1881 



GLEANINGS m BEE CULTUEE. 



229 



When, in August, 1879, eleven arrived safe and 

 sound, my neighbors took 3 and I kept 8, but lost 

 one in introducing. I raised only 8 or 10 young 

 queens that fall, as I don't like to raise many queens 

 from a stock until I have Qrst tested it. 



This brings us to the season of 1880, which will 

 bring out the sjjccia? points I wish to notice in this 

 article. The season was cold and windy, and bees 

 did nothing but swarm until after July ~flth. I 

 raised about 60 queens in the spring, and about half 

 Avere Italians. I aimed to have half of my drones 

 Italians, but don't think I succeeded. When I say 

 Italiau, I mean the Oatman stock. I call my stock 

 the American bees. Yes, full-blooded American 

 stock. But out of all my young Italian queens, I 

 don't believe I have one that mated with an Italian 

 drone. Whether any of the American queens mated 

 with any of the Italians, I do not know, as they do 

 not yet breed up to a fixed typo of rings, horns, etc. 

 I pronounced all the queens I got fxom Mr. Oatman 

 as pure. On the 20th of July I commenced hauling 

 my bees to the river. I was then living three miles 

 out on the phiins, and every thing dries up during 

 the summer. I moved fi3 on the Stanislaus, and left 

 them in charge of a neighbor bee-keeper. They 

 made but little honey there, and 24 I moved on the 

 Great San Joaquin, where I had charge of them my- 

 self; 12 were full-blooded Americans (9 were young 

 queens, and the other three were one and two years 

 old;) my 3 Oatman queens (the other 4 having died, 

 and another died this winter) and 8 Oatman daugh- 

 ters, and one which, I think, was a granddaughter 

 from a '79 Oatman queen, that I think was super- 

 seded last spring. 



Now, here I will give you a table of my 24 colonies, 



as I copy from my memorandum-book:— 



Year when made. 



No. Col. Stock, Etc. 1878 1879 isso 



6S A ' 79 American queen 70 l.oO 



70 Oatnifin'..' .".'.'.'.'.".'..'.". .!....'!..!!!..'."!.' ns 



71 American lOB 



7'Z Anu'iican lH 



<;i (iranddaughter, Italian, nicelionej' 2'!5 



71 Italian 90 



7.A Italian J 118 



715 Oatiiian, dfnd now 87 



77 Aiiii'i-ir-an, I'dudcinnccl 50 



78 '79 Italian, bnt littk'grtim . 1(10 



79 American, very t'ummy . 108 



«(» American 100 



81 '79Italiau ■ 100 



82 Italian, no gum • 90 



8.3 American, condemned M 



84 American 81 



8.5 -TOAm.-riran 140 135 



86 'TSAmorii'an 90 150 135 



87 '7yitalian lS:i 



88 Oatman - — . • 22 



89 American ■ 1X1 



90 American * 



91 Italian, no jjnm ■ 120 



Now, from the above tabic you will see that 3 

 made no honey. They were very weak, and lost 

 their queens when I moved them to the river. Some 

 of the others were weak too; so you see thatldidu't 

 have all my best colonies in this lot. 



The above table summed up makes over 2300 lbs. 

 all comb honey; the 11 Americans made 1341, an 

 average of 113 lbs. per colony; the 3 Oatman made 

 117, an average of 59, while the 7 daughters and 

 granddaughter made 1093, an avernge of 136. But a 

 glance at the above table shows that the granddaugh- 

 ter beat them all. While she made 235 lbs., she is 

 also credited with making the nicest honey. 



Among the different lots of bees that I got I never 

 before last fall figured up so closely the amount of 

 honey each strain of bees made, and I must confess 

 that the figures astonished me. Now, I never found 

 fault with Mr. Oatman's queens or bees; but I have 



no doubt but that he has as good a stock of Italians 

 as can be found anywhere. My neighbor who got 

 twoof those queens we got from him claims they 

 arc the best stock he ever owned, and that about the 

 only honey he got last fall was from his full-bloods, 

 and from the few queens he raised from them, and 

 he told me, just the other day, that ho wouldn't take 

 $10.00 for them. But what puzzles me is this : while 

 the full-bloods figured so low in honey, why did their 

 daughters, mating with ray improved drones, figure 

 so high? The average of 50 lbs. for the full-bloods, 

 against 113 tor the Americans, clearly shows the su- 

 periority of my strain; but why did none of the 

 young Italian queens mate with the Italian drones? 

 were the American drones so much more active and 

 long-winded, so that the ItHlian could not keep up 

 in the chase after the queen, or what was the cause? 

 Can you, friend Root, or any of your readers, solve 

 the problem? 



Now, am I not on the right track to " catch him "? 

 Doesn't my plan embrace "long-livedness," "long- 

 windedness," and " long-tonguedness," and every 

 other "long thing" that it takes to make up a su- 

 perior strain of honey-gatherers? 



A few of our bee-men. and they are by far too few, 

 claim that the drone is " a mighty factor in the im- 

 provement of the honey-bne." But I claim that he 

 is not only "a, but the mighty factor." I have long 

 since been satisfied that the " drone does more to 

 determine the character of progeny than the queen," 

 and have acted accordingly, and have had no reason 

 to regret my labors in that direction. Now, friend 

 Koot, what advice ought I to give your manj' read- 

 ers; to go and do as I have done, or to get an im- 

 ported queen e^ery few years, and breed from her 

 only? Another question I would like to have many 

 of our queen-breeders answer: In many of their 

 circulars sent out, they set forth in glowing terms 

 the superiority of the Italian bees, and especially 

 their " fine improved strain," which has cost them 

 years of painstaking and care to breed up to its 

 present standard, and then wind up by saying all, or 

 nearly all, our queens will be bred from an i-ra-p-o-r-t- 

 e-d m-o-t-h-e-r I And right here I shall make a bold 

 challenge, without the least fear of a successful 

 contradiction. Not one queen-breeder that is breed- 

 ing onlij from imported mothers ever has or ever 

 will make any improvement over the original race; 

 but those who adopt a course similar to the one I 

 have adopted will be the ones that J, at least, shall 

 look to as the ones that will give us the coming bee. 

 Neither do I care where he comes from, nor what 

 he is made out of; but he is on the way as sure as 

 fate. Now, friend Doolittle, what do you say to 

 this? Isold my little farm, hence am not settled; 

 but as soon as I get settled again, and if I continue 

 in the bee business, which I expect to, I hope to of- 

 fer a reward for a better stock of bees than mine. 



Now, friend Novice, if you will pardon this long 

 letter, I will quit right square off, and not say anoth- 

 er word on this subject. 1 was going to say some- 

 thing, but I see I can't, about that hive. I sent you 

 a model filled with raisins. I have so improved it 

 that you would hardly know it. I have used it three 

 years, and consider it the best hive I know of, in the 

 way I handle bees. J. F. Flcjuky. 



Hipon, San Joaquin Co., Cal., March, 1881. 



I think you are pretty nearly, at least, »n 

 the track, friend F.; but as I understand 

 your experiment, is there not room for us to 



