596 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUHE. 



Dec. 



Bees have been dying for three years now; our 

 greatest loss was in the last of April. Warm weather 

 set the bees brooding. A few cold days they could 

 not fly to get water to reduce the honey properly 

 for the brood; brood died in comb; bees would 

 swarm out as in swarming time, leaving, sometimes, 

 thirty and forty lbs. of honey. I hived eight one 

 day, but saved only one. They dwindled to nothing, 

 placed in liives that died out in winter. 



FKED TlMMERMAN. 



Fayette, Fayette Co., la., Oct. 31, 1881. 



I presume bees on the prairie will fly much 

 further than usual, but still I think there 

 must be some mistake about their flying as 

 far as seven miles : 3i miles is as far as we 

 liave been able to And Italians working from 

 their hives, when the first ones were brouglit 

 to our couuty.— I presume that on the prai- 

 rie, swarms wotild of course go for the tim- 

 ber.— 1 think, friend T., the moth you speak 

 of used some honey witli the cappings ; but 

 if you look closely. I think you will find now 

 and then a little pollen that started them on 

 the comb honey.— I guess April is the worst 

 month with most of us. 



CAN WV. GET PUKE IJRONES FROM AN 



ITALIAN QUKECV MATED AVITII A 



BLACK drone; 



AN OLD QUESTION BKOUQHT UP AGAIN. 



s,;K*]RIEND ROOT: -The question of purity of the 

 jsri ^ Italian bee, and the test to determine the 

 — ' same, has been the cause of frequent discus- 

 sion; but the matter of keeping up that purity is, I 

 think, not yet fully understood; at least, too much 

 dependence has been placed upon the " Dzierzon 

 Theory," and our queens have been allowed to meet 

 indiscriminately, with the drone progeny of pure 

 queens mated with black drones, the idea having 

 heretofore been conveyed that such mating does not 

 affect the purity of the drone. Now, why should it 

 not? It is an established fact, that a single cross 

 among mammals for ever after precludes the possi- 

 bility of the mother producing her like in absolute 

 purity. In our domestic fowls even, it is now ad- 

 mitted by our best breeders, that a single mismating 

 of one breed spoils the mother, and that she can 

 never again be depended upon for pure stock; and 

 so it goes through the whole field of animate nature, 

 so far as comparative anatomy yet shows, and so, I 

 say, why should it not bo so with the honey-bee? It 

 is unquestionably true, that a virgin queen may 

 produce drone progenj', and that the office of fer- 

 tilization is solely to enable such queen to produce 

 workers; but can we say positively, that, even if 

 such is the case, and that the drone egg is not fer- 

 tilized by any contact with the contents of the sper- 

 matheca, that the mother is not, by this connection, 

 so far changed in her being, by reason of absorp- 

 tion, or some other result of the cohabitation, that 

 her drone progeny are not to some (no matter how 

 slight) extent affected by the cross? It may be that 

 the effect is slight; still, if it continues it will neces- 

 sarily increase until at last we find impurity where 

 we have every reason, as wc now understand the 

 matter, to expect absolute purity. As a matter of 

 caution, therefore, I would advise that, in order to 

 keep the Italian bee in absolute purity, we should 

 not allow any admixture with drone progeny of a 



hybridized queen. This r^.atter is, I think, one of 

 considerable importance, and I trust that it may call 

 out discussion, and cause experiments, until the 

 truth is certainlj' (if possible) established. I may be 

 wholly wrong in the idea I present; but if I am, I 

 am certainly borne out in it by experimental results 

 in the higher races; and if it can be shown by any 

 proof that I am not now right, I shall be most happy 

 to admit my error, and take a back seat. 



J. E. Pond, Jr. 

 Foxboro, Norfolk Co., Mass., Oct. 27, 1881. 



Friend P. has given me one fact in the 

 above that is new; viz., that a common 

 fowl, once impregnated, will never entirely 

 recover from it, for pure breeding purposes. 

 I am not so much astonished at this, for we 

 know that, as a single impregnation affects 

 the offspring for several weeks, we are 

 rather obliged to conclude that the impreg- 

 nating fluid remains in some receptacle, 

 from which it is drawn daily, or as often as 

 an egg is laid. Every egg the fowl lavs re- 

 ceives some of this fluid ; but with the queen 

 bee, the anatomy is so different that eggs 

 may be laid without receiving any of this 

 fluid at all. So much for theory. "Well, we 

 are buying black bees from the farmers of 

 Medina county every season, and second 

 and third swarms having unfertilized black 

 queens are brought us in great numbers. 

 These are fertilized by the Italian drones of 

 our apiary, and produce variously marked 

 hybrid workers, but the drones are common 

 black, with no trace of Italian blood. This 

 is a test any of you can make. Get a young 

 black queen, or queens, and put them 

 where you are pretty sure they will meet 

 Italian drones. Now, if you find it is the 

 workers only, and never the drones, that are 

 changed by the crossing, have you not 

 proven the Dzierzon theory pretty well ? 



WIiNTERING BEES. 



fIRST, they should be so wintered, if possible, 

 as to prevent spring dwindling. 

 Now, it is plain, I think, that the only sure 

 way of doing this is to promote breeding late in the 

 fall and as early as February in the winter. This 

 has been suggested by friend Langstroth. But 

 young bees can not be raised without pollen; there- 

 fore, bees can not be wintered so as certainly to pre- 

 vent spiing dwindling without having plenty of pol- 

 len. This explains, in part, I think, why bees have 

 been wintered safely on grape sugar, the starch it 

 contains serving the purpose of pollen. But for 

 this purpose I prefer flour candy to any other bee- 

 feed whatever. Now, friend Langstroth contends 

 that the starch in grape sugar killed your bees last 

 winter; but if so, pollen and flour will certainly kill 

 them; and it is of no use trj'ing to prevent spring 

 dwindling by raising young bees in the win- 

 ter, as Mr. Langstroth suggests. In other words, 

 his idea, that the starch in grape sugar is not good 

 feed for winter, contradicts his idea, that the best 

 way to winter bees is to promote winter breeding. 

 Moreover, if it is true that "starch and sugar are, 

 chemically speaking, almost identical" (rs you said 

 in Gleanings, November, ItlS), it is not easy to see 

 how sugar is equal to the best honey, and the "al- 

 most identical" starch is dangerous. 

 Second. The bees should be put on C combs; the 



