'THi® mimMMicmn jamm jOjiimnwi^. 



41 



eriug; are slow to rob, and stroug to defend 

 their hives— in sooth, possess in a marl;ed 

 degree the merits of the yellow races, they 

 are pre-eminently the bees to enter into the 

 make-up of the "coming bee." 



p''rom the fact that the Syrian bees lack 

 two important characteristics, which are 

 emphatically marked in the Carniolan bees, 

 it goes without saying, that the Carniolan 

 race is the one most desirable to cross with 

 the Syrian, to produce the bee of the future. 

 I can but believe that a cross, or hybrid, 

 ■will form the basisof the "coming bee." All 

 science points that way ; No objection— no 

 valid objection— says nay. With our pres- 

 ent light, these two races- the Syrian and 

 the Carniolan— stand out prominently as 

 the basic stock 'on which to build. I am 

 strong in the belief that there is much to 

 hope from experiments in this direction. 



Mr. Frank Benton, whose ability aad ex- 

 perience combine to give his words gi'eatest 

 weight, places the Syrian bees as first of 

 the yellow races, and the Carniolan bees as 

 first — everything considered — of all bees. 

 Granting, then, that the great improvement 

 of the future is to be the carefully selected 

 offspring of a cross,or hybrid (as any scien- 

 tific breeder, I think, must gi-ant), then we 

 are surelj' warranted in recommending 

 every breeder — who wishes to work for the 

 best, and in the most i)romising lines— to 

 unite these two races; and with a fixed 

 ideal in his mind to work toward, carefully 

 select, and I'eject, and I doubt not but that 

 a rich success will in the end crown his 

 efforts. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



FOUNDATION. 



Using Full Sheets of Founilation 

 in Sections. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY JAMES HEDDON. 



This Is the subject of Query 677, on 

 page 6. The answers are quite com- 

 prehensive, and differ according' to tlie 

 various experiences of tlie different 

 bee-keepers in widely-separated locali- 

 ties. There is one important point 

 that has not been touched in all of the 

 answers. Scientific bee-keeping dis- 

 covered, and put It down as a fact,that 

 the less drones the hives contain, the 

 better. In a state of nature, bees need 

 more drones to the colony, by twentj-- 

 fold, than they do in an apiary under 

 the guiding hand of the bee-master. 

 This is not all — we desire to fill the 

 air with drones from certain colonies, 

 while from others we prefer to have 

 none at all, and mj' most successful 

 honey-producing colonies are those 

 that have no drones at all. This alone 

 is enough to set tip the theory that a 

 successful and profitable colony needs 

 no drones at all. 



Now, then, when the brood-chamber 

 is full of worker-comb, unless you fill 

 the sections full of worker-comb also, 

 nearly all drone-comb will be built in 

 the sections. It is conceded that 

 drone-comb is not as handsome for 

 surplus honey as the worker size. It 

 certainly is not as stroug for shipping 



—but all that amounts to but little, 

 comjjared to tlie point that if there is 

 any (Ironc-conib in the surplus sections, 

 it will be filled with drone-l)rood, un- 

 less a queen-e.xclnding honcy-lioard is 

 used ; and then, if it is only possible 

 for the queen to pull and squeeze her- 

 self through the narrow passage-ways 

 surrounded with metal, she will do so. 

 The bees must urge her up, or convey 

 to her the knowledge that there is 

 drone-comb above. This is true of all 

 hives, of all shapes or depths, and as 

 plainly possible with one depth as 

 another, provided, as stated, there is 

 no drone-comb in the brood-chamber. 



HONEV-COMB IN THE .STOMACH. 



Let me say to Mrs. Harrison, that, 

 in one respect at least, I have a stom- 

 ach just like hers. It will not digest 

 beeswax at all, and it will not digest 

 honey-comb any more than it will 

 beeswax ; but any perfectly smooth, 

 indigestible material, like comb or 

 wax, is most wholesome, and greatly 

 aids in digesting other food. It is es- 

 pecially beneficial even in connection 

 with warm biscuit, because it mixes up 

 with the biscuit material. 



The only liard suljstance to digest, 

 is something that will digest, but will 

 not do so readily. Anything that will 

 not digest at all, produces no strain 

 upon the digestive system. The con- 

 clusion is, that comb honey is the most 

 digestible food in the world. If the 

 honey is thoroughly ripened by tlie 

 bees (that is, digested), how readily 

 it assimilates, the bees having done 

 the work. The comb being wholly in- 

 digestible, no effort is made by the 

 system to digest it, and so it passes 

 along without harm ; but with the 

 beneficent result of aiding the other 

 substances in the stomach to digest 

 more readily, making avenues, as it 

 does, for the acids and gastric juices 

 to thoroughly mix up with the food. 



Practice has proven the above long 

 ago ; and what is practically true, is 

 never theoretically false. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



QUEEN-CAGE. 



Further Suggestions About tlie 

 Pratt <lueen-Cage. 



Written f(yr the American Bee Journal 



BY E. L. PKATT. 



For the benfit of those interested in 

 the queen-cage described on page 800 

 of the American Bee Journal for 

 1889,1 will say that the cages should be 

 provisioned, corked, and the screen- 

 cloth tacked on before the queens and 

 attendants are put in. 



The cover should be fastened at one 

 corner with one |-inch wire nail, and 



turned at right angles with the cage, 

 in such a manner as to bring the ven- 

 tilating hole directly over the center 

 apartment, thus making a convenient 

 tluimb-liole tlirough which to slip the 

 queens and wiu'kers, one by one. 



The lid can be turned back into 

 place, and tai^ked fast, as soon as all 

 the queens have been taken out. 



This cage is receiving many words 

 of praise, and several bee-keeping 

 friends have suggested little improve- 

 ments that will make it the best ship- 

 ping and intro<lucing cage in u.se, I 

 think. Mr. Doolittle suggests wrap- 

 ping the cages, and I have had a neat, 

 colored wrapper printed. On one side 

 are lines on which to write the address; 

 on another, the shipper's card, and the 

 postage stamp, and on the opposite 

 side are directions for introducing. All 

 the samples which I send out now are 

 in these wrappers. 



Our bees are wintering nicely, since 

 there has not been a day, hardly, up to 

 Jan. 1, that they could not tty. There 

 are very few dead bees on the bottom- 

 boards. We have had a very open win- 

 ter in the East, so far. Christmas day 

 was like balmy spring. There is no 

 breeding, as yet, in any of the hives. 



Marlboro, Mass. 



HONEY-DEW. 



It Crystallizes on the Incense 

 Cedar Trees of California. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY S. L. WATKINS. 



In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 

 after a dry season, it is nothing un- 

 common in the incense-cedar woods, 

 to see the twigs and branches of whole 

 forests glistening witli crystallized 

 honey-dew. This honey-dew exudes 

 from the trees for about six weeks, at 

 the end of which time it crystallizes, 

 and looks like drops of granulated 

 sugar on the under side of the limbs. 

 After repeated experiments, I have 

 found that it is caused by the work of 

 aphides. 



The incense-cedar trees grow in cer- 

 tain sections of the countrj', and they 

 seem to be a general favorite for the 

 aphides to work on ; common cedars 

 they will not touch, as I have never 

 found any trace of their work on them. 



This honey-dew, before being gath- 

 ered by theijees, has a slightly cedary 

 taste, not at all unpleasant, like ordi- 

 nary honey-dew, but, on the contrary, 

 very agreeable. I have had colonies 

 store 150 pounds of surplus comb 

 honey in six weeks, all gathered from 

 this source ; the combs being of snowy 

 whiteness, and the honey the thickest 

 that I have ever seen. After the aphides 



