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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



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"why did you wait, dear brother?" 

 yellow bands. 



On page 601 of Aug. loth Gleanings, Dr. 

 Miller says he is waiting for me to answer a 

 question he asked me in the American Bee 

 Journal, which was something about my wait- 

 ing till this late day about calling attention to 

 the fact that the bands (or, more properly 

 speaking, the horny scale) on the three first 

 segments of worker bees, brought forth by a 

 queen imported from Italy, were not yellow 

 as to color, properly speaking, but more nearly 

 maroon. Well, I am sorry to keep the good 

 doctor waiting so long ; but, writing even as 

 much as I do, I can not tell every thing at 

 once, nor in one article. This reminds me of 

 something ex-Governor St. John, of Kansas, 

 once said when he was speaking on temper- 

 ance and the prohibition of the liquor-traffic, 

 in the town hall here in Borodino. In his 

 address he alluded several times to the Dem- 

 ocratic and Republican parties, and each time 

 named the Democratic party first. After a 

 little a man who was a Democrat, and some- 

 what under the influence of liquor, called out, 

 "Say, Mister, why do you insist on putting 

 the Democratic party first every time?" 

 " Because I can not speak the name of both 

 parties at once," was the prompt reply. And 

 so, Dr. M., one of the reasons why I had not 

 written on this color matter of late was be- 

 cause I could not write of that and how to 

 secure a large yield of honey, with no desire 

 on the part of the bees to swarm, at the same 

 time, with the same words. 



I wonder where the good doctor was in the 

 early seventies. Or has he forgotten all about 

 the discussion of this " yellow band " matter 

 at that time? Has he forgotten, or did he 

 ever hear any thing about how "no Chinese 

 walls or snow clad Alps " could keep the bees 

 in Italy from mingling with other bees in the 

 countries round about these so-called pure 

 Italians? I have not time to go over musty 

 volumes at this season of the year; but all of 

 those discussions are impressed on my mem- 

 ory, myself taking "a hand" in them to a 

 greater or less extent. It was fully proven at 

 that time that the Italians are not a pure race, 

 and yet the great mass of bee-keepers have 

 gone on calling them " pure " just the same — 

 myself calling attention to their not being 

 pure occasionally, as such comment was called 

 forth. And now the doctor wants to know 

 why I have waited so long about saying any 

 thing. 



Again, at another time the dissatisfaction 

 ran so high that A. I. Root came out in his 

 ABC book, and in Gleanings, and told how 

 these imported bees must be placed on the 

 window, after first being filled with honey, in 

 order that they could show their three yel- 

 low (?) bands, and thus be told from the 



" two-banded " hybrids. This helped me out, 

 and I then showed that the poorest specimen 

 of a hybrid which showed any yellow or 

 maroon coloring on any one of the horny 

 scales to the abdomen would show it on three, 

 if thus filled with honey, and placed on a 

 window. And so it went on, I always stand- 

 ing out against a purity which could not be 

 told without such a minute scrutiny, and a 

 color that could not be told as yellow only as 

 a full sac of honey and the golden sunshine 

 from beyond the window must turn the 

 maroon into gold. To be sure, I have not 

 harped on these matters, for the very reason 

 Editor Root gives on page 577 when he says, 

 " But it seems to me we are in danger of split- 

 ting hairs on an unimportant point." And 

 this brings me to nry third reason for calling 

 attention to this matter at " this late day," as 

 the doctor puts it, or at this time, as I would 

 put it if I wished to be correct. Of course, all 

 know that the color of bees should have very 

 little to do with their desirability, for it is the 

 queen that gives the worker bees that will give 

 the very best results in honey, that the practi- 

 cal bee-keeper is after, as the desirable bee 

 And we have been taught for the past quarter 

 of a century that the Italian bee is Just the bee 

 to give the best results in honey, or is the 

 most desirable. 



But how was any purchaser to know wheth- 

 er the queen he received was Italian or not? 

 By the markings of her worker progeny. 

 And what were these markings? "Oh ! any 

 thing, almost, so long as they are good work- 

 ers," was an idea which Bro. James Heddon 

 brought out when he advertised and sold 

 hybrids as the best working bee. And so the 

 nice points about bands and colorings were 

 forgotten for a time ; therefore there was no 

 need of writing on these points for some years. 

 But for the past five years this matter of 

 "markings" has again forged to the front, 

 and the low rumblings of dissatisfaction first 

 heard have almost reached the fury of a storm, 

 and parties are being denounced for lying 

 about the markings, purity, and color of their 

 bees, and thus an unimportant matter has be- 

 come an important one. Now, don't you see, 

 doctor, why I tried to call you out at this time 

 (on a matter of importance) instead of asking 

 censorious or hypercritical questions ? 



It is just like this : Suppose I start out to 

 get subscribers for Gleanings. The impor- 

 tant part of Gleanings is what we find in the 

 reading- matter it contains, not in the color of 

 its covers. And I secure subscribers for the 

 matter contained in the type as set up, telling 

 the parties who give me their subscriptions 

 that it does not matter any thing about the 

 cover it has on, nor whether it has any cover 

 at all, so long as the important part — the good, 

 practical things the type tells us about — are 

 there all right. Any one can see that no one 

 will be any thing but satisfied with GLEAN- 

 INGS, no matter what the color of the cover, 

 so long as the high quality of the reading- 

 matter is kept up. Hence, so far, the color 

 of the cover is an " unimportant point." But 

 suppose I tell the subscribers I secure that 

 Gleanings is the best bee-paper published, 



