174 



THE A MERICAN A PICULTURIS T. 



screen I know that it is a great advan- 

 tage to the colony during tlie winter. 

 By this entire arrangement there is a 

 good circulation of air in the brood- 

 chamber, ^-et no draft of air through the 

 combs. 



The hives in the Bay State apiary are 

 nearly all of the thin double-wall style, 

 and all the bees are wintered on the sum- 

 mer stands. 



E. F. QniGi-KY says that the way to se- 

 cure the mating of queens with choice 

 drones, when the apiary is not isolated, is 

 to phice the choice drones around tlie 

 apiary in all directions from one-fourtli to 

 one-lialf mile from the main apiary. He 

 put some virgin Italian queens in a black 

 apiary one-fourth mile away from his Ital- 

 ian apiary. Queens reared in the Italian 

 apiary were all niismated while nine out 

 of ten talien to the black apiary were 

 purely mated. He says that the reason 

 wliy there is so much complaint about the 

 young queens from 'flve-banded" queens 

 not producing tive-biuided bees is that 

 these young queens seldom mate with the 

 drones in the home apiary. 



The above does not agree with my 

 experience in rearing qu'eens. Here is 

 the result of one experiment tested in 

 one of the Bay State queen-rearing yards. 

 I did not have as many straight Italian 

 drones early in the spring of 1891 as 

 there should have been to fertilize my 

 y^ung queens promptly. I had at that 

 time a fine Albino queen from the apiary 

 of Dr. G. L. Tinker and thousands of 

 her drones. I took a lot of the Albino 

 drones and placed them in the yard 

 with the Italian queens. The Italian 

 drones were at the south end of the 

 yard and the Albino drones at the north 

 end, say, about 3000 feet apart. When 

 the brood began to hatch from the 

 young queens, I found that all the queens 

 nearest the Albino drones, had mated 

 to them, while those nearest the Itali ;n 

 hive had mated to the Italian drones. 

 Now I have often stated in the Api that 

 neither queens nor drones go any farther 



from the hive when on the mating tour 

 than is actually necessary in order to 

 meet eacli other. The above experi- 

 ment certainly verifies my opinion on this 

 point. 



The opinions of some beekeepers 

 that queens fly from one to three or 

 more miles to mate is all wrong. 'Tis 

 contrary to nature for them to do so. 



Brother Quigley is wrong in suppos- 

 ing that the reason why some of those 

 young five banded queens do not pro- 

 duce five-banded bees is because they 

 go to some distant apiary and meet im- 

 pure drones. The fact is, Bro. Q., there 

 is not any fixed purity about the five- • 

 banded bees. I have found in breed- 

 ing them that many of the young queens 

 prove to be only ''hybrids" when mated 

 to five- banded drones. I have also 

 found that there is no half way about 

 the markings of five banded bees. They 

 are either very beautiful or inferior hy- 

 brids. 



I mean by the half way markings that 

 no queen produces three-banded bees 

 as straight Italians do. The five banded 

 bees are only a freak anyway. 



Bro. Alley complains because I said that 

 I saw no good accounts of the Tunisians 

 (or Panics as they have been called) ex- 

 cept those coming from interested parties. 

 He calls my attention to a favorable report 

 appealing in Gleanings of Aug. 1, from 

 Mr. I. N. Moore, of California. I would 

 say in explanation that when that issue of 

 Gleanings came to hand the "Extracted" 

 department of the last Review was al- 

 ready in print. I have no pet race of bees 

 to boom, and if the Tunisians have any de- 

 sirable qualities no one is more willing 

 than myself that the fact shall be known. 

 — W. Z. Hutchinson in Eevieio. 



I did not know that I had ever com- 

 plained that any one had been unfair, 

 in speaking of 'Tunisian" bees. I nev- 

 er saw a bee of the "Tunisian" race, 

 and I do not believe Brother Hutchin- 

 son ever did. I do not believe anv 



