710 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations Avith Doolittle 



At Borodino, New York. 



DIFFERENCE IN BEES. 



" Is there a difference in bees as to their 

 characteristics, ways of working, etc.? I 

 was told a few days ago that there is as 

 much difference in bees as there is in any of 

 our domestic animals." 



Nearly all practical beekeepers recognize 

 that there is a great ditference in the vari- 

 eties of our bees, while the most observing 

 are free to admit that there is quite a dif- 

 ference among colonies of the same variety. 

 I hardly tliink that anybody having had 

 vei-y much experience would say that al) 

 bees are alike in temper. I believe he would 

 be ready to admit that some colonies are 

 more vicious than others. Bad handling 

 will make almost any colony of bees ugly ; 

 but there are some colonies that are so cross 

 that it is almost impossible to open their 

 hives unless they are thoroughly subdued 

 with smoke. 



I had a colony of dark Italian bees once 

 that I could hardly to do any thing with, 

 while nearly all the other colonies having 

 queens from the same mother were so quiet 

 that they could be handled without veil or 

 smoke. But with that colony it was with 

 much difficulty that the hive could be open- 

 ed and the combs lifted out unless an assist- 

 ant kept smoke pouring in upon them all 

 the time. And this trait was characteristic 

 of them until I made a change of queens. 



Some colonies will cap their surplus in 

 the sections white, while others will cap so 

 closely to the honey that all of their outj^ut 

 will have to be classed as second. Some 

 colonies will fill the sections with honey 

 completely, capping even the cells all 

 around next to the wood, while others will 

 leave " peep holes " in each of the four 

 corners, and sometimes the comb will not 

 be secured to the sections on the sides at all 

 — just attached at the top and bottom. Then 

 some colonies will build comb only when 

 there is a fairly good flow of nectar, stop- 

 ping whenever there is a slight scarcity 

 caused by a few cool or rainy days, so that 

 the completed sections have an uneven or 

 '■ washboardy " appearance. Other colonies, 

 when they commence in the sections, expect 

 to fill them without stopping to think 

 whether the nectar yield fail before they 

 can complete the sections. Hence the whole 

 super or supers of sections come to a finish 

 as smooth and perfect as if planed and 

 sandpapered. I once had a colony which 

 gave ;^09 pounds of such section honey, and 

 used this difference in comb-building to 

 great advantage by stocking three-foni'ths 



of the colonies in the whole apiary with 

 young queens from the mother of this eolo- 



Some colonies will gather gi-eat quantities 

 of propolis, and plaster it all over the sec- 

 tions and separators till it runs down and 

 collects in drops in the corners, much to the 

 disgust of the one who has the sections to 

 clean for market. Other colonies will plas- 

 ter the combs with propolis, thus spoiling 

 them for future use as bait sections, and 

 giving the cappings of such combs as are 

 marketable a disgusting appearance to the 

 one desiring to purchase honey. Other 

 colonies will put in burr and brace combs 

 between the supers, or between the supers 

 and the hive below, often attaching these to 

 the separators and the nice cappings on the 

 face sides to the combs in the sections, so 

 that, when the lioney is removed from the 

 supers, the chunks of capping partly, if not 

 entirely, spoil the salableness of such sec- 

 tions. 



Some colonies will work earlier in the 

 morning and later in the evening, and keep 

 persistently at it, when the scales will show 

 only a few ounces gain each day, while 

 other colonies seem to think there " is noth- 

 ing doing," and so loaf about the hives all 

 day, or try to rob these industrious ones. 

 The business thrift of other colonies is very 

 marked. With a far smaller number of bees 

 than some of their neighboring colonies 

 have, they are continually increasing their 

 stores, and at the end of the season they 

 will have much more to show for their sea- 

 son's accumulations than will colonies that 

 were more populous in early spring. 



Some colonies gather more pollen than is 

 needed, crowding the brood-combs so full 

 that there is hardly room for the queen to 

 occupy with eggs for the well-being of the 

 colony, or spoiling much of the section 

 honey by filling with pollen many cells 

 throughout the whole super. 



Much more miglit be said in regard to 

 the variation and different traits of differ- 

 ent colonies; but the point I am anxious to 

 bring to bear upon all who read these lines 

 is this : All these differences hinge on or 

 depend upon the queen and the drone with 

 which she mates. We say this colony does 

 this, and that colony does that; but in real- 

 ity the whole dej^ends on one individual bee, 

 and that is the queen. Hence it is to the 

 intei'est of each beekeeper to know that all 

 liis (jueens come up to the highest score 

 along all the ditferent points that tend to- 

 ward perfection. 



