226 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



.r 



ian in its native land. But considering 

 that his opinions are entitled to much 

 credit, it is true in point of fact, that the 

 '^ure Italian queen, purely fertilized, ever 

 produces "black" bees, either workers or 

 queens ? If this be so, then the Italian is 

 only a mongrel species, and has no fixed 

 marks by which it can with certainty be 

 distinguished. 



I am well aware that many imported 

 queens, as well as many that are bred in 

 this country and called pure, fail to dupli- 

 cate themselves in their queen progeny, 

 and produce workers of various markings. 

 I had, until recently, in my own apiary an 

 imported queen, one that was brought over 

 last year by Mr. Dadant, whose worker 

 progeny were two and three banded, and 

 whose progeny varied from the brightest 

 yellow to the deepest black. She was of 

 extraordinary fecundity, yet fell far short 

 of being what I considered a pure Italian. 

 There was evidently black blood either in 

 her own veins, or in those of the drone by 

 which she had been fertilized. How she 

 received this black blood in Italy is more 

 than I can tell, but the effects of it were 

 loo plain to be mistaken. 



The true characteristic or test of Italian 

 purity, in my judgment, which is based 

 upon close observation for several years, is 

 the uniform and invariable showing of 

 three yellow bands by the workers. If 

 there is one worker in a thousand that fails 

 to show the third band distinctly, or if 

 there is a want of uniformity in the bright- 

 ness of the bauds, the mother of such 

 workers will prove an unsafe breeder. And 

 it would not do to trust to the appearance 

 of old bees, or of bees after they have 

 begun to work. It is then quite difficult to 

 detect the impurity. The best, and in my 

 opinion, only time when we may determine 

 with certainty, is when the young workers 

 are just emerging from their cells. If there 

 is a two banded young bee on the cord it 

 will soon be discovered ; but if all the 

 young bees are of a light milky color — none 

 Avith a bluish, or dark back, and narrow 

 light brown just behind the Avaist — the 

 mother of such workers may be relied on 

 to duplicate herself without fail in her 

 queen progeny. 



I think we way restrict the test a little 

 further, and require it to be applied to the 

 brood of young queens only. I have had 

 a few queens, that, when young, produced 

 occasionally a two banded bee, but whose 

 workers, the second and third year, appear- 

 ed to come fully up to the standard. I 

 have tried breeding queens from such 

 mothers, and have had to discard them as 

 impure. I would occasionally find among 

 their queen progeny, young queens with 

 broad dark rings around their bodies, a 

 very bad mark on a young queen. Such 



ringed queens, if fertilized by black drones 

 are apt to produce, more or less, black 

 workers. My experience convinces me, 

 that an Italian queen, whose own blood is 

 entirely pure, will never produce a black 

 worker, notwithstanding she may have 

 mated with a black drone. And where an 

 Italian queen does produce even a "few" 

 black workers, although " the thousands ** 

 of her brood may be well marked, it may 

 be set down that the mother of such a 

 queen is either impure or impurely fertili- 

 zed. 



I am aware that the views expressed 

 above diffei's from those held hy several at 

 at least, of our best apiarists. It may be 

 that I am wrong and they are right ; yet I 

 must be permitted to entertain the honest 

 convictions of my mind, which I cannot 

 resist until I have more and very different 

 light on the subject. M. C. Hester, 



Charlestown, Ind. 



For the American Bee Journal, 



Chips From Sweet Home. 



HOW TO GET THE MOST BOX HONEY. 



Taking our location where we have al- 

 most a continual flow of honey from early 

 spring till heavy frost cuts it short, we 

 would proceed as follows : Get our hives 

 crammed full of bees by giving no more 

 room to the bees than they can fill ; to ac- 

 complish this we use a division board and 

 crowd one or more combs to one side, as 

 soon as they have sufficient bees we insert 

 an empty comb and move the partition 

 board and continue thus to do till the hive 

 is full of bees and combs full of brood, we 

 then, and not till then, put on our surplus 

 boxes. If previous to this time they gath- 

 er more honey than they consumed in rais- 

 ing brood, we empty with the honey slinger 

 so as to give the queen "elbow room," after 

 our boxes have been on a mouth we remove 

 them and see the condition below, if they 

 have filled the side combs with honey, which 

 they are apt to do, Ave remove them and 

 sling the honey out, placing the empty 

 combs in the center and those Avith most 

 brood outside ; give the queen room to de- 

 posit eggs ; raise all the brood Ave can and 

 the honey A\'ill i;ome. The nearer the brood 

 we put our surplus boxes the less honey 

 Avill be stored below and the move in the 

 surplus boxes. 



All hives with surplus boxes or a set of 

 frames above for slinging should be ex- 

 amined ibelow once a month and in case 

 much honey is stored there it should be 

 slung out as it cramps the queens brood de- 

 partment. ISIany queens are called unpro- 

 litic because they have no room to deposit 

 eggs. Keep hives strong by raising all the 

 brood possible and the_honey Avill be gath- 

 ered. 



