8J3 



produoed $7640 worth of comb honey, 

 whicli was sold to C. H. W. Weber & Sou, 

 of Cincinnati, Ohio, at above price, f. o. b. 

 Longmont. 



The year previous Mr. Gill liarvested a 

 crop which netted him $6400 from 700 

 colonies. 



In the Bevieiv for January, 1912, Mr. 

 Oliver Foster, of -Boulder, Col, said that 

 1900 was his best year, when, with 587 

 colonies, spring count, he produced 79,000 

 pounds of honey, and in addition almost 

 $200 worth of wax from cappings. 



Mr. M._H. Mendleson, of Ventura, Cal., 

 at one time produced 101 tons of honey 

 from 1870 colonies, which, if sold for only 

 6 cts. per pound, brought more than 

 $12,000. 



Last, but not least, I shall mention a 

 woman beekeeper, Mrs. S. W. Frey, of 

 Sand Tjake, Mich., whose net protits, after 

 deducting all ccsts of production, were 

 $1000 per year for 1907, 1908, and 1909_. 



The beekeepers mentioned cover a wide 

 range of terrritory, which proves that suc- 

 cessful beekeeping is not confined to any 

 one location. 



Those mentioned are only a very small 

 portion of the big beekeepers of this eoun-. 

 try. They are the only ones for. whom I 

 have seen figures. It may be that they have 

 since had much larger crops. There are 

 dozens of others wlio have been ecjually 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



successful — some who have been much more 

 successful — but these are the only ones of 

 whom I happen to have statistics. 



Brother beekeeper, is it not time that you 

 become alive to the possibilities of bee- 

 keeping on a large scale, as a profession 

 rather than a hobby? What others liave 

 done you can do, if you only think so. 

 Methods and tools are constantly improv- 

 ing. You can be a third more efficient than 

 the lieekeeper of fifteen or twenty years 

 ago. 



If a man in his eighties can and does 

 produce a carload of honey yearly; if a 

 woman can make a net iDrofit of a thousand 

 dollars yearly, and you, Mr. Beekeeper, ran 

 hardly supply your own table, I pity you. 

 Better get into some hobby for which you 

 are fitted, or improve your ways. 

 Oh! take a lesson from the bee, 



And dig in without waiting. 

 Time flies, your crop will take wing while 

 Your woes you are relating. 



Osceola Mills, Pa. 



[Dr. Miller, at least, has made a better 

 record than the one given. In 1913 he 

 averaged 266 sections of comb honey per 

 colony. Of course, these are some of the 

 record yields, and are not to be obtained 

 every year. But any such sweei^ing state- 

 ment as that by Mr. Sapp, in the National 

 Stockman and Farmer, is very far from the 

 truth. — En.l 



EVOLUTION OF THE HONEYBEE 



BY ALLEN LATHAM 



That is an interesting letter on page 293, 

 April 1, from the Reverend Mr. Goodacre. 

 His logic is good till he reaches number 5. 

 Queens do transmit that which they them- 

 selves do not possess. It is not a question 

 of " can they," for they actually do. Mr. 

 Goodaere's argument can be turned back 

 upon itself. He says the first swarm of 

 bees must have been created outright. Very 

 v/ell, let US' assume such for the sake of 

 argument. When tlms created was the queen 

 of that original swarm given the power to 

 ji'ansmit to her offspring that which she 

 never herself experienced? If the answer 

 is negative, then that first colony must per- 

 force die out, for all progeny of queen and 

 drones must be queens and drones. If the 

 answer is in the positive, then wherein lies 

 the strength of Mr. Goodacre.'s argument? 

 Can God not give tlie power to a queen-bee 

 to transmit to worker bees strange func- 

 tions not possessed by herself in more than 

 one way? Can he not give it thru the 



mazes of evolution as well as by direct 

 creation ? 



It is not well to destroy without rebuild- 

 ing. Allow me, Mr. Editor, to suggest the 

 possible evolution of the honeybee. We 

 cannot, of course, go back in time and 

 discover the secret. We must discover it 

 tliru analogy. Fortunately we have living 

 today bees of various sorts, also wasps and 

 Iiornels. As the astronomer, unable to read 

 the history of our own sun in the sun itself, 

 seeks its history in a study of the heavenly 

 bodies in view of his telescope, bodies which 

 are suns in various degrees of development, 

 so we can find in the habits of other bees 

 what our honeybees may have gone thru in 

 past ages. 



There is the solitary bee which repro- 

 duces only the true males and females. 

 There is the social wasp Avhich is but little 

 advanced. Then come the bumblebees. These 

 produce during part of the warm season 

 various types of worker bees, but in fall 



