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THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



AMERICAN APICULTURIST 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 

 Henry A-Uey, Wenh.am, IVIass 



Established in 1883. 



Subscription Price, 75cts. Per Year. 



Entered at the P. O. Wenham, Mass., as second class 

 mail matter. 



A WARNING. 



Do tlie beekeepers of this country, 

 who are introducing those five-banded, 

 bees and queens yellow clear-to-the-tip 

 realize what they are doing? Have 

 they forgotten the story of the fearful 

 loss of bees all through the west and 

 northwest in the winter and spring of 

 1892? Cannot they learn anytliing 

 from such costly and dearly bought ex- 

 perience? 



It seems not. The call still contin- 

 ues by many who order queens for 

 those five-banded bees. Now, friends, 

 I tell you frankly that sooner or later, 

 sooner most likely, your apiaries will be 

 depopulated and ruined, and you will 

 be ready to retire thoroughly disgusted 

 from the bee business ; your complaints 

 that "bees are doing nothing" will be 

 heard as long as you persist in intro- 

 ducing such a strain of bees as you are 

 pleased to call five-banded Italians. 

 Throw such worthless bees to the dogs, 

 and you will soon have reason to say, 

 "My bees wintered well and have stored 

 lots of honey." I tell you friends that 

 one queen such as the inexperienced 

 beekeeper calls a hybrid, is worth one 

 hundred of those beautiful, yellow clear- 

 to-the-tip queens whose bees are so 

 handsome. There is business in the 

 so-called hybrid queens. 



Well, are queens whose worker prog- 

 eny have all the way from one to three 

 yellow bands, impure? Most decidedly 

 T say, no. 



Did you ever get an imported queen 

 whose worker bees were marked with five 

 yellow bands, and whose daughters were 

 yellow clear to the tip ? Of course you 

 have not. Every queen that ever 



reached this country from Italy pro- 

 duced what are called hybrid bees. 



Five banded bees are produced by in- 

 breeding. Every experienced beekeeper 

 knows the deterioating effects of such a 

 method of propagation. In-breeding de- 

 stroys the constitution, vigor and all 

 that goes to make up the life of a well- 

 bred, hardy and vigorous animal. I 

 know of nothing in the animal or in- 

 sect kingdom that more thoroughly 

 illustrates the debilitating effects of in- 

 breeding as a colony of those five-band- 

 ed Italian bees.. They are too lazy 

 to sting or to resent an insult of any 

 kind ; they will not even keep out of 

 each other's way. 



True, these bees are handsome and 

 beautiful to look at. I want something 

 beside beauty to fill the bill for me, so 

 far as getting profit from an apiary. 



Give me beauty if it is not at the, ex- 

 pense of other qualities. 



Do our large honey producers boast 

 of having their hives stocked with five- 

 banded bees ? Did you ever hear any 

 one of them say he could show the 

 handsomest bees to be found in the 

 world? Does Mr. A. E. Manum of 

 Vermont, one of the largest honey pro- 

 ducers in the world, advertise queens 

 that will produce five-banded bees? 



I think his advertisement reads thus : 

 "Leather-colored queens for sale." He 

 says nothing about how the bees from 

 these queens will be marked. 



Don't you know that one of those 

 leather-colored queens are worth one 

 hundred of those yellow clear-to-the-tip 

 sort? They surely are. 



Why cannot our younger and small- 

 er apiarist profit by the experience 

 of the prominent and larger beekeep- 

 ers? 



In my experience in rearing Italian 

 queens, I have found that " breeding " 

 queens whose daughters were more or 

 less black at tlie tip, striped and leather- 

 colored produced the most reliable and 

 hardy, as well as the most superior 

 honey -gathering bees. The fact is that 

 such markings as black at tip, striped 

 and leather-color indicates hardiness and 



