1230 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



50 cents' worth of sugar, given in doses lit- 

 tle and often, will do with a weak nucleus, 

 beginning with the first of June or even 

 ^Tuly. 



ALAN IKVING KOOT. 



On the front cover page of this issue is 

 shown the youngest Root or Rootlet of The 

 A. I. Root Co., Alan Irving Root, or A. I., 

 Second. He is the youngest son of the edi- 

 tor, who insisted that this baby should be 

 named after his grandfather; but a compro- 

 mise was finally effected l)y naming him Alan 

 Irving, retaining only the initial letters. 

 This young Rootlet, as his face shows, is a 

 happy little fellow, always greeting his fa- 

 ther with a characteristic smile when the lat- 

 ter goes home. On one of these occasions as 

 will be seen, I caught one of those smiles 

 with a camera. 



In a future issue I hope to introduce you 

 to some of the other grandchildren standing 

 alongside of a honey-plant that has made the 

 remarkable growth of 16 feet in one year. 



From a photographic standpoint the pic- 

 ture on the cover is a remarkable one. be- 

 cause it was taken on a dark cloudy day. I 

 was testing out my new auto gratlex cam- 

 era that will take instantaneous pictures 

 when other cameras would get little or noth- 

 ing. It was purchased for the purpose of il- 

 lustrating many l)ee sul)jects for these col- 

 umns, and this is one of the first pictures 

 taken. 



Mamma objected to having baby's picture 

 on the Gleanings cover, because she said 

 the baby's hair was all mussed up. Papa in- 

 sisted that the charac^teristic smile and muss- 

 ed-up hair, and the careless, playful attitude, 

 made "A. I.. Second," look more natural 

 than a fixed professional pose would have 

 done. 



SOME OHAUACTEKISTICS OF CAUCASIANS AS 

 W^E FIND THEM; REARING AND MAT- 

 ING QUEENS ON AN ISLAND. 



As our readers possibly know, Mr. I. T. 

 Shumard, of Osprey, Fla., is rearing for us 

 Caucasian queens from our imported Cauca- 

 sian, on Casey Island, oflf the west coast 

 of Florida. This island has been thoroughly 

 Caucasianized; and to insure a moi'e perfect 

 mating, the bees across on the main land, 

 some two or thi'ee miles distant, are also be- 

 ing C^aucasianized. From time to time Mr. 

 Shumard has been sending us some of these 

 queens. These we have been placing in our 

 home apiary to test out their characteristics 

 before we make a general business of selling 

 them. 



As previously reported, we find they are 

 very gentle, Init only slightly more so, if any, 

 than our select Italians. They ai'e slightly 

 more nervous when the hive is just opened, 

 appearing as if they w^ould offer attack. Ital- 

 ians, on tlie other hand, will usually show no 

 differeiK^e in their general actions, scarcely 

 showing a nervous movement. But the Cau- 

 casians apparently are not excited because 

 their owner has opened their hive, but be- 

 cause they are alert to tliscover robbers. 



The minute one poises on the wing, a Cau- 

 casian will jump at it, and lucky is Mr. Rob- 

 ber if he gets away without a rough-and- 

 tumble fight. The Caucasians are splendid 

 defenders of their homes — no question alxxit 

 that, at least judging from the strain we 

 have. This very trait would indicate that in 

 their native habitat they may be compelled 

 to put up a strong resistance against their 

 own race. At all events, the Caucasians in 

 our apiary seem to be the first ones to rob. 

 We have about thirty colonies of them, and. 

 before the Italians know w^hat is up, the C'au- 

 casians. which can readily he distinguished by 

 their color and markings, are ready to seize on 

 to the first sweets in sight. Our Mr. Wardell 

 reports that if there is any robl)ing going on it 

 often happens that there are nothing but Cau- 

 casians at it, notwithstanding there are aliout 

 ten times as many Italians in the apiary. 



They are active cell-ljuilders, and for queen- 

 breeding purposes they are better than Ital- 

 ians. 



They are excessive propolizers, chinking 

 wads of gum in the corners of the fx'ames al- 

 most as large as one's two thumlw. 



As to the amount of honey they will gather 

 as compared with Italians, they easily hold 

 their own. Indeed, some colonies of them 

 run a little ahead of the yellow bees. 



In color markings they are rather pretty. 

 Instead of having dirty, muddy, indistinct 

 rings like old-fashioned black bees, the rings 

 are quite a pronounced silver gray. The 

 bees as a whole do not look quite so brilliant 

 as Carniolans, as in this latter race the black 

 shows up with a sort of bluish cast, while 

 the Caucasians show somewhat of a tendency 

 toward In'own. Yet a person who is not 

 closely familiar with the characteristic mark- 

 ings of the two races would very easily con- 

 found one with the other. 



We have none of these Caucasians for sale 

 yet. for the bees are still on proliation. 

 Their roblnng and propolizing tendency may 

 make them undesirable. 



WHY A POWER-DKIVEN EXTRACTOR WILL 

 SECURE MORE HONEY THAN A HAND- 

 POWER OUTFIT. 



Elsewhere in this issue my brother de- 

 scril)es the use of a one-horse-power gaso- 

 line-engine for (.Iriving a honey-extractor at 

 one of the out-yards of Mr. E. D. Townsend. 

 There is one point that he did not cover: 

 namely, that a power-driven luai^hine will 

 secure more honey, and hence cleaner and 

 dryer comics. It was very clearly explained 

 to me by J. F. Mclntyre, of California, who, 

 at the time I visited him, was using a water- 

 motor to drive his extractor, that the reel of 

 his machine could revolve continuously un- 

 til it was time to put in another set of 

 combs. Not only that, it could be revolved 

 at a high speed, or as high as the combs 

 would stand without breaking. During this 

 continuous running he showed me that a fine 

 spray of honey would be fiying from the 

 combs, even though they were supposed to 

 be clean. The longer they were in the ex- 



