1886 



tjLi:A:N'i:NG!s L\ is^i: culture. 



129 



(who can rightly handle the sabjeet) to furnish arti- 

 cles to their county and local papers, which will 

 readily be admitted, and in stronji', clear terms, 

 meet this popular error. There is no n.se tiJ meet it 

 in an abusive manner, but, rather, in that kind and 

 candid manner that in\ ariiibly carries conviction. 



Another way to meet ihe mattei- is lor h<)ney-V)ro- 

 ducers to jiiiaraiilee every pound they sell to be ab- 

 solutely pui-e. 1 have i'.'J leurs as far as one's local 

 custom is concerned; but when one has"ii bit"' 

 more than he can dispose of at homi-, is wtiei-e 

 trouble seems to be ahead. 



8—0. K. Hlil'ltAKKlt. Ill-til. 



Maxwell, Towa, .Tan. S8, IS^oi. 

 Friend IJ.. your snffp:e.sti()ii i.s wise nnd 

 sound. The celebrated JSlr. Kdwaid Muri>liy 

 is now iioldinff a series ol' meetings in Me- 

 dina; and his iireat stronjiliold— in fact, the 

 one gfeat tiling- tliat gives liini such wondei'- 

 ful power in banisliing intemperance from 

 our land is, that he deals directly with the 

 people instead of laws and legisbttion. If lie 

 can get everj- man, woman, and child, in a 

 town to wearing the blue ribbon, indicating 

 they have signed the pledge, saloon-keepers 

 would have so little custom that they would 

 pull up stakes and move, or (juit the busi- 

 ness. The number who would violate a 

 pledge, with their own signature at the bot- 

 tom of it, would be too small in almost any 

 community to support saloons. Well, now", 

 if we can get the truth of this matter before 

 the people, in regard to artiticial c<mib hon- 

 ey, by inducing local papers to correct the 

 statements, the whole thing will die a natural 

 death, and it seems to me this is the way to 

 <io in dealing with any kind of sin — strike it 

 where it starts, right in our homes, and in 

 our family papers. 



DO IMPOHTED QUEENS PAY? 



FRIEND DOOI.ITTI.ES EXPERIENCE IN THE MATTER, 



fO the question in editorial (pag'e 75, Glean- 

 ' INGS for Jan. ]■>), "Do you get more! honey 

 from Italian bees, say one or two generaticji s 

 from Italy, than from stock bred four or 

 five j'ears in our own countryl''" I answer, 

 no; and, as a rule, not as much. From the experi- 

 ence I have had with the imported stock as above 

 (having- had only one imported queen, but many 

 from different brcedei-s that were reared from an 

 imported mother, besides those reared from the 

 one I had) I much prefer queens reared from their 

 best strains of home-bred stock by N. N. Eitsinger, 

 Dr. G. L. Tinker, Aai-on Benedict, Dr. J. P. Wilson, 

 J. M. Brooks, and others, to any of the import- 

 ed stock I ever saw. The men named above are 

 breeding bees for quality, and the bees show it by 

 the large yields of honey they bring in, while the 

 imported stock show that no care is take i n breed- 

 ing them. 



For the last twelve years I have beei creeding 

 for the sole quality of honey-gathering, r.nd today 

 I would not trade one of my best que :ns for any 

 dozen of the best (jueens from impoit?d stock I 

 ever saw. What gives vitality to our stock is a di- 

 rect cross rather tlian in-and-in breeding, and this 

 is what gave the imported stock so much favor a 

 few years ago. Prior to this time, parlies in the 

 U. S. had bred in and in for color, ur'l a feeble 



race was the result; and, fearing that the Italians 

 were to run out, some of them went to itiiporting 

 again. What was the result? The young queens 

 from the imported iiueen mated with the diones 

 from the home-l)red stock, which gave a direct 

 cross, thereby giving great vitalit.y to the bees, and 

 the cry was raised tliat queens from an import- 

 ed mother were superior to those bred in our own 

 country, causing it to come to pass that a l)reeder 

 must advertise with a '' in front of his name, if lit' 

 would secuie any patronage. 



The claim, that hybrids were superior to Italians, 

 came about in this same wa.v, as here was a direct 

 cross again. Fully realizing that this was wherein 

 the matter of vigorous bees rested, 1 began, ted 

 .years ago, to purchase one or two queens each yeaf- 

 of ditfercnt Vireeders whom 1 believed had a good 

 strain of bees for honey-gathering, this belief being 

 founded on a good average report from their apia- 

 ries year after yviw. Alter purchasing, these 

 (jueens were tested one year, together with two or 

 three of their daughters, and, if found of value, 

 some of such wei-e used to jnirtially stock the a|)in' 

 ry with drones; and if an.v were superior, queens 

 were reared from them to a limited number, never 

 letting go of the advance I had made with my orig- 

 inal strain, but, rather, keeping this ahead all the 

 while by adding what of value I found in those I 

 purchased. In these tests it more often happened 

 than otherwise, that the queen I purchased proved 

 sf) much inferior to my own that 1 was obliged to 

 kill them, much as I disliked to do so. (Jne case in 

 particular which J recollect was where I purchased, 

 at a very high figure, an extra selected tested 

 queen which was so infej-ior as a layer that I did not 

 use her at all. I kept this queen three years, and 

 in none of these yeais could I coax her to lay in 

 more than three Gallup frames, and the two or 

 three queens 1 leared from her were little if an.y 

 better, so I killed i;ll of them. My original strain 

 came from A. I. Root, about twelve years ago, to- 

 gether with a queen purchased in 1871 of Hev. H. A. 

 King, then of Nevada, (Jhio. Both of these queens 

 lived to be over five years old, and showed such su- 

 periority that I have tried to perpetuate and improve 

 upon it ever since. Then T added largely to the val- 

 ue of this strain by the queen of the " red clover" 

 stock sent out b.y A. 1. Root later on, which stock 

 was of great value to cross with, although at the 

 present time red clover does not blossom at all with 

 us, owing to a midge in the head. 



In the above I give the reader a little insight into 

 the plan I have been working on, and I believe it to 

 be the plan worked upon by many of those who are 

 bi'ceding bees for honey; at least, the bees pro- 

 duced by queens purchased from those mentioned 

 above show that they are working on this or some 

 other good plan. That the bees from imported 

 stock are so variable, and show that no pains has 

 been taken in breeding them, together with their 

 lack in giving me as good yields of hone.v as do oth- 

 er queens, and those of my own, is the reason 1 

 have said, for several years back, that it does not 

 pay us to import queens. (i. M. Dooi.itti.e. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



No donbt yon are right in the matter, 

 friend I).; but I am sorry you have not test- 

 ed in your own apiary a larger number of 

 queens received direct from Italy. The sup- 

 ])Osition has been, that nature lias selected 

 the fittest, on account of the comparatively 



