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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



seven weeks of age during the working season." 

 In the above, I may not have given the exact 

 wording of Mr. Gallup, but have the substance, 

 as I quote from memory, not having the time 

 to hunt up the letter containing it, which he 

 wrote me in the sixties. No beginner, or older 

 apiarist, should be without the knowledge con- 

 tained in the above from Gallup, for upon it 

 hangs much that goes toward making the man- 

 agement of an apiary successful. 



PURE ITALIAN BEES AND THE FIVE-BANDED 

 STOCK . 



The other question asked is by Mr. Low, and 

 immediately follows Mr. Churchill's article, 

 and reads as follows: " I should like to ask Mr. 

 Doolittle this question: Can a five-banded 

 queen be bred, or a queen whose bees are five- 

 banded, from pure Italian queens?" 



I unhesitatingly answer no, for the simple 

 reason that there is no such thing as a pxire 

 Italian bee or queen, when viewed in the sense 

 of a pure race or variety, as the German or 

 black bee is pure. At best, the Italian bee is 

 only a thoroughbred; arrd that these five-band- 

 ed bees have been produced from what was 

 originally only three-banded leather-colored 

 bees is a good pi oof that the above assertion is 

 correct. Perhaps it may be well for me to give 

 right here a bit of history, which I have hesi- 

 tated for a long time about giving, as I never 

 wish to have a seeming dpsire to take away the 

 laurels from any one. The history is this: In 

 the early seventies, H. A. King, then of Nevada, 

 Ohio, and Jos. M. Brooks, of Columbus, Ind., 

 were breeding for yellower bees than the aver- 

 age importations of Italians showed. In 1873 I 

 procured some of Mr. King's stock, and contin- 

 ued to improve them till near the eighties, the 

 apicultural world having lost sight of Mr. King 

 meanwhile. At that time, by exchange, I pro- 

 cured queens of Mr. Brooks, and afterward, by 

 purchase, got the last of his very best stock, he 

 going out of the business. In the early eighties 

 I sold one of the very best queens I could raise, 

 along the yellow line, to L. L. Hearn, Oakvale, 

 W. Va.. and he and myself have been breeding 

 and exchanging "blood" more or less ever 

 since. So far as I am aware, all of the so-called 

 five-banded bees, of Italian origin, which are in 

 the world to-day, came directly or indirectly 

 from either Mr. Hearn or myself. Mr. Swinson, 

 of North Carolina, produced five-banded bees, 

 but did so by a promiscuous crossing of Cyprian, 

 Syrian, Italian, etc.; but in the King-Brooks- 

 Hearn-Doolittle bees the Italian side has been 

 strictly adhered to. 



[Some five-banded ibees are gentle, and in 

 every respect as good as the ordinary Italians; 

 while others display all the characteristics of 

 the vicious Eastern bees. Either some breed- 

 ers are careless, or ignorant of the real source 

 of their "five-banders." The Doolittle and 

 Hearn stocks are gentle, so far as I know. 

 After having had quite an experience with 

 Cyprians and Holy Land bees I think I see in 



some of the five-banders nearly all the bad 

 qualities of their probable Eastern progenitors. 

 It is those Eastern five-banders that are giving 

 all the five- banders a bad reputation. See con- 

 vention report elsewhere. — Ed.] 



C. H., of la., inquires whether it will pre- 

 vent swarming to introduce a young queen. 

 Ans. — No; but colonies with young queens are 

 not quite so liable to swarm as those with older 

 ones. See answer to L. W. 



P. W., of New York, asks if drones are ever 

 raised in worker comb. Ans. — Yes, very fre- 

 quently, particularly if there is no drone comb 

 available. Drones from fertile workers or 

 drone-laying queens, are raised, as a general 

 thing, in worker-cells. 



S. A. S., of N. H., is bothered with an excess 

 of drones and drone comb, and asks for a reme- 

 dy. Ans. — Use foundation in full sheets for 

 the brood-nest, and cut out or dispose of all 

 your drone comb. Very few drones will be 

 reared from a normal queen if nothing but 

 worker comb is given the bees. 



D. S. J., of Colo., asks how many pounds of 

 honey there is in one of beeswax. Ans. — It 

 varies in different localities, and during diflfer- 

 ent seasons of the year. If I remember correct- 

 ly, half an ounce of comb, on the average, will 

 hold a pound of honey. When this comb is 

 made from foundation, the weight is increased 

 according to the weight of the foundation used, 

 because the bees, it seems, do not do very much 

 thinning-down of the septum. 



L. W., of Va., asks whether bees can be kept 

 from swarming by cutting out queen-cells. 

 Ans.— The cutting of queen-cells only discour- 

 ages swarming. For normal colonies run for 

 comb honey, I know of no method that will 

 absolutely prevent swarming invariably. For 

 extracted, the matter is far easier. Giving lots 

 of room, both to the queen for brood-rearing, 

 and to the bees for the storage of honey, will 

 generally prevent swarming. 



J. L., of Kan., would like to know whether 

 the drones of a pure Italian queen are all yellow, 

 or whether there is an occasional one with a 

 black band, ^ns.— Drones of a queen produc- 

 ing the ordinary normal three-banded Italians 

 are rather dark-colored, with a very little yel- 

 low. There is usually not so much yellow 

 showing on them as on the workers from the 

 same queen. Drones from the so-called five- 

 banded Italian stock, in some instances, are 

 nearly all yellow. 



J. D. B., of Mich., wants to know if he can 

 use percolator feeders as late as December, as 

 described by Dr. Miller and E. R. R., in a recent 



