THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



161 



things of beauty, and you will soon 

 cease howling about poor seasons, etc. 

 You bet they will. 



The IVJiite Mountain apiarist has 

 ceased to exist. How about that six- 

 teen hundred subscribers? It was pretty 

 hard for older bee-paper publishers to 

 believe that "1600 subscribers" story. 

 Bee-pipers do not grow quite as rapidly 

 as Bro. Eelenwood would have had us 

 believe. Whew ! 



Supply dealers, especially those who 

 make a specialty of queen rearing have 

 had a hard time this year. About two- 

 thirds of all the colonies in the country 

 that went into winter quarters in the 

 fall of 1891, died before June, 1892. A 

 good many dealers have not realized 

 enough to pay for the advertising. Wtll, 

 farmers liave tlieir off years, but the bee- 

 keepers seem to have them most too 

 often. We know it. 



Reports of the Punic bees are gener- 

 ally favorable. The Funics are, however, 

 like all others of the new races. They 

 have good as well as some bad ; or rath- 

 er, some objectionable characteristics. 



I find them a strong, prolific, and in- 

 dustrious race of bees. They do not 

 bite nor sting, as some reports say. All 

 Punic colonies in my apiary are uncom- 

 monly quiet and gentle. 



If our present strains of bees are to 

 be improved, it is actually necessary to 

 get the new blood from the latest im- 

 ported bees. That a fine and desira- 

 ble strain of bees can be bred from the 

 Punics I have not the least doubt. 

 With my experience in breeding these 

 bees, there has been a strong tendency 

 to yellow in the young progeny, both in 

 the bees and queens. This is a freak 

 I cannot account for. Father Lang- 

 stroth has an idea that the Italians 

 miglit have come from the Punics. I 

 am not sure they did not so originate, 

 as I have seen queens and drones reared 

 from imported Italian mothers that w'ere 

 as black as any Punic bees we now 



have. If Father Langstroth is correct in 

 his opinion, then there should be no 

 trouble in producing yellow bees from 

 the Punics. 



Now, Dr. Miller, if I succeed in get- 

 ting a strain of yellow bees from the 

 black Punics, what shall I call them ; 

 black, or yellow Punics? 



Just show me a strain of dark bees 

 that have any original yellow blood about 

 them, and I will soon produce beauti- 

 ful yellow or golden bees from them. 



Hope I have spoken tliis loud enough 

 to make Dr. Miller hear me. Don't be 

 afraid to try the Punics 



THE USES FOR HONEY. 



The extensive uses of sugar on fruit 

 is not as bad as the cake mania that 

 rages in so many kitchens, says the 

 Horticultural Times. The fruit acids 

 neutralize the indiscriminate and injudic- 

 ious use of sugar. It is no serious thing to 

 eat considerable saccliatine food in a 

 pure state, but not in the form of pure 

 refined sugar. It eaten and taken in 

 the form honey it at once becomes a 

 valuable medicine and food Instead 

 of having it given us in this form in a 

 mixture with bulk foods, as in the cane 

 and beet, we have it mingled with fruit 

 juices exuded from flowers highly 

 charged with medicinal properties in the 

 alchemy of nature and the apothecary 

 of the bee hive. The advantages of 

 honey as a medicine or food are too ex- 

 tensive to be considered at length here. 

 Honey taken as a food becomes a pow- 

 erful medicine to the sugar-fed and half 

 diseased, and many must begin on small 

 quantities and acquire an appetite for it. 

 Foul air, improper ventilation, coal gases, 

 together with the sudden change and 

 exposure of lungs and throats to zero 

 weather, or worse, in a moment, is the 

 source of no end of throat and bronchial 

 trouble. A free, regular, and constant 

 use of honey is, probably, the best med- 

 icine for throat trouble there is, and its 

 regular use would be largely corrective 

 here. It. is always best to take our med- 

 cine and food together. — Ex. 



