THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



199 



with bees, and reading everything I could obtain 

 on the subject, liad qualified nie to manage them, 

 I purchased two Italian queens and began the 

 work of Italianizing in the summer of 1800. In 

 the spring of 1807, I had thirteen colonies of 

 Italian and forty-seven of black bees. Now for 

 the result. From one of my Italian colonies, 

 I obtained three swarms (that wintered) and 

 eighty pounds of honey ; about fifty pounds of 

 this was stored by the first young swarm, and 

 the balance (thirty pounds) by the stock, after 

 casting the three swarms. Other of the Italian 

 stocks did nearly as well. The poorest one gave 

 me two swarms and twenty pounds surplus. 

 The best stock among my forty-seven black colo- 

 nies, gave me one swarm and thirty pounds of 

 surplus ; and I had about a dozen slocks that 

 gave me no swarms nor an ounce of honey. One 

 second swarm of Italians tilled its hive and gave 

 me twenty pounds of surplus, while not even a 

 first swarm among the blacks stored a pound of 

 surplus. 



I closed the season with one hundred and 

 twenty colonies, all Italians, which I wintered 

 without loss. The following May and the first 

 half of June proved wet and cold, and very little 

 honey was secreted in the few flowers that did 

 bloom. The store of honey became exhausted, 

 and many of my colonies were on the verge of 

 starvation ; and here a point of excellence in the 

 Italians presented itself, which I did not expect. 

 For a number of years I had been more annoyed 

 by my bees deserting their hives in the spring, 

 when their stores of honey became low, than 

 from all other causes combined. The depreda- 

 tions of the wax moth and loss of queens sunk 

 into insignificance in comparison with this vol- 

 untary desertion of the hives, by colonies, and 

 this sometimes while several pounds of honey 

 yet remained. Apparently nothing but the fear 

 of want caused them to sally out and try to ob- 

 tain entrance in other colonies, which, if they 

 succeeded in doing, they were sure to be slaugh- 

 tered to. the last bee. But when I succeeded in 

 preventing entrance to other colonies, and re- 

 turned them to their own hive, the only sure 

 way of making them stay, was to deprive them 

 of their queen for a week or two at least, in 

 which situation they would construct royal cells, 

 and the mania for deserting their combs would 

 pass away. Then liberal feeding, if the flowers 

 had not begun to yield honey, would set matters 

 right ; and by fall such stocks would be in good 

 condition, but have yielded no profit. But I 

 have observed that the Italians "stick to the 

 castle ;" and I have never had any Italian colony 

 offer to desert its home, though I have tested 

 them severely on this point. I cannot account 

 for this difference, unless it be their superior 

 attachment to their brood, or a consciousness 

 that if the flowers opened while life remains, they 

 are abundantly able to supply all their wants. 

 I do not know whether the experience of others 

 is similar to mine, in this particular, or not, as I 

 do not remember to have seen a reference to it 

 from any of j'our numerous and able corres- 

 pondents. 



But Mr. A , a man of limited experience 



with bees, and with very limited force in any 



enterprise, "Jias tried the Italians and does not 

 like them," thinks they "aint quite so good as 

 blacks." Now such men do not take the Bee 

 Journal, and it would be useless for me to give 

 my opinion of them as mighty poor bee-men, for 

 they would not " see themselves as others see 

 them." But there are other men who believe 

 that what is worth doing at all is worth doing 

 well^ and if the honey bee will pay for cultivating, 

 that is the best kind which i^ays the best — the 

 ultimate ol)ject being to obtain honey of the best 

 quality for the table or for market. 



The difference of conclusion arrived at by dif- 

 ferent men, to my mind, springs from the different 

 degrees of fertility of the first queens obtained. 

 Every apiarian is aware of the fact that there is 

 a great difference in the fertility of the queens in 

 his own apiary. Some are marvels of produc- 

 tiveness, while others deserve no better fate than 

 to have their heads pinched off at sight. The 

 queen is the mainspring of the colony, and the 

 more productive she is, the more energy Avill the 

 workers display in bringing in pollen and honey. 

 The two queens I first purchased were intro- 

 duced to colonies of black bees. One proved to 

 be wonderfully productive, while the other was 

 worthless and was superseded before fall. Had 

 I possessed only the queen last referred to, I 

 should have formed a very poor opinion of the 

 Italians. And just here a remark of the lamented 

 Varro comes to mind, viz., that " if queen breed- 

 ers would sell fewer queens, and at a higher 

 price, and know themselves the quality of the 

 stock, it would be much better for the pur- 

 chaser." 



Lest this article become too long to be accepta- 

 ble, I will close by saying, from the experience 

 of the last four years, I prefer the Italians to 

 black bees, and consider them superior in every 

 respect. W. J. Davis. 



Youngsville^ Pa.^ March 3, 1870. 



[For the American Bee .Tc 



Chloroforming Bees. 



lal.] 



It appears from an extract from the Southern 

 Cullmaior, which appeared in the last January 

 number of the Bee Journal, that Dr. A. Love 

 killed his bees by quieting them with chloroform. 

 "What else could be expected from a doctor? 

 Killing belongs to the trade ! They frequently 

 give an overdose. Chloroform may be safely 

 used in proper quantity for quieting bees. As an 

 agent for introducing queens I have found it very 

 effectual. The quantity used should never ex- 

 ceed one-fourth of an ounce, and even that quan- 

 tity may be found too large if the hive is tight 

 and all the fumes are retained in the hive among 

 the bees. It is not best to give so much as to 

 make the bees fall down out of the combs, be- 

 cause if so, many of them would get a doctor's 

 dose. Not dead drunk, but simply drunk, is all 

 they require. J. 11. Thomas. 



BrooMin, Ontario. 



Second swarms usually issue nine days after 

 the first, although they have been known to issue 

 as early as third and as late as the seventeenth, 

 but such cases are very rare. — Langstroth. 



