304. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



213 



Publishers who have been making 

 use of the old canard about "manu- 

 factured comb liuney" have been 

 brought to realize the fact that, even 

 if the bee is reported to have been 

 •■put out of business,'' there are yet a 

 number of bee-keepers in the country. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY. 



HE W. T. FALCONER MANFG. Co. 



PROPRIETORS. 

 H. E. HILL, - EDITOR, 



FORT PIERCE, FLA- 



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The accepted belief that queens 

 never mate but once, is being sub- 

 jected to questioning more or less 

 severe from various sources. It 

 is not altogether improbable that 

 Ave have yet something to learn 

 in regard to this point, hither- 

 to supposed to have been established as 

 a fact beyond question. 



Some breeders make a specialty of 

 supplying virgin queens for the trad6. 

 If these are from some certain stock 

 with which the buyer is acquainted 

 and satisfied, the plan may be satisfac- 

 tory; but a vin'gin queen affords no 

 means of testing the qualities of an 

 unknown race or strain. In fact, 

 where but one or two queens are to be 

 tested, nothing short of a selected, 

 tested mother affords any satisfactory 

 material from which to deteti'mine the 

 merits of the stock. If a virgin proves 

 worthless, it's easy for the breeder to 

 cliarge the fault to the male parent; 

 which, indeed, he might consistently 

 do. 



A Scarborough, N. Y.. correspondent 

 rites a very commendatccy letter in 

 'gard to The Bee-Keeper's edi- 

 )rial policy in general and recom- 

 lends strict adherence thereto in the 

 itm'e. It is gratifying to receive such 

 ersonal expressions of appreciation 

 nd approval, as well as to get cour- 

 'ous letters of criticism. They all help, 

 nd foe- this assistance our readers 

 ave our thanks. 



Notwithstanding the announcement, 

 upon several occasions, that the editor 

 of The Bee-Keeper has but one colony 

 of "Punic" bees, and has had these less 

 than a year, we have recently received 

 several urgent n'equests that we give 

 our personal opinion of these bees. To 

 all of these we can but repeat that our 

 personal experience is necessarily too 

 meagre to support any well defined 

 opinion. Opinions without some foun- 

 dation are worthless. The individual 

 colony in our possession this season 

 was the only one in an apiary of sixty 

 colonies that cast a swarm. They have 

 been active honey gatherers and have 

 been, under all circumstances, very 

 gentle and amiable. The queen is 

 more than ordinarily prolific. Read- 

 ers who are interested in the subject 

 are now in possession of all knowledge 

 in regard to "Pnnic'' bees that is at the 

 writer's command. Elsewhere in this 

 number of The Bee-Keeper, however, 

 Professor Benton gives his own 

 "opinion" and "experience," as opposed 

 to that of INIr. Hewitt which appeared 

 in these columns last month. 



I 



