252 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



every particle of this honey will be 

 scalded. 



ITALIAN BEES ; DIFFERENXE IN 

 THEIR WORKING QUALITIES. 



While the bees were working 

 smartly on the golden-rods and other 

 wild flowers, we took a notion to watch 

 them and make a note on the hives of 

 those that appeared to be doing best. 

 The colonies that worked the smart- 

 est were the pure golden Italians. 

 Such of these colonies as contained 

 queens that had purely marked bees, 

 both drones and workers, were the 

 ones selected for queen or _ drone 

 mothers the coming year. Some 

 Italian colonies that seemed rather 

 weak in numbers were the ones that 

 filled their hives first. Those were 

 marked extra workers. There is as 

 much difference in the working qual- 

 ities of pure Italians as there is be- 

 tween black bees and Italians. Pure 

 bred Itahans of the best working 

 strains will be a specialty at the Old 

 Bay State Apiary in the future. We 

 want no more Syrians, Cyprians, Car- 

 niolans nor hybrids of any kind in 

 our apiary. 



some peculiarities IN bees. 



One who takes an interest in his 

 apiary will notice some of the pecu- 

 liarities of the different colonies. On 

 some of our hives there are wire- cloth 

 honey-boards, or screens , which have 

 been on nearly all the season. While 

 some colonies stopped up every mesh 

 in the wire- cloth with propolis, there 

 are other colonies equally as large 

 that m.erely worked around the edges 

 where the wire is nailed to the wood. 

 Then I noticed that the colonies 

 that did not fill the wire-cloth 

 with propolis were the ones that 

 gathered the most honey. A good 

 deal of work must be done by the 

 bees in stopping solid a square foot 

 of wire-cloth with propolis. While 

 bees are spending their time doing 

 such v\^ork they cannot gather honey. 



other peculiarities we notice. 



Some colonies, especially the black 

 ones, were determined to stop up the 

 spaces between the top-bars of the 

 frames and between the honey-board 

 and top -bars, while other colonies, 

 even where the top-bars were one- 

 eighth of an inch narrower, would do 

 nothing of the kind. From some hives 

 the honey-boards may be removed 

 and not a bee will fly or attempt to 

 sting, and in other cases if it is re- 

 moved with great care a hundred 

 bees will be in your face in an instant. 

 We have one or two fine Italian col- 

 onies from which the combs can be 

 removed without smoke and the bees 

 will not sting. Right here, let me say 

 that, as a general rule, we do not con- 

 sider such colonies very valuable ; as 

 they are usually great swarmers and 

 the queens very prolific, yet will store 

 no section honey. This has always 

 been our experience with bees that 

 possess a gentle disposition. 



re-queening. 



During the last days of September 

 a large number of our colonies were 

 re-queened with some of the best 

 young queens we had reared the past 

 season. We are merely getting ready 

 to do an immense business in the sale 

 of queens in 18S7. 



There has been reared at the Bay 

 State apiary about 1500 queens the 

 past season. But four (4) queens 

 out of all that have been shipped 

 were reported impure. Less than 

 twenty-five queens died in the mails. 



Some of those w'ho received dead 

 queens gave their opinion and sug- 

 gested reasons why they died. Prob- 

 ably some of our friends do not know 

 that we have been shipping queens, 

 by mail, for twenty-five years and 

 would be likely to know as much 

 about it as any one who receives two 

 or three queens a year. Yet sugges- 

 tions and good advice are always wel- 

 come and kindly received by us. 



When two queens are put up the 



