1870.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



39 



breeding. Suppose forty Morgan mares, and as 

 many stallions, all pure, were allowid to mingle 

 promiscuously, would any one think of taking a 

 colt at hapliazard from their offspring, from 

 which to breed the highest qualities'? No. For 

 although all would be Morgan horses, many 

 would be very poor Morgans indeed, considering 

 the Morgan as the standard — though any one 

 of them would be better than the Mustang. Out 

 of the forty he would not select more than one 

 or two, that would in all points meet his ideas 

 of excellence as a breeder. 



Apply this to the Italian honey bee. Our im- 

 portations have been haphazard from Italy. All 

 hfive been better than the common black bee 

 But considering the Italian as a standard, they 

 have ranged from very good to veiy poor. Pro- 

 miscuous breeding is certain to run back into a 

 degenerate variety; wdiile constant selection jimt 

 as certainly imi)roves even the best breed. 



It has been demonstrated that some of the 

 breeders in the United States have raised more 

 beautiful yellow queens and workers, than those 

 originally brought from Italy. This has resulted 

 from selections continually made from the best 

 of the undoubtedly prxre. Dzierzon, in Ger- 

 many, it iss^aid, hasj^'oduced a variety with four 

 yellow bands— being a gain of one band, by con- 

 stant improvement by selection of the highest 

 colored. In my own apiary I have raised one 

 queen that bred many workers which showed 

 four yellow bands when tilled with honey.* 



By breeding from this queen constantly, and 

 closely watching the progeny of her daughters, 

 one might now and then be selected which would 

 give this marking constantly; and so on through 

 successive generations, until such variety would 

 become fixed. But color is not the only quality 

 needed. Size, fertility, disposition, and the lioney 

 gathering instinct particularly, are all to be 

 regarded as requisites in improvement. 



Now, shall the queen raising brotherhood send 

 out $2.50 queens over the land, until the public 

 shall conclude that all the advantage which one 

 variety has over the other, is that the one has 

 some yellow rings, which the other has not. For 

 one, I answer No ! Let the sharper do as he 

 pleases; but let men of integrity sell only at fair 

 prices, and send out such alone as are really ^ u- 

 perior. 



From my own experience I can pronounce no 

 queen fit to breed from, or even pure until after 

 I have seen the color of her queen-bred daugh- 

 ters. If all the daughters .show a uniform color, 

 they are pure up to the mother's standard, and 

 the variety is fixed, or she may be pronounced 

 tlioroughhred. If the colors vary, however, from 

 dark to bright yellow, she is tinged somewhere 

 in her recent ancestry, with black blood, though 

 she may have been bred even in Italy. The man 

 who is raising queens for sale should be held re- 

 sponsible by those who buy of his stock, to breed 

 only from his very best of queens. Otherwise 

 let him be held as ranking only with the quack 

 and the mere pretender generally. He may not 

 have very superior stock at first ; but his stock 



*As we undei'staud it, Dzierzon's bres shuw tlje fourtl] yel- 

 low band only under similar circumstances — that is only 

 ■when well-filled wiih honey.— Ed. 



Avill always grow better and better, with each 

 year he contituies in the business. Four tested 

 queens are as many as any breeder can raise 

 from one nucleus in a season. If one out of four 

 should prove unfit for sale, or a hybrid, then 

 not less than from $8 to $10 each could i^ay him 

 for such tested qaeens. X 



Then let the pi'ice be kept at paying figures ; 

 but send out no queens for breeding purposes, 

 but such as are fully up to the standard of ex- 

 cellence, and those who delight in handling this 

 wonderful insect, may not only have the most 

 beautiful, but the gentlest, the largest, tlie most 

 fertile, and most industrious honey bees known 

 to the world. E L. Biuggs. 



Mount Pleasant, Town, July 7, 1870. 



[For the American Bee .Tournal.] 



Ihe Queen Yard Tested. 



Quinby's device called a queen yard, will keep 

 a queen inside of it, just so long as she does not 

 try to crawl out. I caught two queens on the 

 oitt ide of the yard when the bees were swarming. 

 They were of the black variety, old queens 

 heavy with eggs, and havingtheir wings clipped, 

 I put one back and had the mortification to see 

 her crawl oiit from the underside of the tin, a 

 few minutes after. I have good reason to believe 

 I lost two or three others in that way ; after 

 which I watched them while swarming, caught 

 the queen, and returned her wdien the bees re- 

 turn. Perhaps most queens will return without 

 trying to crawl out; but it wid not do very well 

 for a rule, according to my experience. 



E. S. FOWLEK. 



Bartlett, Ohio. 



[For tlie American Bee Journal.] 



Econoraicing in Management. 



Modern waiters I believe agree in the fixct that 

 bees consume from sixteen to twenty pounds of 

 honey in making one pound of comb. But how 

 much honey that pound of comb will hold after 

 being made, I do not know ; though we will 

 suppose it will hold fr(»m sixteen to twenty 

 pounds. Now su2)posc you take from a hive a 

 box containing twenty pounds of honey in the 

 comb, you have robbed them of material equiva- 

 lent to forty pounds - namely twenty pounds of 

 honey, and comb for the production of which 

 twenty pounds more of honey were used, and 

 for replacing which, by the bees, the same 

 qiiantity of honey would again be recjuired. 

 This nice box of honey, it is very true, comes 

 on the table in very aristocratic style ; but if 

 the reader will show me a man with a stomach 

 that can digest beeswax, I will in turn show 

 him one that can digest a saw-mill. Call on your 

 druggist if you please, and ask him for the 

 strongest acid in his establishment— say nitric 

 acid (aquafortis), and if he has a small vial with 

 a glass stojiple, he will give it to you in that, to 

 keeji it fronr getting on your clothing or hands. 

 But if he has none such, he will di-aw upon a 



