676 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15 



it of using lemons for years, or lemonade, 

 without sugar; but in my case, and I feel 

 sure in that of thousands of others, the su- 

 gar will destroy all the virtue there is in the 

 lemon juice. Sugar will ferment, or aid 

 fermentation; whereas the diluted juice of 

 the lemon can not. 



The clipping from the Farming World 

 sounds like a pretty big "dose," but per- 

 haps it is all right. I would, however, com- 

 mence, as friend Murray suggests, by using 

 a little to start with, and more as your 

 stomach seems to be able to use it. 



THE CATICASIAN BEES ON THE ISLAND. 



I am well aware, dear friends, of all that 

 lias been said in Gleanings in regard to 

 mixing Caucasian bees with those we al- 

 ready have; notwith tanding, I have decided 

 to give my experience with them during the 

 four months I wjs in Florida. 



The two-frame nucleus that contained the 

 queen was located before our cottage was 

 tiuilt; and when we came to decide on our 

 location, these Caucasians came pretty neany 

 in fr^nt of the door that we used most. As 

 they had fixed their location, and were busi- 

 ly gathering pollen, we decided to let them 

 remain, moving them a few inches a day un- 

 til they were a little further from the door. 

 Well, from first to last not one of these 

 bees ever offered to feting us. I opened 

 them early in the morning and handled them 

 during the coldest weather we had I bump- 

 ed them around in all ways; but I never re- 

 ceived a sting from one of them except 

 when I pinched it. You might adduce from 

 this that they would not defend themselves 

 in case of attack from robbers. Now, this 

 is not at all true. Like the gentle Italians, 

 they were much better to defend themselves 

 than the blacks or hybrids. 



I had quite a little time with having my 

 nucleus hives robbed; and sometimes, when 

 the hybrids were about, the robbers would 

 come around the Caucasians. But a bee 

 would dart out and catch the robber on the 

 wing, and roll him in the dust with such ve- 

 hemence that they very soon abandoned 

 that hive When you open the hive of some 

 strains of blacks and hybrids, you all know 

 how they will dive into the cells and gorge 

 themselves with honey, even sometimes un- 

 capping the honey. I have been satisfied 

 for years that this is a wasteful operation. 

 At one time I had a colony of blacks fed up 

 for winter on sugar syrup. They had been 

 weighed, and pronounced 0. K. ; but just 

 before winter set in I decided to put in an 



Italian queen. The colon> was very heavy, 

 and they dropped from the combs on the 

 sides and bottom of the hive so much I 

 thought I should never find the queen. Ev- 

 ery time I opened the hive they were so ugly 

 that I was obliged to smoke them severely. 

 Then, of course, they tore off the cappings, 

 and gorged themselves with honey. I was 

 four or five days in finding that queen, and 

 began to notice wax scales on many of the 

 bees, because of filling themselves so often 

 with honey in this way on account of the 

 disturbance I made to get that queen. You 

 may suggest that they put the honey back 

 into the cells after the hive was closed up. 

 Perhaps they did, some of it; but before I 

 got their queen changed it seemed as if half 

 their stores were gone; and since that time 

 I have satisfied myself, by carefully watch- 

 ing, that, every time bees gorge themselves 

 with honey when you give them a severe 

 smokii g, thtre is a loss. Besides that, a 

 colony that will do this when you go to ex- 

 tract, wastes its time, because it is often an 

 hour or two before it gets down to business 

 again. With Caucasians or gentle Italians 

 there is no such waste. The Caucasians are 

 ahead of any other bees in this respect. 



When honey began to come in, February 

 and March, as soon as I opened the hive the 

 bees would dart right off from the exposed 

 combs, making that peculiar "zip, zip, zip," 

 as working bees always do when they start 

 off for the fields in the morning. Not only 

 this, but when I had the combs all out of 

 the hives, and visitors were holding them 

 several rods away, these bees would start 

 off the combs and go in quest of honey. 

 Italians may do this under favorable circum- 

 stances; but I can not remember that I have 

 ever seen them do it. The Caucasian queen 

 goes right along laying eggs, without paying 

 any attention to what is being done. Of 

 course, I handled the combs very carefully. 

 They were such quiet, lovable little pets 

 that it hurt my conscience to pinch or crush 

 one of them; and a good many times last 

 winter I thought I should be very glad to 

 have again my old metal-cornered frames, 

 especially for handling the Caucasians. I 

 have never gotten hold of any other frame 

 where I could set the combs into the hive 

 quickly, and not pinch a bee. I decided in a 

 very few weeks after getting to Florida, 

 that, if Caucasians were even equal as hon- 

 ey-gatherers, / should regard them as a val- 

 uable acquisition. 



Now, if you did not know A. I. Root you 

 might think I was booming these new bees 

 from selfish motives after what I am going 

 to say. And, even though you do know A. 

 I. Root, you might think he had got a new 

 hobby in his head, and that his opinion is 

 biased. Well, you can take the testimony 

 for what it is worth. Here it is: 



Before I had worked with the bees a month 

 I called Mr. Shumard's attention to the fact 

 that they were getting more honey accord- 

 ing to the number of bees in the hive than 

 any of the rest of our colonies. There were 

 five colonies already on the island, one or 



