1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



657 



if \vt'"d git used to it. lil'Ce tiiem New York fel- 

 lers. \ve"d change our notions, and I gaess you 

 better give the thing a fair trial, and 111 watch 

 how you come out. At any rate. I didn't know 

 before, or leastways 1 hadiTt thought of it. that 

 I was usin' fixed distances, and sraashin' more 

 bees than closed ends would." C. C. Millei;. 

 Marengo. 111. 



[You cornered Bangs completely, and there 

 are more bee-keepers just like him. Although 

 they disclaim it. yet, at the expense of a great 

 deal of time and labor, they try to maintain 

 between their fiames a fixed and invariable dis- 

 tance.] E. R. 



IMPROVING BEES, ETC. 



IMPROVIX(i 



IJACKS OF Bf:ES 

 ETC. 



BY SELECTIOX. 



A correspondent wishers me to tey the readers 

 of Gleanings my opinion as to the effect of 

 breeding, on black bees, had the same coui-se 

 and untiring energy been spent on them in try- 

 ing to improve them wliich has been put upon 

 the Italian bees, and winds up by saying. 

 "Would not the black queen now be larger, 

 finer, and more prolific, etc.. had such a course 

 been pursued '?" 



L^ndoubtedly there would have been some im- 

 provement in the black or German bee. had the 

 apiarists of the United States taken hold of the 

 matter with the same will in breeding which 

 they have shown in breeding the Italian bee up 

 to its present standard: but I do not think that 

 the effect would have been as marked on the 

 German bee as it has on the Italian, for the 

 simple reason that the black or German bee is a 

 fixed race or variety, while the Italian bee is 

 nothing more than a hybrid, in my opinion. 

 Any race of animals which are fixed and con- 

 stant in their breeding, can not be improved 

 nearly so easily as can one which is liable to 

 sport. The same holds good in the vegetable 

 kingdom, all of our best varieties of vegetables 

 being obtained from " sports.'" Breed black 

 queens as carefully as you may. they will not 

 vary a particle as to color, while the Italian 

 queens vary from a queen nearly if not quite as 

 black as any black queen, to one whose abdo- 

 men is of an orange yellow throughout its 

 whole length: hence those who have bred for 

 beauty as well as other qualities have been able 

 tosucceed in producing queens that will giveall 

 yellow queens every time, and whose worker 

 progeny are a solid yellow nearly its whole 

 length. Those who have paid no attention to 

 color breeding have seen their bees go from 

 those with three yellow bands back to bees with 

 scarcely a bit of yellow on them; and yet there 

 is scarcely a number of a bee-paper printed but 

 that tells somewhere in its columns about 

 '■ pure "' Italian bees. If the Italian bees are a 

 pure race they are given to sporting beyond 

 any other known pure thing. It seems to me it 

 is impossible for these bees to be any thing else 

 than a hybrid. This inclination to sport as to 

 color gave the assurance that they would sport 

 as to quality as well, so we have breeders who 

 have worked for a very industrious bee, and 

 have seen industry come to the front with 

 them. Others have worked for wintering 

 qualities, white capping of the combs, etc.. and 

 seen these qualities increase: till, take it all in 

 all. the Italian bee. as bred in th^ United 

 States, undoubtedly stands at the head of all 

 the bi>es known to the world. This is evidenced 

 by calls coming for them from all parts of the 

 world: and could they be shipped the same as 

 can non-perishable articles, there would not be 

 a country on the face of the earth, where bees 



could exist, where they would not be found. 

 Now, the same thing which keeps the black 

 bees from sporting as to color, hinders them 

 from sporting in other directions desired by tin- 

 bee-keeper, so that, to a certain extent, they 

 are nearly if not identically the same as they 

 were when they first left the hands of the Crea- 

 tor. There is "a certain amount of improve- 

 ment by the "survival of the fittest.'" and yet 

 such improvement has not advanced these bees 

 as much during the centuries which have pass- 

 ed as has the hand of man the Italians during 

 the past quarter of a century: nor has the 

 hand of man ever made as much improvement 

 on them during all the long past as has been 

 made with the Italian during the last decade. 



There is one other thing which I wish to no- 

 tice in the correspondent's question before clos- 

 ing. He wishes to know whether the black 

 queens would not be " larger '* and " finer " had 

 the right coui'se of breeding been pursued. All 

 of my experience goes to prove that an exceed- 

 ingly large queen is rarely if ever as good as 

 one of a medium size: and if it is meant that a 

 large queen is " finer "" than is one not so large. 

 I beg to diffei- with the writer of the question. 

 A large queen seems to be less active than a 

 medium-sized queen, and, so far as my experi- 

 ence goes, they can not be depended upon to 

 bring the colony up to the greatest strength at 

 the pleasure of the apiarist so well as can 

 queens of lesser size. It would seem by the 

 complaints which come to almost all queen- 

 breeders, saying. " The queen you sent me is 

 small.'' that." if queens sent out could be as big 

 as bumble-bees, the purchaser would be fai' 

 better pleased than he is with a queen which is 

 capable of yrent things, but small to look at 

 when she arrives at his postoffice. The old 

 saying, that " you can not tell by the looks of a 

 toad how far it can jump." applies more fully 

 to a queen-bee than to any thing else with 

 which I am acquainted, especially to a queen 

 which has come a long distance in the mails. 

 I have seen queens which came a long journey 

 in the mails, which did not look nearly so well 

 nor as much like a fertile queen, as did virgin 

 queens which I had in my yard at the time: 

 but give them a few weeks in a colony during 

 the month of May and they would not look like 

 the same queen, and could do a business at egg- 

 laying which was a marvel to the most fastid- 

 ious. The queen that is capable of pi'oducing 

 the desired number of worker bees in just the 

 right time for the honey-harvest, and these 

 woi-kers have the desired energy in securing the 

 harvest (all minor qualities being equal), is the 

 queen which will give the best results, be she 

 large or small: but the real moneyed result will 

 generallv go with the queen of medium size, for 

 she is the most apt to give the bees as above. 



Borodino. N. Y., Aug. 4. G. M. Doolittle. 



[Friend D.. you may be right in the above, 

 and you may be wrong, so far as I know, for I 

 confess it is deep water for me. I do know, 

 however, that some of our plants and vegeta- 

 bles are capable of very great changes, and in a 

 very few years, by careiul selection. Out in 

 our" garden, right "before me. is a great whop- 

 ping — well. I can't tell you its name, for the 

 plant has evidently nut yet decided whether it 

 will be a cabbage or a cauliflower. There is a 

 great mass of leaves inclosing something. The 

 shape of the leaves indicates that it is a cauli- 

 flower: but at present it looks as if these leaves 

 contained only a good-sized cabbage-head. Our 

 readers mav remember my White Plume lettuce. 

 A single stalk of lettuce in the greenhouse 

 came up looking white I at first thought it 

 was caused by feeble growth and lack of sun- 

 shine, etc.. and therefore I hadn't much faith 



