322 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 27, 



practical experience with bees could think of such a thinp; as 

 putting the sections right down on the tops of the brood- 

 frames, and one tier of sections down upon another, is beyond 

 ray comprehension. There is certainly no call for it on the 

 score of retaining the heat, as there is heat enough and to 

 spare during the honey harvest. 



Take off the cover to a bee-hive. Look down upon the 

 top-bars of the frames. See how they are covered with bees. 

 Now think of setting a case of sections right down on those 

 bees and crushing them ! Suppose, further, that the section- 

 case has been on the hive, and is occupied with bees, and the 

 bottoms of the sections are covered with bees. These, too, 

 will be crusht when the case is set down. Of course, these 

 bees can be driven back somewhat with smoke, but by the 

 time that the smoker is set down and the section-case pickt 

 up and ready to be put in place, a goodly share of the bees 

 are back again on the outside. The fewest bees will be killed 

 by sliding the case on instead of setting it down, but even 

 then many bees will be caught by the heads, legs, etc., and 

 mangled to death. 



But this is not all ; wherever these sections or frames 

 come in contact, there will be a deposit of propolis, daublug 

 up everything and sticking them together, and, unless wide 

 frames are used, there will be a big job of cleaning the propo- 

 lis off the sections when crating for the market. With a bee- 

 space all this is avoided. 



I know that once or twice before some one has advocated 

 "continuous combs and continuous passage-ways," but such 

 advocacy has always been short-lived. 



A bee-space is well-nigh a necessity in modern bee-culture, 

 even if it did possess some drawbacks, which I have failed to 

 find in all of my bee-keeping. Genesee Co., Mich. 



Some Things Learned Last Season. 



BY L. M. WILLIS. 



I notice on page 232 an invitation to a sort of "experi- 

 ence meeting," and as I always like to " speak in meeting," I 

 shall accept the invitation, but would like to suggest, as an 

 amendment, that we do not all wait till the end of the season. 

 What some of us learned In 189p may be the very thing that 

 somebody wants to know to help him through this season. 



I opened the season of 1896 with 31 colonies in S-frame 

 hives, increast to 63, and took off about 2,500 pounds of 

 honey, 1,800 of which was inone-poundsections ; the balance 

 was extracted. I sold 13 colonies, and put 50 into cold 

 storage; 49 of them oame through all right; which is five 

 times that my cold-storage plan has workt successfully. 



I learned in 1896 that all commission-men are not rascals. 

 I sold some of my crop to one who did just as he agreed in 

 every particular. 



I learned that from an artistic point of view the sections 

 open on all four sides are by far the most attractive, and 

 when the scallopt wood separator is used with them we have a 

 package of honey as near perfection as we need it. Another 

 point in its favor, and an important one, is that the bees can 

 work lengthwise of the super, which is the nearest like the 

 brood-nest. Without separators there will be fewer bulged 

 sections. Again, It is less trouble to put foundation into 

 them, as they will work either side up. Sections open on two 

 sides look clumsy compared with them, and one has to keep 

 bis thinking cap with him all the time to avoid getting the 

 foundation on the wrong side. Try some of the open-four- 

 side sections this season and report result. 



For scraping sections a glazier's putty-knife is worth Its 

 price many times over. Another good article for all kinds of 

 scraping, such as bottom-boards, inside of hives and frames, 

 as well as sections, is a cabinet maker's scraper, which is a 

 flat piece of tempered steel 1/16 of an Inch thick, and of 



different sizes. The one I use is 3x5 inches, square cornered. 

 Both of these tools can be kept sharp by filing square across 

 the edge, and work similar to a plane, by using the corners 

 for the work. Try them, 



I have learned that we need a bee-escape with several 

 outlets. A little piece of burr comb sometimes turns a bee- 

 escape into a bee-trap, and if the day and night following its 

 use are sultry and hot, a super full of smothered bees will be 

 the result. 



I have learned, also, that an entrance-guard will shut out 

 too much fresh air on a hot day, and, if ventilation is not 

 given above, you may drown your bees in their own sweat. 



I have learned, too, that the American Bee Journal is a 

 very great help to me all through the year. I have kept bees 

 seven years, and am an enthusiast — (I guess that is the right 

 word ; any way I like bees) — on the subject; and have been 

 well paid for all the time given to the-n. 



Clark Co., Wis. 



Purity of Italian Queens and Drones. 



Br .JOHN m'arthur. 

 Purity of Italian queens and drones is a question that has 

 been propounded of late, and answered by such veterans as 

 Dr. C. C. Miller, Dr. J. P. H. Brown, and Dr. Gallup. The 

 latter, joining with his brother professionals, states his Ideas 

 of purity of queens and drones. From what he says, those of 

 us who are laboring towards the improvementof Apis mellifica 

 had better stop and waste no more of our valuable time lu 

 that direction, because his idea of purity is already reacht ; 

 what we are doing now is towards the production of mongrels, 

 so says the Doctor on page 550 of the Bee Journal for 1895. 

 On page 7-43 (1896), the following appears : 



" If we rear queens without proper nourishment or lack 

 of warmth, we can rear black queens from the very best 

 markt mothers. A queen-cell may be 5o located in ' the hive 

 that a few days, just at the right age, of cool, damp, rainy 

 weather will change the queen's color, yet it does not affect 

 her purity." 



This is certainly something new to the scientific world, 

 and a wonder how this should have escaped the keen eyes of 

 Huber and Darwin. I have never observed, nor ever read of 

 those sudden changes in Nature. I admit a certain amount 

 of flexibility or pliancy — climate, food and habit may produce 

 a tendency to change. No matter how fixt the different 

 characteristics may be when left in Nature's hand, those 

 changes are very slow, but accurate; but when in a state of 

 domestication they occur oftener, and to a much greater ex- 

 tent. Our bees, altho domesticated, are only to a certain 

 extent under our control — we cannot control the mating of 

 them, and never will. The nearest approach to that is isola- 

 tion, so that the sudden changes referred to cannot be pro- 

 duced by their domestication, but an application of the physio- 

 logical laws or the laws of breeding, may explain why those 

 black queens were produced, from the fact that the mother 

 may or may not have been pure-; she certainly had not been 

 purely mated, because the Doctor says, "This can be done 

 from the very best markt mothers." 



Now if we have a pure yellow queen, and from a line of 

 ancestors that for many generations had shown those markt 

 characteristics mated to a pure drone whose ancestors had the 

 same characteristics, well defined, it is in opposition to Nature 

 to expect anything but like to beget like; the progeny always 

 and everywhere resemble their parents, so the pure yellow 

 queen having been mated to a pure black drone, the results 

 would be a mixt progeny, a percentage being yellow, the 

 majority black, because the black fathers had a line of ances- 

 tors extending possibly to thousands of generations unbroken, 

 whereas the yellow mother may not have had a lino of ances- 

 tors extending to ten generations unbroken, owing to the pre- 



