June, 1909. 



American Hee Journal 



large side, you will get along very well. 

 I never used any other kind of uncap- 

 ping cans until my annual output was far 

 above 20,000 pounds. 



As to straining, I have used a very 

 thin cloth, on the order of a bolting 

 cloth, for the purpose. I make a hoop 

 just a little larger than the top of a lard 

 can, as above mentioned, and sew the 

 cloth to the hoop, not too taut. Leave 

 it loose enough so that it will sag about 

 an inch or so in the middle. This strain- 

 er fits over the entire top of the can, 

 and the honey is surely strained when 

 run through it. I strained over 20,000 

 pounds thus, last season. I mount the 

 extractor and run the honey direct from 

 the gate of the extractor through the 



strainer and into the can. A person 

 will get along very well with these 

 strainers, if he had 2 or 3 of them, and 

 with frequent washing them in a tub 

 of water. 



Should you try the cloth strainer, be 

 sure to get a very hard-spun thread, for 

 honey will not run through cloth made 

 from fluffy-spun thread. A better strain- 

 er can be had by having your tinner 

 make you one from very finely perfor- 

 ated tin, with holes about 1-64 in. in di- 

 ameter, or the size of a common needle 

 or an ordinary pin. 



To fill jars with the honey, clean up 

 the extractor, mount it, and pour it full 

 of honey, and fill jars at the gate. 



Bartlett, Tex. T. P. Robinson. 



Non-Swarming Bees 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



There is a discussion of this question 

 going on in the bee-papers. In Glean- 

 ings for May ist, Dr. C. C. Miller cites 

 Editor Kramer of the Swiss Bee Jour- 

 nal, as saying that the swarming pro- 

 pensity has been worked out of their 

 strain of bees, in Switzerland, by selec- 

 tion among their native race, but that 

 the Americans can never succeed much 

 in this line "with the hot-blooded Ital- 

 ians." Editor Root did me the honor 

 to ask my opinion in the matter, and 

 I at once replied, stating that I thought 

 the fault was not with the race. Since 

 writing that article I have given the 

 matter some thought, and it struck me 

 that it would be advisable to make an 

 enquiry into the opinion of the leaders as 

 to the comparative tendency of each 

 race of bees to swarm, so that we might 

 ascertain whether one race is positively 

 more prone to swarm than other races, 

 and, if so, which race it is. 



Personally, I have had a long experi- 

 ence with both common bees and pure 

 Italians, as also with all grades of hy- 

 brids of these two races. Vve have verj 

 few swarms, owing to our management, 

 but I cannot say that I ever noticed 

 any difference between one race and the 

 other, prolificness and management be- 

 ing equal. However, the opinion of the 

 experienced writers ought to settle the 

 matter. 



Cheshire thinks the common bees 

 "swarm less than the yellow races and 

 adopt sections more readily." But on 

 the other hand he hopes that by se- 

 lection we may secure for them the 

 "greater coolness and fecundity of the 

 Italian." He speaks of the Carniolan 

 as "prolific and industrious, gathers 

 honey in large amount, but it is a free 

 swarmcr." 



Cowan, the other leading writer 



among the English authors, states that 

 the Italian "increases more rapidly, is 

 ready for swarming earlier and gath- 

 ers honey from plants which are not 

 frequented by the blacks." Concern- 

 ing the Carniolan he says that "their 

 principal failing is a propensity for ex- 

 cessive swarming." 



Dzierzon, who was perhaps the most 

 judicious and attentive observer among 

 apiarists .during the Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury, and who cultivated several dif- 

 ferent races, reports that the "Carnio- 

 lan has great propensity to swarm," and 

 that "even the common black or Ger- 

 man bee may be divided into a honey- 

 bee and a swarming-bee. The latter, 

 which is also called the heath bee, 

 in consequence of the management 

 adopted, swarms continually." 



Among the French writers, De Lay- 

 ens and Bonnier make no statement 

 concerning the relative virtues of the 

 Italian and common bees in swarming 

 propensities, but they assert that "the 

 Carniolan bees are very much disposed 

 towards natural swarming, even when 

 they are kept in very large hives." 



Bertrand, in the southwestern part 

 of Switzerland, has nothing to say of 

 the Italians, but says that the Carniolans 

 swarm much ("essaimcnt bcauc(iiip" ). 



In our own country, Quinby, one of 

 the first to handle Italians on a large 

 scale, says, "They begin to swarm 3 

 weeks before the natives, but gather 

 pollen and rear brood with thrice the 

 energy of the natives." He had not 

 tried the Carniolans. 



Hutchinson says that "the Carniolans 

 have a tendency to spend tlicir ener- 

 gies in breeding and swarming," but 

 that "in each race there are strains 

 showing different traits." This expres- 

 sion of opinion is confirmed, in a pri- 

 vate letter to me, by Dr. C. C. Miller, 

 in which he says that there are decided- 

 ly some strains in each race that have a 



greater propensity for swarming. This 

 from his own experience. 



E. R. Root's opinion, expressed in 

 the "A B C and X Y Z of Bee-Cul- 

 ture," concerns only the Carniolans, and 

 describes them as "excessive swarm- 

 ers." Mr. Root, in his comment of 

 this question, in Gleanings of May ist, 

 shows that he does not believe the ex- 

 cessive tendency to swarm is a trait of 

 the Italians. 



G. M. Doolittle, in a private letter to 

 me, also picks out the Carniolan as the 

 most prone to swarm above any other 

 races, "especially," he says, "out of sea- 

 son, near the close of the white hon- 

 ey flow and between that and the fall 

 flow." In his experience, taking the 

 Golden Italians as the least inclined to 

 swarm of any bees he has experience 

 with, they grade as follows: Dark Itali- 

 ans, blacks, hybrids of these two races, 

 Syrians, Caucasians, Cyprians, Carnio- 

 lans, all other conditions being equal. 



But here comes another writer who 

 explains the cause of the excessive 

 swarming of the Carniolans. Frank 

 Benton, in his pamphlet, "The Honey- 

 Bee," published by the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in 1S99, says: 



"They (the Carniolans) are quite pro- 

 lific, and if kept in small hives, such 

 as have been popularized of late in the 

 U. S., are somewhat more inclined to 

 swarm than the other races introduced 

 here. This tendency becomes more pro- 

 nounced when they are taken into a 

 country whose summers are hot, like 

 ours, and their hives are not well shad- 

 ed, as they have been bred for centur- 

 ies, with only slight introduction of 

 outside blood, in a climate where the 

 summers are short and cool. More- 

 over, the practice in Carniola is to 

 place the long, shallow hives used al- 

 most exclusively there, in bee-houses, 

 and side by side, one above the other, 

 with intervening air-spaces, so that at 

 most only the front ends are exposed to 

 the sun. This management, long-con- 

 tinued, has doubtless tended to develop 

 and fi.x more or less permanently in this 

 race certain characteristics which should 

 be taken into account in their manage- 

 ment elsewhere." 



Mr. Benton has traveled probably 

 more than any other apiarist, in the in- 

 terest of bee-culture, and is therefore 

 an authority on the races. The foreign 

 authors I have quoted will also aid us 

 in taking a general view of the subject 

 which will be devoid of the partiality 

 which any one of us is more or less im- 

 bued with, on account of judging en- 

 tirely from local conditions. It is evi- 

 dent that we are not all agreed on 

 these matters. Many of my readers 

 who have experiences of their own 

 with races of varying purity probably 

 have also personal opinions on the point. 

 Enough has been said, however, to con- 

 vince any disinterested person that the 

 matter of prevention of swarming does 

 not depend upon any one race of bees. 



Mr. Ed. Bertrand, of Switzerland, who 

 like many others of the Swiss apiar- 

 ists, does not find in the Italian 'ices 

 as eminent qualities as we ascrili- to 

 this race, has ventured the opinion 

 that each country possesses the race of 

 bees which suits that country best. This 

 is in line with the Darwinian idea of 



