1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



879 



that are badly colored or soiled at the bottom. 

 This No. 3 grade is marked with X in the 

 hand holes." 



"Do these three grades take all of your 

 white honey ? " 



" No, not all. As a rule, sections which are 

 not at least three-fourths sealed over, and are 

 otherwise top poor to go in these three grades, 

 had better be extracted and the combs kept 

 over till the next year for ' bait ' combs." 



" Why do you use the X's in preference to 

 the numbers on the cases ? " 



" Well, I do not know that I have any very 

 good reasons to give for doing this, only that 

 I have been in the habit of doing so, this en- 

 abling me at a glance to sort the different 

 grades out when loading or shipping, by sim- 

 ply taking the hand-holes of a pile of crates 

 in at a glance." 



" I am very much obliged to you, and I must 

 be going now. Good morning." 



I^ONG TONGUES OR COLOR; ARE THE IVJO 

 NECESS.'VRILY ANTAGONISTIC? 



A/r. Root : — You, as president of a great 

 bee-keepers' association, I think, do an injus- 

 tice by so sweepingly condemning all golden 

 Italian bees as you did at the convention held 

 in Chicago. You said, " Let us look more to 

 the length of tongue than to color." Do you 

 not think it possible to find length of tongue 

 among the golden strains? Must we now 

 ruthlessly massacre all the beautiful subjects 

 in bee-life without even giving the lovely 

 creatures a chance to run out their pretty 

 tongues for measurement ? Has it never oc- 

 curred to you, Mr. President, that there may 

 be many grades of golden stock (some worth- 

 less, I admit — but not all), and that perhaps 

 we might combine length of tongue with 

 beauty, gentleness, etc. ? Have you the heart, 

 Mr. President, to pinch a really beautiful 

 yojing creature whose bees are golden — the 

 brightest of golden — and to the tips, whose 

 workers have no desire to sting, so much en- 

 gaged are they in bringing sweets to the hive ? 

 Could any human being destroy such a queen ? 

 Never ! 



In the past fewyears I have had considera- 

 ble experience with golden Italians. I have 

 tested nearly all the different strains, and find 

 not only a great diversity in their traits and 

 markings (color or shade), but also find as 

 wide a difference in their honey -gathering as 

 well as many other qualities^for all the world 

 like any other stock. Therefore, simply be- 

 cause a bee is golden it does not necessarily 

 follow that she is worthless. My dear Mr. 

 President, do not, I beg of you, wrench from 

 us what we have gained along the line of col- 

 or and markings by putting to death all bees 

 not of a certain stripe ( history repeats itself, 

 even unto the bees), but rather encourage 



careful experiment to improve further, in ad- 

 dition to what we have already gained in color, 

 by giving heed to other qualities. I believe a 

 red clover golden Italian is possible, and I, 

 for one, shall bend every effort to produce 

 such a bee. Judging from my experiments 

 the past season I shall accomplish that end, 

 for I already have golden bees on red clover. 

 As an aid to this end, allow me to add that ad- 

 vancement in quality has been with me more 

 readily evidenced through the agency of the 

 male thau the female. By hand-picked drones 

 from high-grade stock I expect to acconiplish 

 wonders another season. Swarthmore. 



[It seems to me, friend S., that you put 

 more into my language than I really put into 

 it. Take the sentence where you quote me as 

 saying, " Let us look more to length of tongue 

 than to color." There is nothing in that that 

 implies that length of tongue can not be se- 

 cured in golden Italians. Put the emphasis 

 on the word more, and I think you will get 

 my meaning better. But I do say that too 

 much attention has been given to color — so 

 much so that other desirable qualities have 

 been lost to view. This fad for color came 

 very near running out every and all other ef- 

 forts for the production of bees for business ; 

 but, happily, the tide is now turning in favor 

 of bees for honey, irrespective of color. Let 

 us bend our energies toward bees for business, 

 and then if by chance we get the golden yel- 

 low with long tongues, and non-swarming 

 qualities, well and good. I do not deny that 

 there may be good workers in yellow stock ; 

 but I do say this : That some yellow stock 

 ( and we have had it from a good many breed- 

 ers) has been short-lived, and crosser, than 

 the average leather-colored stock. That has 

 been our experience. — Ed.] 



WHY A COLONY WILL SOMETIMES PERSIST 

 IN BALLING ITS QUEENS. 

 I should like you to inform me why it is 

 that a certain colony of bees in my apiary 

 should ball the queen. In the first case they 

 balled her without any apparent reason. As 

 it happened, I saw the ball as it came out, and 

 got the bees off from her. I then caged her in 

 a wire cage I made, and kept her away from 

 them one day, as I had no candy. I then let 

 her in at the entrance toward night. Next 

 day they swarmed out and went off. She was 

 not clipped. The remaining bees reared 

 another queen, a very large hybrid, and a pro- 

 lific layer. All went well till the other day, 

 when in going around clipping queens I came 

 to her and had a job to find her. After open- 

 ing the hive twice I found her and clipped 

 her ; but I had not got her off my fingers be- 

 fore the bees flew at her and balled her. I let 

 her remain for about two minutes before I got 

 her clear, and put her in the cage, on top of 

 the brood-frames. This morning she was 

 alive, and the bees around the cage seemed 

 quiet. I then made a plug with a hole in it, 

 and filled it with candy and put her in the 

 center of the brood-nest. Do you think they 

 will accept her? I forgot to mention that, at 

 the time I clipped her, I missed the long wing 



