58 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[From the Prairie Farmer, Aug. 14, 



Pure Progeny and Hybrid. 



I have a colony of bees, the queen a pure 

 Italian. I think she mated with a black drone, 

 althouEch there were Italian drones. She is a 

 year old, and I had clipped her wings, for fear 

 she might steal a march on me, and leave. I 

 use a movable frame hive. 



On the 19th of July, they sent out a swarm, 

 but as the queen could not fly, tliey went back, 

 and I captured her and gave her to a black 

 colony I had just bought. I opened the hive 

 and destroyed all the queen cells but one. On 

 the 30th they sent out another swarm. I open- 

 ed the hive and cut out the queen cells, and put 

 them in a small box; and in fifteen minutes there 

 were eight young queens out of their cells, and 

 crawling around the bos. Two of them were 

 as fair Italians as I ever saw ; two were appar- 

 ently pure black bees ; and the others were un- 

 mistakably hybrids. What was the cause of the 

 difference ? 



Eli Phillips. 



Coles Co., Ills. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Gallup's Notions Considered. 



[From the London Gardeners' Chronicle.] 



Eastern Melilot or Bokhara Clover. 



I have received seed of this form of white 

 clover from the East, under the names both of 

 Bokhara and Cabool clover. It is longer in its 

 stems and foliage than the British specif s, 

 frequently growing as much as four feet in 

 height. Its flowers are if anything smaller 

 than those of the Melilotvs alba. 



Having grown of this, I find it to be greatly 

 resorted to by the bees, which would seem to be 

 as much attracted by the strong smell of the 

 foliage, as by the scent of the ^flowers. The 

 flavor of the whole plant is due to the same 

 principle as that of the Anthoxanthum odoratum 

 — sweet vernal grass, a grass principally con- 

 cerned in imparting fragrance to good meadow 

 hay. The principle is called by the chemists 

 Gour marine, and is the volatile oil that gives 

 fragrance to the Tonka bean. 



I have grown this Melilot in my mixtures of 

 seeds or artificial grasses, with the view of 

 imparting to them the flavor of meadow hay ; 

 and in as far as my experience has gone, I have 

 found such hay to be both more relished and 

 more nutritious. I mixed about a quarter of a 

 pound ot Melilot seed with the seed of each acre 

 of clover, or mixed clover and grass seed. The 

 bee-master then, who farms, may improve his 

 artificial fodder, while li'^ i)rovides for his bees 

 through the medium of Melilot. B. 



May 29, 1869. 



No hive which does not furnish a thorough 

 control over every comb, can give that substan- 

 tial advance over the simple improved or cham- 

 ber hive, which the bee-keeper's necessities 

 demand. — Langstroth. 



" Our friend" Gallup reminds me of an anec- 

 dote I heard when a boy. A cat (not the "tom- 

 cat," but that other kind of cat), asked the lion- 

 ess how many times in the j^ear she had young? 

 The lioness replied but once. "How many at a 

 time ?" says the cat. "But one at a time," says 

 the lioness. " P.shaw !" says the cat, "that's 

 nothing. I have young four timos a year, and 

 four or five at a time." " Well," says the lion- 

 ess, " they are nothiDg but cats, after all." 



In my article referred to by Gallup in the 

 August number of the Beb Journal, page 27, 

 I had reference to what he said about the dysen- 

 tery, in the January number, page 145. I had 

 no reference to his management of his bees ; 

 for if we are to believe rchat he says ab,nit that, 

 of course his bees are all right, and "know bet- 

 ter than to have the dysentery." But, mark 

 .you, what he said. He started out by saying 

 there was no such disease ; and then went on 

 to tell what produced it, and how to prevent it, 

 &c. I would like to know, if there is no such 

 disease, how it can be produced. I should 

 think it was a disease, after it was produced ; 

 but Gallup says it is not, and it is — both ; so 

 you can believe which you please of his state- 

 ments. 



Again, Gallup saj's that bees do not make 

 honey ! Well, suppose they do not, does that 

 prove that there is " no such disease as dysen- 

 tery ?" But let us see if they do make honey ? 

 I say they do not make honey, but gather it. 

 Gallup says they " do make honey," and then 

 refers me to the "maple sap," sai'iug that the 

 bees have to gather twelve drops of sap to 

 every drop of honey. At those rates, on a fine 

 day, a large colony would have their hive full 

 of sap before nigiit, and would have to hold ou 

 for want of storage room, and wait until night 

 to reduce it to honey. Does any sane man be- 

 lieve any such stuff ? No. Gallup himself does 

 not believe it, I suppose. It is one of his 

 "doses," given merely to see " what effect it 

 would have." There is no person Avho ever 

 paid any attention to the Avay bees sip at maple 

 sap, but knows that they do not take it up in 

 its watery state, aud carry it in their hives. 

 They are a long time getting what they carry 

 away, and are verj^ particular to crawl around 

 where it is merely wet, and where the wind has 

 reduced the sap to much less than twelve to 

 one, and there extract what sweet they carry 

 ofi". 



Our friend Gallup asks me to answer, through 

 the Bee Journal, whether the maple sap is 

 made into honey by the bees, or does the sap 

 make itself into honey? Well, Gallup, neither 

 one of your questions is true. The bees do not 

 make the sap into honey ; nor does it make 

 itself into honey. The bees gather a portion of 

 the sweet from the maple sap, the same as they 

 do from different flowers. As for Gallup's 

 great discovery that bees mix "a portion of their 

 saliva" with the honey they make from the 

 maple sap, to keep it " from granulating." Of 

 course it is so with Gallup's bees ; but t doubt 



