436 



GLEANlNaS IN BEE CULTURE 



June, 1917 



Competition from the liquor crowd — that 

 is the least of his troubles. Any one who 

 can beat him in tlie fruit business is wel- 

 come. 



By the way, Albert Repp got after some 

 of the bums and toughs in their native town 

 lately. He was so active and successful in 

 his work that he made life miserable for 

 them. When 'it came time for him to go to 

 Florida to look after the cucumber business 

 he left. Then the bums and toughs made 

 up their mind they would tackle the young- 

 er brother, for they must get even. So they 

 began one night to throw brickbats and fire 

 guns at Charley Repp's house, smashing in 



the windows and doing damage generally. 

 Charley said he would not have cared had 

 it not been for his wife. '' But," said he, 

 " when I know my conscience is clear, and 

 have tried to do my duty, I do not care 

 what these fellows may do or say. I shall 

 go right on raising more and better fruit; 

 and if they keep on raising hell, I'll see 

 whether there is a God in Israel." 



As he said this his genial smile changed 

 to a look of determination that meant that 

 neither he nor his brother could be intimi- 

 dated by mere brickbats, any more than the 

 old father could be by early defeats in fruit- 

 raising. The Repps are just clear grit. 



A 



BREED FROM THE BEST 



FTER a 

 longer ex- 

 perience in 

 beekeeping than 

 falls to the lot 

 of most men I 

 had settled down 

 upon two points 

 as the most im- 

 portant things to be urged upon beekeep- 

 ers, and especially beginners, that I could 

 glean from my whole experience. The first 

 was that improvement of bees should not 

 be left to a few, but that every beekeeper 

 should make it his business, his life-busi- 

 ness, to improve his stock. The second was 

 that each beekeeper should adopt the slo- 

 gan, " Breed from the best." 



In order to cany out this scheme I have 

 urged that careful tally should be kept of 

 the performance of each colony, especially 

 the amount of honey secured from each, due 

 allowance being made for any advantage 

 or disadvantage any colony might have 

 labored under. For example, if two colo- 

 nies were about equal in surplus, and in the 

 previous spring a comb of brood had been 

 taken from one colony and given to the 

 other, then the advantage should be charged 

 up to the one colony, and the other colony 

 should have credit for its disadvantage. 



Having thus a record of the standing of 

 each, colony, two ways of proceeding are 

 open for the season's queen-rearing. One 

 way is to select for breeders those queens 

 which are a little better than the average, on 

 the ground that advance, if slower, will be 

 surer; the other way being to breed from 

 those wlonies which have the very highest 

 rating. In my own practice I have follow- 

 ed the latter plan; and, not having tried the 

 other, I do not know wlrch is better. 



Now, however, I am confronted with the 



to 



Svery Honey-producer Should be a 

 ^lueen-hreeder as Well. Ho^w 

 iMake the Selection 



By Dr. C. C. Miller 



question w'hether 

 there may not 

 be another way 

 that is better 

 than either of 

 these. On page 

 27 of Glean- 

 ings for Janu- 

 ary, 1917, ap- 

 pears an article headed " Fallacies in 

 Breeding," with the sub-head " Raising 

 Queens from the Best Honey-producing Col- 

 ony Not Always the Best Policy in the 

 End." Taking those two headings together, 

 it seems we are to understand that it is a 

 fallacy to rear queens from the colony that 

 gives the most surplus, or at least that it is 

 not always the right tiling to do. 



When a man like Geo. W. Pliillips says 

 anything about queen-rearing, his word 

 commands attention, since his views are 

 based on the experience of rearing thou- 

 sands of queens. There is nothing in what 

 he says to militate against the idea that 

 every beekeeper should strive for improve- 

 ment, with the motto " Breed from the best," 

 for he speaks with evident approval of 

 " earnest efforts to achieve those finer 

 strains of stock for which all bee-breeders 

 strive," and when speaking of variations in 

 bees he says : " Right here is the queen- 

 breeder's chance. By carefully selecting 

 those queens whose colonies show desirable 

 qualifications he may greatly assist natm-e 

 in giving the desirable traits survival value." 

 The only point, then, in which there is ques- 

 tion as to the correctness of my propaganda 

 is that one of " carefully selecting " tlie 

 right queen or queens to breed from. 



If it isn't the right way to select always 

 the queen whose colony does the best work, 

 what is the right way to select? With all 

 my heart I wish Mr. Phillips had given a 



