1 90 J 



THE AMERICAX niJIJ-KIJEPKR 



115 



such belief has been met with vigorous 

 opposition. It is not my purpose to 

 assign any reasons for this, but only 

 to ask that each bee-keeper carefully 

 watch and test for him or herself the 

 different races and crosses. I venture 

 to assert that a careful and unprejudic- 

 ed examination will show things that 

 will prove a decided surprise to many. 

 I have in my apiaries some of the best 

 strains of Italians to be obtained, also 

 some pure Blacks, and many shades 

 of the crosses of the two races. Accord- 

 ing to the generally accepted view re- 

 garding Italians, such colonies should 

 excel the others, but that has not pro- 

 ven to be the case. The Black bees 

 have bred up the fastest, have stored 

 the most honey and entered the boxes 

 most readily. Also they have proved 

 to be better tempered. The hybrids 

 came next to the Blacks in the poses- 

 sion of these virtues, and the Italians 

 last. Such has been my experience this 

 spring and the contrast has been so 

 marked that I have considered it worth 

 recording. The Blacks will not cling 

 so quietly to the combs during manipu- 

 lations, but that is as often an advant- 

 age as otherwise. The novice must not 

 judge from this that the black bee is the 

 ne plus ultra in beedom, but before dis- 

 carding the queens he has, let him study 

 the character and work of their progeny 

 most carefully. In this connection he 

 may discover that some colony is not 

 as populous as it should be. and that it 

 does not increase rapidly. The bees 

 may seem to be hustlers, good comb 

 builders and gentle, and he may think 

 it wise to rear a new queen from such 

 stock. Before doing so. exchange the 

 queen with one from some other colony 

 and watch the results. Not infrequent- 

 ly they are anything but what was ex- 

 pected. Both queens seemingly lay 

 equally well but the lesser colonj' gains 

 no better than before, while the other 

 colony thrives as usual. But when the 

 young bees from the transposed queens 

 begm to get numerous a change will 

 be noted. Are the bees from the poor- 

 er nueen cannibals or simply poor nurs- 

 es? It is well to consider these things 

 before condemning a new or purchased 

 queen. 



Again, in judging of the comb build- 

 ing qualities of a colony, try to esti- 

 mate the relative proportions of oW 

 and young bees: if the former predomi- 



nate the wax work will be slow and 

 l)oor: if the latter are in the ascendency 

 the work will be quite different. 



Things are not always what they 

 seem and effect may be due to causes 

 (luite foreign to what we believe. Oft- 

 times the novice will see what the vet- 

 eran fails to notice because the former 

 looks with no preconceived notions. A 

 too implicit faith in the text books is 

 accountable for the long life of many 

 an error. By all means let the novice 

 familiarize himself with some one or 

 more standard works on the bee, but let 

 him go to his bees feeling that what he 

 has read may not be right, and that to 

 be sure he must see the things for him- 

 self and prove them. If we will assume 

 this mental attitude we may hopefully 

 look for a great advance in bee culture. 



In the A. B. K. for April, Mr. Mc- 

 Neal spoke of the value of old black 

 comb with brood for drawing bees into 

 the supers. He is quite right, but old 

 black comb empty and dry will work 

 almost equally well. The only word of 

 caution needed in regard to the use of 

 such combs is to have them sound and 

 unbroken, for if the bees have to pull 

 away and repair parts of them the re- 

 moved bits not infrequently are worked 

 into the new combs in tne boxes. 



Providence. R. I., June 2, 1902. 



A New System of Bee Keeping. 



(Adrian Getaz.) 



THE GREATEST subject now dis- 

 cussed in the European bee pa- 

 pers is a method of bee keeping 

 invented by Mr. Preuess, a German 

 leading apiarist. It has been published 

 in pamphlet form, both in German and 

 French. The method is briefly this: 



1st. — As a number of bees come out 

 in the fair days of the latter part of the 

 winter and early spring, and get chilled 

 before they can return, heavy losses re- 

 sult. To prevent these losses, Mr. 

 Preuss places before the hive an ad- 

 ditional department, which' can be dark- 

 ened. The bees can come in this apart- 

 ment or vestibule, (they call it a "con- 

 signator") whenever the weather in- 

 fhices them to come out. As bees must 

 have plenty of water, a water feeder 

 is attached to the "consignator.'' Un- 

 fortunately, the number of the Progres 

 .\])icole containing a full descri]ition of 



