214 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Italian Bees and Breeding. No. 2. 



It is generally known by most bee-keepers 

 having many years' experience, that swanns 

 taken froai the woods and located in an apiary 

 with other bees, show superior qualities, and 

 generally run the others out in a few years l)y 

 being superior workers, breeding faster, swarm- 

 ing earlier and more frequently ; and are better 

 at robbing their weaker neighbors, by keeping 

 tliemselves strong. The probable reason of 

 their superiority "is, they are accidentally well 

 bred, and being the best, are the ones to fly 

 away from persons tliat don't know how or ne- 

 glect to keep tbem. Being located at a distance 

 from their near relatives, they are generally sur- 

 rounded, in their new homes, by large numbers 

 of drones not near related, that overbalance 

 their own, thus making a good cross, and im- 

 proving them still more. We may make a sure 

 thing, improving the good qualities of bees, by 

 breeding artificially. Having a queen that pro- 

 duces superior stock, it is best to get another 

 queen irom a distance, so as not to be near re- 

 lated, as breeding in and in, will spoil the stock 

 sooner or. later, if persisted in. One queen 

 should furnish eggs for queens, another eggs 

 for drones ; and if other hives are near remove 

 all drone cells, or kill the drones in the comb 

 by cutting off their heads before hatching, or 

 trapping and killing after tliey are hatched. If 

 a large quantity of drones are wairted, place the 

 drone comb in'the hive with the drone mother, 

 and after it is filled with eggs it can be returned, 

 for other hives to rear the young drones. Al- 

 low all other hives but the two parents to pro- 

 duce neither queens or drones of their own ; 

 but they can supply workers to make the 

 swarms for the young queens from the one par- 

 ent, fertilized by the drones of the other. That 

 is one wa}^ to improve the stock. Choosing 

 with care the dark Italians that some seem to 

 prefer, and Avorking perseveringly for a few 

 generations, they will rival the native blacks, 

 and still be more pure than when imported. 

 By choosing the best qualities of different par- 

 ents we canimprove in the different directions, 

 be it in disposition, Avorking, or color. If the 

 light yellow is preferred to the dark, they can 

 be bred to be a clear yelloAV, if not so already ; 

 so as to ri\'althe goldsmith's (referred to in Bee 

 Journal), and still be more pure the longer 

 they are bred, if not crossed Avith the blacks or 

 other breeds. The Devon cattle, the most con- 

 stant in color of any breed knoAvn by me, can 

 be bred a light Richmond cherry red, or the 

 color of the darker morello chcrrj', by selecting 

 the parents showing those colors and for the at- 

 tainment of that particular shade of color. 



James M. Marvin. 



St. Charles, III. 



We ought never to know any more about 

 nature than we can observe. We knoio what 

 we have observed, and not a jot more ; and if 

 , we think that we do, we are ia error. — Mudie. 



[For the American Cee Journal.] 



The Color and Fertility of Queens. 



Last summer, Avhile raising queens, I started 

 a lot of culls in a queenless colony. These were 

 removed as soon as sealed over ; and as quite a 

 quantity of the larvae remained unsealed, the 

 bees were allowed to start more queens from 

 the same sheet of brood. The larvte from 

 Avhich this second set of queens was reared, Avas 

 of course several days old, and nearly ready to 

 be sealed over. 



The second set of queens, when first hatched, 

 were much darker than those designed for 

 queens from the egg. They Avere but little bet- 

 ter colored than Avorkers. These dark queens 

 improved much in color, after becoming fer- 

 tile. 



I suppose the reason why thej'- were darker, 

 was because they were designed for workers, 

 and were fed accordingly until their color in 

 part Avas fixed. 



It seems to me that such queens must partake 

 somewhat of the nature of AA'orkers, and Avill 

 not be so long lived and prolific as those design- 

 ed for queens from the beginning. 



The foregoing experiment I tried two or 

 three times fast summer, and shall continue it 

 another season Avith an imported queen. 



If others haA^e experimented on the same 

 point, and came to any definite conclusions, 

 please give us the results. 



J. L. Hubbard. 



Walpole, N. H. 



m^'So long as worker larva3 lie coiled on the 

 bottom of the cell, they are fed exclusively on 

 chyme or digested food ; but when stretched at 

 length in the cells, with head slightly elcA^ated, 

 thcj^are fed Avith a mixture of pollen and honey, 

 till ready to be capped — though it is likely an 

 entire change of diet is not made suddenly. 



Queen larvre, on the contrary, as usually 

 found in what are called pre-constructed cells, 

 are fed exclusively from first to last — from the 

 egg to the capping — Avith chyme or digested 

 food. 



The coloring matter of pollen shows itself 

 plainly in the Avorker larvoe, soon after the 

 change of diet takes place. But Prof. Leuckart 

 could not, by means of the microscope, detect 

 any coloring matter in the chyle-stomach of a 

 queen larvae taken from a i^re-constructed cell. 

 Whether a worker larva fed with honey and 

 pollen for scA'^eral days, then selected for the 

 production of a queen, and re-fed with chyme 

 or digested food during the remainder of its 

 larval life, Avould exhibit the result of such feed- 

 ing, we are unable to say. Prof. Leuckart's at- 

 tention does not appear to have been directed to 

 that point. 



In as far as knoAving it is concerned, any one 

 of the kingdoms of nature is every man's king- 

 dom, if he AviU but come and conquer it. The 

 conquest is a conquest without labor, too, for 

 we have only to Avait with patience, and notice 

 Avith attention, and nature does all the rest.— 



MCDIE. 



