1586 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



will at once go to wox"k and get up an orig- 

 inal carton, and have it just as you like it. 



To sum up, that is my whole contention. 

 There should be no stock carton. Every 

 apiarist should have a distinctive individual 

 design with a cut of his apiaxy on the back. 

 It is the comb honey in the markets without 

 label or carton that makes all this talk about 

 manufactured honey. It is the sheerest non- 

 sense to ti-y to annul the public impression 

 that there is manufactured comb honey. The 

 greater the impression the better for the 

 apiarist who puts ovit his honey under sanc- 

 tion of his own name and reliability. Every 

 purchaser of this known honey is the better 

 pleased the more he thinks he has escaped 

 the false. 



May the day come, and come soon, when 

 not one section or one bottle of honey shall 

 be offered anonymously in the market — ex- 

 cepting, of course, those who are ashamed 

 of their wares. In other words, the best is 

 not too good for the honey-bee and her prod- 

 ucts, nor for the one who purchases, studies, 

 or cares for either. 



Stamford, Conn. 



[Dr. Bigelow's points are well taken, espe- 

 cially his cxiticism of the ordinary stock 

 comb-honey cartons that are on the market. 

 Many cartons of special design have ah'eady 

 been made or are being made. A new one 

 shows a bee on the wing, carrying a section 

 of honey in a neat tasty carton. By another 

 year there will be other fancy cartons that 

 are suitable for extra fancy honey. There is 

 a fancy trade that does not consider price, 

 but demands something that will at least 

 compare favorably with the packages for 

 putting up pickles, sweet corn, and the like. 

 —Ed.] 



CAUCASIAN BEES. 



3fr. Beiiton'.s Trip Through Russia in 



Search of New Raoe^; How this Trip is 



Regarded by the Foreigners. 



BY A. E. TITOFF. 



With great interest and pleasure I read 

 the article about the visit of Mr. Benton to 

 Savoy, France, which was translated from 

 LMptcwY^c^^r by our esteemed friend "Sten- 

 og," and which was printed in Gleaning.s for 

 April 1. It was translated also into Russian. 

 The bee-keepers of the world are greatly in- 

 terested in the undertaking of Mr. Benton 

 along the line of securing the new races of 

 bees, and there are not a few remarks con- 

 cerning it in the European literature on bees. 

 The influence of his visit to the Caucasus 

 is also felt in Russian literature. As 

 the interests of the American bee-keepers are 

 at present connected with the Caucasian bees 

 I have decided to translate the article for 

 Gleanings, and to infoi'm you by this what 

 the foreigners are saying about Mr. Benton, 

 and also what they "think about Caucasian 

 and the other bees. The statement represents 

 an extract from the letter of Mr. K. A. Gor- 



bacheflf, TiHis, Caucasus, to the editor of the 

 new Russian bee-magazine, Mr. M. A. Der- 

 noff, which was printed by Mr. Dernoff in 

 his magazine, and is as follows: 



The well-known American apiculturist, Prof. Ben- 

 ton, was our guest in Caucasus. The aim of his com- 

 ing here was the study of the Caucasian bee, and he 

 visited all the chief bee-keeping regions of Eastern 

 and Western Transcaucasus and the places lying near 

 the boundary of Persia. Notwithstanding that, at 

 the present time, traveling in Caucasus is connected 

 with great difficulties and dangers. Prof. Benton, with 

 the bravery and energy inherent in the Americans, 

 and with the persistency of a Yankee, visited region 

 after region, buying Caucasian queens and sending 

 them, at times, to Switzerland to the apiaries of his 

 friends. From there they will be sent to America 

 next spring. Prof. Benton is enthusiastic over the 

 Caucasian race of bees, and predicts of them a bril- 

 liant future. 



The gentleness of Caucasian bees is well known, and 

 the bee-keepers of America have also heard of it; but 

 Prof. Benton was astonished at the gentleness of Ab- 

 hasian bees. He had the opportunity of becoming 

 closely acquainted with these bees in the apiary of 

 the Caucasian silk-cultural station, Tiflis, Caucasus, 

 and. according to the statement of Mr. N. P. Solavieff, 

 could not provoke the Abhasians, even after repeated- 

 ly teasing them. It is a fact that the Abhasian bees, 

 in respect to gentleness, astonish even the Caucasian 

 bee-keepers who are accustomed to work with the 

 gentle bees. As to our beauties, the red-banded Len- 

 coranian bees, they have not attracted the attention 

 of Mr. Benton as much as the Abhasians. He found 

 them to be cross, and precisely the same as the Ital- 

 ians. 



The Caucasian bees possess still another great ad- 

 vantage. It seems that their tongues are somewhat 

 longer than the tongues of the bees of Middle Europe. 

 So far as I know, Prof. G, A. Kozhevnicoff is studying 

 the subject, and has made some comparative measures 

 of the tongues of both the Caucasian and the Europe- 

 an bees, although their experiments are not complet- 

 ed yet, as Prof. Kozhevnicoff had not material enough 

 for them. Lately we hear, oftener and oftener, that 

 ■ the Caucasian bees in respect to the length of tongues, 

 do not stand below the so-called "clover " bees, which 

 are selected by the Americans. The bee-keepers of 

 Poland, who have queens from our apiary, informed 

 us that they were surprised to tind the Caucasian bees 

 gathering honey from the clover at the time when the 

 native bees were not seen on their plants at all. 



Every one who has bees in the mountainous regions 

 of the Alpine and the Sub-alpine belts, is well aware 

 of the fact that, in these regions, the flower of the 

 mint tribe, papilionoceans and compound plants, the 

 best honey-plants of the meadow, have their corollas 

 more developed than the same plants growing in mid 

 die Russia. In these mountainous regions are scat- 

 tered the apiaries of Abhasians and Lesgin in Dage- 

 stan (the names of the tribes of the people who have 

 been occupied with bee-keeping from time immemori- 

 al). The hypothesis that the bees of these locations, 

 owing to the splendid development of the corollas of 

 the flowers of honey-plants, must have longer tongues, 

 is well founded. We think that exact and more com- 

 plete experiments with Abhasian and Lesgiorian bees 

 will prove this supposition, which certainly has some 

 foundation. K. A. Gobbacheff. 



Los Angeles, Cal. 



READING BEE-JOURNALS. 



AMiy 



Even a Sncoessfnl Man Needs to 

 Stndv. 



BY HARVEY SMITH. 



"A man can not know too much about 

 his own business." Bee-keeping is a busi- 

 ness that is not learned in a day or a season. 

 We very seldom find a helping ai'ticle on the 

 subject in any paper or magazine, anil the 

 '•stuff" that is ])ublished in any other than 

 a bee-journal is mostly along the line of the 

 "comb-honey lie." It should not be a 

 question of affording to take a bee-journal, 



