1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL. 



207 



drone combs, and kept her and her colony rear- 

 ing drones until July. At the same time T de- 

 stroyed all the black drone brood in my hives, 

 and thus kept my apiary absolutely clear of black 

 drones. No other bees nearer to my apiary than 

 one and a quarter miles, and only two colonies 

 there — unless possibly some wild bees. I dis- 

 tributed Italian drone brood among my colonies 

 as needed. I wrote to Mr. Grimm about the 

 drone laying queen, and he sent me another, 

 which I received A]iril 28tli. My first artificial 

 colony was made April 26th, by i-cmoving a 

 strong stock from its stand and replacing it with 

 a new hive furnished with empty combs, honey, 

 and brood from a second stock. April 28th, 

 artificial colony fully reconciled. I then removed 

 from them all the brood I gave them, and in- 

 troduced my newly arrived Italian queen in this 

 artificial colony with perfect success. After she 

 was acknowledged by the colony, I strengthened 

 them with black brood. On the 1st of May the 

 queen was laying. On the 6th I made a second 

 artificial colony, and gave them Italian eggs, 

 from which they reai-ed a queen. She was purely 

 impregnated, and had a large stock of brood in 

 her hive on the first of June. I continued to 

 make artificial colonics until I had increased my 

 number to twenty, after which I destroyed the 

 seven black queens and replaced them with queen 

 cells. The result is I have seventeen purely 

 fertilized queens, including the one I started 

 with, two hybrids, and one doubtful ; with over 

 350 pounds of extracted honey. I believe there 

 cannot be found a worker bee in the seventeen 

 colonies, with less than three j^ellow stripes. 

 The queens I ordered from INIr. Grimm were the 

 daughters of his imported Mona queens. The 

 Italian drones were all reared from the drone 

 laying queen, which I received in September, 

 1869, and the queens reared from the queen re- 

 ceived in AjDril, 1870. Thus you see a cross 

 fertilization was effccteil, with all that were 

 purely fertilized. The drones of the drone lay- 

 ing queen were very dark colored, but had three 

 narrow stripes. My first reared queen produced 

 drones about the first of July of a much brighter 

 color. 



The artificial colonies were mostly made, as 

 the first, by removing a strong black colony to a 

 new stand, when the bees were flying, collecting 

 tlie returning bees of the removed hive in the 

 new one, on the old stand, and furnishing them 

 with empty combs, Italian brood, or sealed royal 

 cells. Thus I increased and Italianized at the 

 same time. I lost one-half or more of the queens 

 reared, when out to meet the drones ; but every 

 queen that became fertile and commenced laying, 

 is a good prolific queen, and was living when 

 I tucked them up for winter. From the 

 above you see the sixteen out of nineteen of the 

 queens I reared are cross fertilized. I believe 

 bees can be improved by cros.s-b reeding, and de- 

 teriorated by in and in breeding, just like farm 

 stock. I have determined to continue this plan 

 of cross breeding. Thus I will get a queen from 

 Dr. Blumhof, and rear queens from her in the 

 fall, and prevent them being impregnated until 

 they have lost the inclination. Then I will rear 

 Blumhof drones from them in the spring, to fer- 



tilize the young Mona queens. At the same time 

 I will destroy all the Mona drone brood that may 

 be reared in my hives, (no other Italian bees 

 being near mine. ) Thus all the queens that will 

 be purely fertilized will rear cross breed bees. I 

 believe if the crossing is attended to, every 

 second year, it will secure the best of stock, 

 much more certainly and with less trouble than 

 by re-queening. 



Query 2. Bee-keepers, what is your opinion of 

 my mode of cross-breeding ? With me, you see, 

 it is practicable. 



Query 3. Who knows what quality of bees can 

 be produced from an Italian queen impregnated 

 by an Egyptian drone ? Will they be cross, or 

 peaceable '? Good, worthless, or poor ? and how 

 marked '? 



The advice of almost all queen breeders is to 

 select the queen that i^roduces the lightest 

 colored workers to rear queens from, and con- 

 tinue thus to select. The tendency is in and in 

 breeding. 



Query 4. Is not this course pursued by those 

 who rear queens for sale, the queen progeny of 

 which are always duplicates of themselves ? And 



Query 5. Has any one with queens thus reared 

 annually, produced a large yield of honey from 

 his apiary f 



I have no fancy for in and in bred bees. I 

 want bees for business, three striped, shade of 

 color of no account. It is saitl by many that the 

 pure Italian bee will seldom sting. My Italians 

 are fully as cross as black bees. I have one very 

 light colored colony nearly as cross as the hy- 

 brids. The fact that my bees are so very cross 

 I believe to be the result of cross-breeding. 



Query 6. Is it a fact or not that in and in 

 breeding produces light colored peaceable bees, 

 as a rule ? 



Query 7. As a rule, are in and in bred bees as 

 good workers as cross bred bees, or are they not ? 



Questions for Novice. 



1. Is not your success in honey gathering, due 

 in part to your bees being crossed, hybridized, 

 or graded? I infer they are from your ordering 

 twenty-five queens of Mr. Grimm, and from what 

 I have been told by a person who has seen them. 



2. If you had ijurchased only one Italian queen 

 bee and bred your whole stock from her and her 

 progeny, and kept them strictly pure, would you 

 not have got less honey ? 



Again, on page 173, American Bee Journal, 

 Vol. VI., in answer to questions, you say — " We 

 too have cross colonies, and gentle colonies, both 

 l^ure, as we think. W^iid so they remain as long 

 as the queens live ; and we do not know any 

 remedy. ' ' Now 



3. Do you know, or not, whether the cross 

 colonies are the result of cross-breeding ? 



4. Do you know, or not, whether the gentle 

 colonies are the result of in and in breeding '? And 



.5. Whether the cross colonies are better work- 

 ers than the peaceable colonies ? If you do not 

 know, please note these cases hereafter, and re- 

 port. 



Peninsula, Ohio. M. MILLER. 



Latitude 41^ iV., 22 miles south of Cleveland. 



