135 



For the American Bee Journal. 



'Apis Americana"— The Coming Bee. 



JAMES HEDDON. 



The remarks in the editorial depart- 

 ment of the January number, 1880, are 

 just my ideas, better expressed than I 

 can give them. I have been think- 

 ing a great deal, and working some, too, 

 in the direction of breeding qualities in 

 bees, for the last five or six years. Be- 

 fore that time I was band-hunting — i. e., 

 bleeding for stripes. 



Being a special honey producer, my 

 only income being derived from that 

 source, I of course made every effort, 

 both physical and mental, to increase 

 my crop of surplus honey. Peeping 

 first into this hole, then that, I thought 

 one day that though there was much 

 difference in the yielding qualities of 

 different fields, also differences in results 

 from different hives, and from other 

 sources too numerous to be here men- 

 tioned, a still greater comparison was 

 always to be seen between different 

 colonies, of apparently equal numbers 

 and condition, standing side by side. 

 Is not this fact too widely known to 

 more than need mentioning. I con- 

 ceived the thought that by far the easi- 

 est way to increase my income was to 

 endeavor to get all my colonies to act 

 like Nos. 21, 27, 84, &c. Who could 

 doubt for one moment that the sure and 

 only way to do this was to re-queen the 

 most inferior colonies with queens 

 reared from the better colonies, that 

 had no bad traits of character. Nature 

 seems to extend her invitation to us to 

 do this, for she has made it much easier 

 to rear queens for home use than for 

 sale; also given us the power to rear 

 hundreds of queens from the same 

 mother ; made it such an easy matter to 

 get rid of drones from each and every 

 colony whose blood we do not desire ; 

 made development so rapid that we can 

 rear many generations in a single sea- 

 son, and all with but very little lost time 

 to the bees, when properly executed. 



Three years ago 1 commenced to 

 breed mostly pure, long, dark Italians 

 in one apiary, and in the other (6 miles 

 distant) a cross between the bees men- 

 tioned above and the large, brown, Ger- 

 man bee. Of course neither apiary is, 

 or ever has been strictly pure with either 

 strain. These " strictly pure" apiaries 

 are thickest on paper. A tour among 

 " pure Italian" bee-keepers will aston- 

 ish the tourist generally. In each apiary 

 alike I was careful to breed the best 

 traits in, and weed out the undesirable 

 ones. 



The Italians used were from Dadant's 



importation, and directly from Oatman, 

 and, in my judgment, unexcelled by any 

 other strain of their species. Such has 

 been the testimony of all who have tried 

 them, so far as I have heard. 



Last season being the third year of 

 this cross-breeding, I watched and com- 

 pared closely the results. Without go- 

 ing into detail and making this article 

 tedious, I will say that, whether a stand- 

 ard or fixed race can ever be produced 

 or not, these crossed bees are the best 

 bees, all things considered, known to 

 the writer. The great objection to hy- 

 brids has always been that ' sharp dis- 

 position." It happened that the strain 

 of German bees I had, when I first in- 

 troduced these long dark Italians, were 

 such, or else the yellow bees were such, 

 or the peculiar combination was such, 

 that their crosses were as gentle as any 

 bees I ever handled. This has been the 

 case in every instance. 



Mr. Langstroth was undoubtedly cor- 

 rect when he wrote : " Crosses, I think, 

 will prove the point in the coming bee." 



I was sorry to see so much more enthu- 

 siasm to import a supposed valuable 

 freak of nature, the Cyprian, than to 

 breed up the " coming bee," because I 

 believe the former the most expensive, 

 and very much more uncertain. The 

 latter method is sure. 



My course will be to pay no high price 

 for any new bee. I prefer to go slow. 

 I would rather be two or three years be- 

 hind my more shrewd or luckily credu- 

 lous contemporary once, than to be nine 

 times a dupe. 



Dowagiac,Cass Co.. Mich., Feb. 10. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



A Chat with Adam Grimm. 



M. M. P.ALDRIDGE. 



About 14 years ago I had a pleasant 

 visit with the late Adam Grimm, of 

 Jefferson, Wis. He came to my house 

 for the purpose of having a long chat 

 on the bee question. I took a few notes 

 of what he said on some of the topics 

 discussed. As they may interest quite 

 a number of your readers I now send 

 them to you for publication. 



Mr. Grimm stated substantially as 

 follows : "Some years the basswood 

 blooms in my neighborhood about 20 

 days, but this vear there was only 1 day 

 when the flowers secreted honey, and 

 the bees did not gather more than .'5 

 lbs., on the average, to the colony. 

 After basswood harvest but very little 

 honey is gathered for 10 to 15 days and 

 during this time my bees will lose in 

 weight from 8 to 10 lbs. per colony. 



