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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



ficial colonies, or what we call " divide," 

 for short, and build them all up for your 

 honey-flow in July. You cannot well 

 keep your bees from increasing when 

 they are gathering pollen and honey. 

 Jennie Atchley. 



A Visiting Bee— Cross Bees. 



Mrs. Atchley:—!. To-day, as I was 

 watching my bees (which are all 3- 

 banded), I saw a little black bee fly 

 down to the hive, and crawl around 

 among the others and entered the hive, 

 and not one of them offered to touch it. 

 Why didn't they object to its going in ? 

 They have a queen and plenty of honey. 



2. A bee-keeper has told me that the 

 Grossest bees, or hybrids, would produce 

 the most honey. Is that so ? 



Dorchester, Nebr. F. C. Lee. 



1. Friend Lee, there is nothing strange 

 about the black bee being among the 

 colony of Italians. She may have en- 

 tered the hive by mistake sometime, and 

 was received as one of the family ; or 

 she may have been a robber herself, and 

 wore all the down or yellow off her body, 

 which usually leaves a shiny black 

 bee. The black bee may have come a 

 mile or two, and took up lodging with 

 the colony. 



2. I believe it is generally thought by 

 honey-producers that hybrids, or bees a 

 little cross, gather more honey than 

 gentle bees. I have had colonies of gen- 

 tle Italian bees that beat anything in a 

 yard of 100 colonies. At other times I 

 have had Cyprians and hybrids to gather 

 more honey, but I believe the main 

 secret lies in how the bees get started 

 off in the spring, and what condition 

 they are in at the beginning of the 

 honey-flow. But to "acknowledge the 

 corn" (if I did not get the pumpkins), I 

 am a little partial to cross bees. I may 

 be wrong. Jennie Atchley. 



The Compression Theory Again. 



Yesterday I was overhauling about a 

 dozen colonies that the boys had trans- 

 ferred a day or two before, and found 

 one drone-comb filled with worker- 

 brood, and beginning to hatch. Now, 

 how is this according to the compres- 

 sion theory? Well, I never did for a 

 moment have any faith in the compres- 

 sion business changing the sex, and 

 more than that, I have less faith in the 

 theory that worker-bees have any power 



whatever to change the sex of an egg. 

 Do you suppose the workers made a mis- 

 take and reared workers out of those 

 eggs that were laid in drone-cells for 

 drones ? Tut, tut, bosh ! 



My notion is, that the queen lays 

 drone or worker eggs at will, just as we 

 can use either right or left hand at will. 

 In other words, it is Nature at work 

 through the mother-bee, that is all. 



I know that I have been accused of 

 being dogmatic or positive about some 

 things. This I positively deny, and we 

 will leave off the word dogmatic, and 

 put it that when we know a thing to be 

 a fact, and then keep on saying maybe 

 so, or I believe so, etc. Now, I admire 

 any one that has courage to speak right 

 out when they are thoroughly convinced 

 of a thing, and not keep the world in 

 doubt. I do not believe any of us will 

 ever learn all about bees, but when we 

 do learn a thing about them that we 

 know beyond a doubt, then let us say so 

 right out. I do not believe in any com- 

 pression theory having anything to do 

 with the changing the sex of an egg, and 

 I know that worker-bees are reared in 

 drone-cells, for I saw it — a whole comb- 

 ful. Jennie Atchley. 



Destitution in Texas and Other Places. 



Mrs. Atchley : — I enclose a clipping 

 which is going the rounds of the local 

 papers here in Nebraska, which is some- 

 what damaging to south Texas. I would 

 like to hear from you through thq Bee 

 Journal concerning this subject. 



I am very much interested in your 

 writings concerning southern Texas, and 

 I want to have both sides of the subject 

 thoroughly aired, as I am thinking of 

 coming to that country next fall. 



Cody, Nebr. W. L. Childers. 



Friend Childers, I have taken time to 

 look the matter up before replying, and 

 find that cattle are dying by the thou- 

 sand in Star and adjoining counties in 

 this State, and after asking several 

 farmers about it, they say that it is 

 going to prove a blessing in disguise, as 

 heretofore that part of the State has 

 been held by large cattle owners, and 

 would not let it be settled up. Now they 

 are willing to let settlers have the land, 

 and large farming colonies of white peo- 

 ple are being formed. Now, you will 

 notice in your clipping that all the losers 

 are Mexicans, and you must know they 

 are a shiftless people, and we have but 

 few in our county that are located. 



