AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



51 



off for extracting, they do not drop off 

 so readily as do the black bees and Holy 

 Lands and Cyprians, but rather more so 

 than Italians. 



Before we come to their bad qualities, 

 let us sum up, in a word, their good 

 qualities : Non-propolizers ; early breed- 

 ers ; easily shaken from the combs ; 

 average honey-gatherers. 



Now for the other side, and I fear 

 that before I get through, some of my 

 Carniolan friends will take issue with 

 me : The progeny of all Carniolan 

 queens that we have ever had from dif- 

 ferent breeders — some from different 

 bee-keepers in the United States, and 

 some from Carniola direct — while they 

 have not been as vicious and cross as 

 the Funics and Cyprians, were decidedly 

 more vindictive than the average Ital- 

 ians. I know that their breeders have 

 generally pronounced them to be gentle, 

 but we have never found them to be so, 

 except in one case, I believe, where the 

 progeny of one queen was as gentle as 

 our average Italians. I have never been 

 stung any worse by any bees than by 

 Carniolans; although I am free to ac- 

 knowledge that there are bees more 

 vicious, such as Cyprians, Holy Lands, 

 and Funics — or Tunisians, as they are 

 more properly called. 



Carniolans are said to be inveterate 

 swarmers. Some of the colonies that we 

 have had have borne out this assertion, 

 while others have shown no more incli- 

 nation to do so than Italians. 



There is another quality that I have 

 not seen in all the Carniolans, and that 

 is, they are inclined to run down the 

 combs and form in festoons, very much 

 like black bees — in fact, act wild ; but 

 this may have been because they were 

 crossed with the common black bees; 

 and right here it may be proper to re- 

 mark that it is almost impossible to tell 

 by their appearance, crosses of Carnio- 

 lans and black bees from the pure Car- 

 niolan stock. This is really an unfortu- 

 nate condition of things, because, in 

 breeding such bees, it is very hard in- 

 deed to determine when we have the 

 pure stock, because the black bees are 

 generally so common throughout the 

 country. 



In view of the facts, pro and con, I do 

 not think it would be advisable to rec- 

 ommend them to bee-keepers generally ; 

 and at present I know of no large api- 

 aries outside of queen-rearing yards 

 where Carniolans largely predominate. 

 If this is the casje, and Carniolans have 

 been tried in hundreds of apiaries, it 

 looks as though the race had not come 

 to stay — nothing but the future can de- 



cide. As in everything ^else, if they 

 have real merit they will come and 

 make America their home ; if not, they 

 will be relegated to the past, like Cyp- 

 rians, Syrians and Egyptian bees. 



E. R. Root. 



No discussion followed the reading of 

 the essay. The associ.ition then pro- 

 ceeded to the election of officers, which 

 resulted as follows : 



President — R. L. Taylor, Lapeer. 



Vice-President — J. A. Pearce, Grand 

 Rapids. 



Secretary — W. Z. Hutchinson, Flint. 



Treasurer — M. H. Hunt, Bell Branch. 



Flint was decided upon as the next 

 place of meeting. The convention then 

 adjourned to meet next December at the 

 call of the Executive Board. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec. 



Does ibe Will of the Queen 

 Decide the Sex of the Egg ? 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY DK. C. C. MILLER. 



I was quite interested in that reply, on 

 page 724, of Mrs. Atchley, to the ques- 

 tion why a young queen gets mixed up 

 in her way of laying eggs. Mrs. Atchley 

 deserves the credit, I think, of being 

 first to mention the fact, that "just 

 about the time the queen is hatched, or 

 a little before, there are some workers 

 that begiu to lay, etc." 



I have an impression that Mrs. Atch- 

 ley generally knows what she Is talking 

 about, but I think it has generally been 

 believed that laying workers are not 

 tolerated in a hive until after the colony 

 has not only become queenless, but after 

 all means of rearing a queen have dis- 

 appeared. So in a case where there is 

 such a manifest departure from time- 

 honored traditions, there ought to be 

 pretty clear proof. If a case has been 

 found in which a queenless colony with- 



