226 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



low bands (when they are expanded 

 with honey) and the white and black 

 (it is not such a deep blue-black as 

 most albinos show, either) bands 

 around the abdomen are about an 

 equal width. This has been brought 

 out by careful breeding and selecting 

 of the best queens from which to 

 breed drones and queens among my 

 Italian stocks — by in-and-in breeding 

 too — that is, drones and queens all 

 from the same queen, as all these 

 American-Italians. I have twenty 

 queens of them, but not all of them 

 show uniformly marked bees of four 

 and five bands as do the eight selected 

 ones, bred and mated to drones of 

 one mother, which I bought last season 

 in a lot of nine untested queens of a 

 Tennessee breeder, that showed her 

 progeny to be extra fine Italians ; 

 but those bred of her and ma fed to 

 her drones are much finer and far 

 ahead of any bees I ever saw among 

 Italians, Cyprians or Syrians. 



Goldsboro,N. C, Sept 22, 1885. 



A GUIDE TO THE BEST 

 METHODS OF BEE- 

 KEEPING. 



By J. L. Christ. 



R. F. nolterman, Translator. 

 (Continued from p. 129, Vol. III.) 



OF THE GENERAL USE OF THE HIVE. 



The use of the hive generally is 

 very much greater than keeping bees 

 in ordinary straw skeps and the com- 

 parative value of the use of them for 

 one year is as five to one ; and when 



one takes into consideration all the 

 advantages in beekeeping, the com- 

 parative estimate is a low one. How 

 easily may an apiary, composed of 

 ordinary straw skeps, be in one year 

 totally annihilated ; hives, however, 

 very seldom, because such, owing 

 to the number of bees contained 

 therein, can, in the few good days, 

 carry in at least sufficient to secure 

 their winter stores. Adverse circum- 

 stances of all kinds, such as poison- 

 ous mildews, robbers, cold winds in 

 spring, hail storms in summer, strong 

 colonies can overcome more easily 

 and their broods can soon make up 

 the loss ; but weaker colonies, such 

 as those in straw skeps usually are, 

 become depopulated and on account 

 of such a rapid and sudden depopu- 

 lation become foul-broody and at 

 best they cannot recover themselves 

 for the year or many days. A hive sel- 

 dom becomes entirely depopulated : 

 at least we have but few examples so 

 far ; then such a populous colony com- 

 mences to raise brood in January, 

 yes, even in December, and on ac- 

 count of the heat generated by the 

 bees this is done successfully and 

 therefore should the queen even be 

 lost in April a new queen can be 

 raised. With the hive one can se- 

 cure the nicest store of honey and 

 wax, without it being necessary to 

 destroy the useful insects, without 

 cutting the comb, and thereby en- 

 dangering the bees and one's self 

 and causing much unpleasantness. 



In skeps the best colonies often 

 ruin themselves by repeated swarm- 

 ing, but in hives one can hinder their 

 warming and some years prevent it 

 altogether. In the case of hives they 



