Mar. 28, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



'"- A»> _ j 



instructions as to the manner of troatiiiK 

 them. Within a reasonable time after mak- 

 ing the Ursl examination, the Inspector Hhall 

 malio a second examination, and if the comli- 

 tlons of any of the colonies atleoted is sueli 

 as, in his juiiifment, renders it necessary, he 

 may personally treat the disease, or, if in his 

 opinion, it is necessary to prevent further 

 spread of the disease, and the owner refuses 

 to treat them according to the instructions of 

 said Inspector, then the Inspector may Ijurn 

 or otherwise destroy such diseased bees, comb 

 or other material that might cause the spread 

 of the infection. 



Sec. 3.— Said Inspector shall have the right 

 to enter any premises where bees are Itept, 

 for the performance of his duties. 



Sec. 4. — The Inspector shall make a full re- 

 port to the Secretary of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture at least once each year, stating the num- 

 ber of apiaries inspected, the number found 

 to be diseased, and the number treated, and 

 such other information as he may deem im- 

 portant. The Secretary of the Board of Agri- 

 culture shall publish, in his annual report, or 

 otherwise, such of the information as he 

 deems of importance to the apiarists of the 

 State. 



Sec. 5. — Said Inspector shall receive four 

 dollars for each day actually and necessarily 

 spent in the performance of his duties, and 

 shall be reimbursed for the monej- expended 

 by him in defraying the necessary traveling 

 expenses: Provided, the total expenditure 

 for such purposes shall not exceed one thou- 

 sand dollars in any one year : Provided fur- 

 ther, that the said Inspector shall render to 

 the Board of Agriculture an itemized account 

 of his per diem and expenses, and upon ap- 

 proval of the same by the Executive Commit- 

 tee of the Board of Agriculture, the President 

 and Secretary of the Board are instructed to 

 draw a warrant upon any available funds for 

 the amounts allowed. 



Sec. 6. — Any owner of a diseased apiary, or 

 any person, persons, company or corporation 

 who shall knowingly sell, barter, give away 

 or import into this State any colony or colo- 

 nies of bees, honey or other article infected 

 with disease, or expose other bees to the dan- 

 ger of contracting such disease, or refuse to 

 allow the Apiary Inspector to inspect or treat 

 such apiary, honey or other articles so in- 

 fected, or shall resist, impede or hinder him 

 in any way in the discharge of his duties, 

 under the provisions of this Act, shall be 

 guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined 

 not less than ten nor more than twenty-five 

 dollars for each offense. 



Sec. 7.— It being necessary to treat the dis- 

 eases herein provided for in the spring or 

 summer, in order that satisfactory results 

 may be obtained, creates an emergency with- 

 in the meaning of the Constitution, and this 

 Act shall go into force and effect upon its 

 passage and approval. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is 

 made to take all the copies of the American 

 Bee Journal for a year. It is sent by mail 

 for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. 

 The Bee Journals can be inserted as soon as 

 they are received, and thus preserved for 

 future reference. Or we will send it with the 

 American Bee Journal a year — both for $1.10. 

 Address office of the American Bee Journal.* 



The San Antonio ConTention Pic- 

 ture is a good one. It shows over 100 of 

 those in attendance. We are mailing them, 

 unmounted, for only 60 cents. They can be 

 mounted by a local photographer for only 10 

 or 15 cents more. We will mail one of these 

 pictures with the American Bee Journal one 

 year— both for only $1.40. Send all orders to 

 he Bee Journal office. 



The Chicago-Northwestern Conven- 

 tion Photograph was taken Dec. 6, 1906. 

 which was very good indeed. Price, post- 

 paid, in mailing tube, 60 cents. Send orders 

 to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 and we will see that the pictures are mailed. 



Testing the Purity of Queens 



BY C. M. DOOLITTLE. 



On pages 137-8 is an item on the 

 purity of Italian queens, under the above 

 heading, written by one signing him- 

 self "Subscriber" and having " New 

 York" at the bottom, by which I infer 

 that he is a resident of New York 

 State.' If only the older bee-keepers of 

 the world were living, I should not 

 feel called upon to say a word regard- 

 ing the matter touched upon by "Sub- 

 scriber," but being aware that two- 

 thirds of the readers of the American 

 Bee Journal have commenced their bee- 

 keeping life inside of the past 15 years, 

 it does not seem best to allow so erro- 

 eous an item as the following irom 

 "Subscriber's" pen to go unnoticed. 

 Hear what he says: 



"What is a tested Italian queen? A 

 tested, or breeding queen should be a 

 bright yellow. Every drone must have 

 4 yellow hands, and you cannot discern 

 any varying in the color. The workers 

 must have 3 yellow bands, with light 

 gray on 2 bands. The under part of 

 the abdomen should be bright yellow 

 to the tip. Now let us test this queen. 

 If she is free from any black blood, 

 the drones from every young queen 

 reared from her eggs will have the same 

 number of bands as the mother-queen. 

 Every drone is marked alike. No per- 

 son can see any difference in the drones. 

 You must trace the pure blood from the 

 drone progeny. Where the drone prog- 

 eny varies in its markings it is a sure 

 sign of black blood." 



Now, it will be noticed that "Sub- 

 scriber" starts out by asking "What is a 

 tested Italian queen?" which leads us 

 to infer that he is talking about Italian 

 bees. Therefore the first question that 

 comes to us is, What is an Italian bee? 

 This question can have only the one 

 answer; "A bee which descended from 

 parents reared in Italy, and from that 

 part called 'Liguria,' where they were 

 first found by Spinola, and named by 

 him as Apis Ligustica." (See page 293 

 of "Langstroth on the Honey-Bee," as 

 revised by Dadant.) 



Now, do the bees which come from 

 Liguria, Italy, correspond with the de- 

 scription given by "Subscriber?" By 

 no means. In fact they are almost as 

 far from it as daylight is from darkness. 

 Queens imported direct from Italy vary 

 in color all the way from being nearly or 

 quite as dark as the German or black 

 queens, to those approaching some of 

 our best golden (jueens as to color ; while 

 the workers from many of these queens 

 are so dark th;it they have to be placed 

 upon a window after being filled with 



honey, in order to discern that they 

 have any yellow (?) bands at all. Talk 

 about pure Italian worker-bees having 

 the under part of the abdomen "bright 

 yellow to the tip!" As far as I could 

 ever see there was no difference as to 

 the color on the underside of the ab- 

 domen of workers from an imported 

 Italian queen, from that on the under- 

 side of the abdomen of workers from a 

 black queen. The color on the under- 

 side of both varies but little from a very 

 dark brown. 



But I do note that when we are to 

 decide as to the purity of the Italian 

 bees we have, the drones are to be 

 what we are to look at as to their 

 markings. "Subscriber" says : "Every 

 drone must have four yellow bands, and 

 you cannot discern anv varying in color. 



Every drone is marked 



alike. No person can see any differ- 

 ence in the drones. You must trace the 

 pure blood from the drone progeny, not 

 the worker progeny. Where the drone 

 progeny varies in its markings it is 

 a sure sign of black blood." This cer- 

 tainly is a 7iezv test for Italian purity 

 to us older readers who date back to 

 where the first Italian bees came to this 

 country. The drones from those orig- 

 inal importations were so nearly like 

 the drones from a black queen that it 

 was often like a "Chinese puzzle" to 

 tell "which from t'other." Talk about 

 drones from an imported queen having 

 four yellow bands! Not a drone had 

 four bands of any kind on them. The 

 best show only a leather or chestnut 

 color in spots or splashes, varying as 

 much as to their markings as did the 

 sheep that Jacob was to have from his 

 father-in-law, Laban, in old Bible times. 



Paragraph 555 in "Dadant's Revised 

 Langstroth" reads thus, where speaking 

 about Italian bees: "The drones and 

 the queens are very irregular in mark- 

 ings, some being of a very bright yel- 

 low color, others almost as dark as 

 drones or queens of common bees." 

 And this should be the best of authority, 

 as the Dadant s have probably import- 

 ed more Italian queens into this country 

 than any others. 



Another large importer is the A. I. 

 Root Company. Listen to what they 

 say regarding this matter: "The drones 

 and queens from queens obtained direct 

 from Italy, vary greatly in their mark- 

 ings." (-A B C of Bee Culture," 

 page 222.) 



And I might go on and give authority 

 after authority, which perfectly agrees 

 with both Dadant and Root in this mat- 

 ter. 



No! No! There is no such thing 

 as perfect markings with pure Italian 

 drones or queens as they come direct 



