UuO 



GLEA^^LNGS I^ BEE CULTURE: 



Dec. 



tipped up against the hives, and inside we 

 sliall doubtless find pyramids ot honey, bees- 

 wax, and tlie vaiious utensils for worliing 

 with the honey-bees. IIow very natural our 

 friend in the foreground looks, with his 

 thumb in the arm hole of his vest! One can 

 almost catch a sly twinlile in his eye, and no 

 doubt lie could give us •■• piles " of informa- 

 tion while he made us feel happy by his oc- 

 casional jokes and pleasantry. I tell you, 

 my friends, a successful bee-man, fully up 

 to the times, is a nice man to talk with. 

 Yes, so is a successful hee-woman a nice wo- 

 man to talk with ; and I should not wonder 

 a Int if our honey-shows on our fairgrounds 

 have a good deal to do with making people 

 want to go to the fair next year. 



The above exliibit was made by Mr. E. R. 

 Xewc(mib, Pleasant A^alley, X. Y. 



THE MARKINGS OF QUEENS 

 THEIR PROGENY. 



AND 



CYriilANS, SYRIANS, ETC. 



"fn DTTOR GLEANINGS:— Nearly every customer 

 K^i y^^o orders a queen wants it to be a fine 

 l^y "yellow one;" and if it should not pi'ove to 

 -*" be just as yellow as they pictured it they are 

 a little disajjpoiiited when it arrives. All our 

 queen-bi-ecdersknow that this is usually so in almost 

 all instances. Many bee-keepers suppose that, if a 

 queen is of a bright beautiful yellow color all over 

 her abdomen, she will, as a rule, produce finely 

 marked bees, if she be purely mated. This is not 

 so. The finest-colored queen ever bred, if mated to 

 a dark-colored drone— or rather a drone reared by 

 a queen that produces a poor-colored progeny— will 

 invariably produce a poor progeny herself, while, 

 if mated to a fine drone, equal in all respects to the 

 color of the queen to be mated, then their progeny 

 will be an exceptionally good one. 



Some of the finest-marked progeny of worker- 

 bees from queens I ever had, came of some of my 

 dark-colored queens— these, too, that had rings on 

 the rear edge of the last three or four segments of 

 their bdomeus. In other instances I have had 

 some of the poorest-marked bees I ever had, from 

 some of my ver.v yellowest-colored queens, those 

 which had no dark rings, and only just a speck of 

 black on the tip of their abdomen. Real dark 

 queens will produce mostly* a dark progeny of 

 queens, when used to rear queens from; still they 

 will occasionally produce a queen that is as bright 

 as the brightest are. The reverse is the case with 

 real yellow (lueens. They will, as a rule, duplicate 

 themselves in their queen progeny, yet will occa- 

 sionally produce real dark-colored young queens, 

 those having rings (black) on the last segments of 

 their abdomens. Judge Andrews, of McKinney, 

 Texas, makes the claim that all queens which show 

 black rings on the hindmost part of the last three 

 or four segmenls of their abdomen have in them 

 black blood; that these rings of black on the seg- 

 ments are evidence of black blood in such queens 

 as show them; also that pioc queens should dui)ll- 

 cate themselves in their queen progeny. If we are 

 to accept these claims as correct, for the purity of 

 any race of bees now in America, we must certainly 

 discard our Italiims, Syrians (Mt. Lebanon strain), 

 Carniolans, Cyprians, and their crosses. 

 I have never yet found that queen— although I 



have been on the alert to do so for the past four 

 years— which would invariably duplicate herself in 

 her qucen-proyeny. I have had many that would do 

 it in one batch of 12 or 15 cells, when from the very 

 next batch of 12 or 1.5 cells reared from eggs of the 

 same queen, there would hatch two or three dark- 

 winged queens. 



1 think G. M. Doolittle made the statement in the 

 present volume of Gleanings, in his communica- 

 tion on " (Queens and their Markings," that Syrians 

 and Cyprians, as a rule, ].>roduce brighter-colored 

 queen-progeny than any other race. This is just 

 contrary to my experience. 1 find that, as a rule, 

 the best-domesticated Italian queens produce the 

 yellowest queen -progeny of any race we have. I 

 think our best-domesticated bees of any race are su- 

 perior to any newly imported ones. Syrian queens, 

 bred of a select first-grade queen from Mr. Frank 

 Benton, direct, all showed dark rings on the seg- 

 ments of their abdomen, even the very brightest 

 ones; and many of them were quite bright too. 



Cyprians bred in 1885 from a queen I got of B. F. 

 Carroll, Dresden, Texas, were similar to Italians in 

 the markings of the queens, some quite bright, and 

 others quite dark. I have always doubted the puri- 

 ty of the Carroll queen as being genuine Cyprians, 

 and now I do more so than before, since I got a 

 first-grade Cyprian from Mr. F. Benton, mailed at 

 Larnaca, Cyprus, July 19, 188(5, and received August 

 18, just 30 days making the voyage, and not a dead 

 bee in the cage. Therj is much difference in the 

 temper and qualities of the imported Cyprian, 

 compared with the Carroll stock, the imported be- 

 ing much more docile; and then they are a smaller 

 bee, with a more point-shaped ribdomen than the 

 Carroll stock. The queens reared from this im- 

 ported Cyprian are all much darker than Italian 

 queens are; but the worker-progeny are extremely 

 well and very uniformly marked, and all the bees 

 look just alike, young and old (matured bees), with 

 the exception that many of them show plainly four 

 distinct yellow bands on their abdomens. 



I have two queens reared of this Cyprian, and 

 mated with my Americau-albino-Italian drones, and 

 their progeny are certainly the finest - marked 

 bees for a first cross that I ever saw, and appear to 

 be excellent workers, so far as tried. 



Dr. Geo. L. Tinker and myself exchanged a queen 

 this season. I gave him a select American-albino- 

 Italian queen in exchange for a select Syrio-Italian 

 queen, and I frankly admit that the doctor's Syrio- 

 Italians come the nearest to rivaling my American- 

 albino-Italians of any bees I ever have had of any 

 breeder. The doctor deserves the praise and pat- 

 ronage of our bee-keepers, beyond doubt, for such 

 grade of bees. -1- Abbott L. Swinson, 71—70. 



Goldsboro, N. C, Nov. 32, leSB. 



Friend S., if lam correct, B. F. Carroll 

 does not claim his Cyprian queen is full 

 blood. lie does claim, however, I think, 

 that his strain has given wonderful yields of 

 honey. — After we found out the temper of 

 the Cyprians, few if any of us wanted full- 

 blooded stock, as it is well-known they are 

 very much milder in temper after being 

 crossed with the Italians. There is also 

 quite a difference in all imported queens, if 

 1 am correct. Are you not breeding more 

 for looks than you are for hoiiey -gathering 

 qualities':* We want the honey— that is the 

 great point. 



