376 



" Oxford, O., October 2, 1878. 

 " My Dear Sir :— Please send me your petition, 

 and I will Ket you some signatures. In the Bee Con- 

 vention, at Cincinnati, in 1870, I expressed the 

 hope that the time might soon come when ex- 

 tracted honey could be sold at a price which would 

 make it no longer profitable to adulterate it with 

 sugar. Tliat time has about come. I do not believe 

 that either sugar, syrups or honey can be produced 

 profitably at a price whicli will deter unprincipled 

 men from adulterating them with glucose. Very 

 truly your friend, li. L,. IjANGSTHOTH. 



I tliink this letter, considering its date, a 

 kind of involuntary protest against the 

 coarse of the editor of Oledimujs, and the 

 use of liis name in favor of glucose ! 



My friends, I fear this season will prove 

 tliat comb-honey can no longer be produced 

 at remunerative prices, and that you have to 

 turn your attention to the production of ex- 

 tracted honey. Then is it not to your inter- 

 est to follow the example of the greatest bee 

 master of our age, by sending a postal card 

 to me for a copy of the petition, to have it 

 signed by your neighbors and returned ? 



Hamilton, 111. Chas. Dadant. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Purity VS. Good Working Qualities. 



Fkiend Newman :— Much has been said 

 lately, on the standard of purity, and we 

 have been led to ask ourselves tiie question, 

 can we adopt a standard of purity, that 

 will always secure to us the best working 

 bees ? VVe can see, that it would be easy, 

 for friends Alley and Gary, to adopt a 

 standard of purity, as queen breeders, but 

 for us, as honey producers, to adopt the 

 same standard would be quite another thing. 

 The workers, from different queens, of the 

 same color, and general appearance, show a 

 vast difference as to working qualities; at 

 least such is our experience. 



In the spring of 1877, while changing a 

 swarm from one hive to another, we noticed 

 a fine looking orange-colored queen, with 

 the workers all well marked. A neighbor 

 who keeps several colonies of bees was 

 present and remarked, that he would prefer 

 a darker colored queen for business, and we 

 agreed with his decision. No further notice 

 was taken of the colony than of others, till 

 about June 2.5, when our bees was nearly 

 through swarming. This one had not 

 swarmed but had 00 lbs. of box honey nearly 

 ready to come off. July 3, they gave a fine 

 swarm which was hived. Although the 

 parent colony had none of its queen-cells 

 cut, it never offered to swarm again, and 

 the result, at the end of the season, was 19.5 

 lbs. of box honey from the parent and 114 

 lbs. from the swarm or 309 lbs. from the old 

 colony, in spring. 



The queen reared in the old hive was 

 nearly a duplicate of her. mother and both 

 colon ies wintered without the loss of scarcely 

 a bee, and consumed but little honey in pro- 

 portion to some of the others. The past 

 season they showed the same disposition, 

 not to swarm, till late ; and from the colony 

 with the old queen, we obtained 161 lbs. of 

 box honey, while there were but few other 

 colonies that gave us over 100 lbs. We have 

 reared nearly all our queens from that old 

 queen this season, and find them all to be 

 very prolific layers, as is their mother. We 



should be entirely satisfied with them, were 

 it not that a part of the young queens are 

 quite <lark, and one or two produce some 

 black bees. We have always claimed that 

 a queen rearetl from a pure mother would 

 never produce a black worker, no matter 

 what drone they met, and have ample proof 

 that our position is correct. Consequently 

 this queen cannot be pure, and if we were 

 to rear queens for sale, as do friends Alley 

 and Gary, we should notdare use this queen 

 to breed from, but for our purpose she is 

 worth more than adozenof any other queens 

 we have that come fully up to a standard of 

 purity. G. M. Uoolittle. 



Light-Colored Drones. 



REV. M. MAHIN, T>. T>. 



In the October number of the Journal 

 Mr. J. M. Brooks asks me some questions 

 which I will endeavor to answer. He says : 

 " I will ask our friend. If you have a queen 

 that will duplicate herself in her queen 

 X^rogeny, and produces worker bees that 

 show distinctly (without being filled with 

 honey) the three colored bands, and whose 

 drones are as even and uniformly marked as 

 are the workers, with 3 broad colored bands, 

 all other good qualities being present— in- 

 dustry, size, gentleness, etc., I ask, are such 

 queens pure Italian ? If yes. why ! If they 

 are impure, why ?" 



I have never seen a queen or colony such 

 as friend Brooks describes. I have never 

 seen one that would uniformly duplicate 

 herself in iier queen progeny. I have never 

 seen a colony of Italians havingdrones uni- 

 formly marked with 3 broad colored bands. 

 The colony coming nearest it was not more 

 than half Italian, I do not say that queens 

 producing very light-colored drones aae 

 necessarily impure, but that light-colored 

 drones are no evidence of the purity of the 

 queen or of her worker and queen progeny. 

 I have had many queens that had mated 

 witli black drones, whose drone progeny 

 were as well marked as any purely-mated 

 queen I ever had, or ever saw. 



I believe it to be a fact that queens that 

 have some black blood in them .sometimes 

 produce workers and drones that are lighter 

 in color, than any pure Italian bees ever are 

 in Italy or anywhere el.se. A pure black 

 queen tliat has been mated with an Italian 

 drone, will produce a few bees lighter than 

 pure Italians, though the majority may 

 show no trace of Italian blood. I cannot 

 account for it, but I have observed it in 

 most colonies, mixed in that way that I 

 have seen. And, if I wanted to breed very 

 light colored drones, I would select a queen 

 whose mother had one-seventh or more of 

 black blood, and had mated with a pure 

 Italian drone. I would not care what kind 

 of a drone the queen liei.self had mated with^ 

 as I believe the Dzierzon theory. If we 

 could breed a strain of bees, which slumld 

 be uniformly and d stiiictly marked, drones 

 as well as workers, it would be desirable ; 

 but if there are any such, I have not .seen 

 them. I am satisfied with having the work- 

 ers uniformly three-banded, the bands be- 

 ing free from spots of darker color. 



