also noted 

 by our dairymen. Certain cows in their 

 herd can not be bought at any price, while 

 others are an absolute bill of expense to 

 their owners unless their carcasses can be 

 turned into beef. Hence an effort is con- 

 stantly made to propagate the good qual- 

 ities and eliminate the bad. Now, this is 

 just what every apiarist should do with the 

 bee. And it is something which the major- 

 ity of beekeepers have sadly neglected, al- 

 thougli much more thought and effort have 

 been put forth along this line in the last 

 few years. 



" We should start with the best race of 

 bees. The Italian I take as the best domes- 

 ticated honeybee yet brought to public no- 

 tice, which I think is the verdict of the 

 world's best apiaries of the present time. 

 They are quite largely proof against the 

 wax-moth and its larva, and very success- 

 fully hold out against the ravages of Euro- 

 pean foul brood. They rarely desert their 



hives in early spring, no matter how moldy 

 or foul their hives may have become through 

 a disastrous winter. In one case, some 35 

 years ago, when colonies of black bees were 

 deserting their hives by the score, not an 

 Italian colony did this. I had a colony of 

 these which numbered just 82 bees and the 

 queen, by actual count, on May 15, and yet 

 they held their hive with filthy combs, and 

 protected their stores from robbers, build- 

 ing up so as to give quite a surplus of comb 

 honey from buckwheat, while fairly strong 

 colonies of black bees deserted combs and 

 hives which were comparatively sweet and 

 clean, or suffered their stores to be carried 

 off by robbers. 



" However, the main point of excellence in 

 the Italian bees lies in the fact that, when- 

 ever a small amount of honey is obtainable, 

 they are up and at it, often making a gain 

 in stores while other races of bees require 

 feeding to keep them alive. And as the 

 profit side of beekeeping must come largely 

 by way of the stores gained, after experi- 

 menting for years with all other races of 

 bees, and proving that, for this locality, 

 none others were equal to the Italians, I 

 have decided that they are the best bees to 

 use in carrying out any improvement. 



" And now we come to ' the different lines 

 of improvement ' you ask about. In my 

 late article I put longevity at the head, and 

 above prolificness of Queen, wliich was con- 

 sidered during the past to be the highest 

 point to be worked for. Having the lon- 

 gevity i^art established, then efforts toward 

 an extra prolificness of such queens will be 

 in order. Then I Avould prune out every 

 colony showing traces of black or other in- 

 ferior blood. Next I would kill all queens 

 which produce A'icious bees. I consider the 

 keeping of vicious bees only on a par with 

 keeping a vicious cow or horse. Any of 

 them are a danger, and a constant nuisance. 



" Another class of colonies to be disposed 

 of is that which fails to winter well or to 

 give satisfactory results along the lines we 

 are working, though in appearance and tem- 

 per the bees may be faultless. These should 

 have their queens replaced by others wliich 

 we have reason to believe will be more to 

 our advantage. In a large apiary it is often 

 hard to account for the failure of some colo- 

 nies in coming up to the standard we have 

 set. But with such cases it is always safe 

 to abolish the queen, providing one instead 

 which was bred from the mother of the colo- 

 ny which has given the best results in all 

 points under consideration." 



