454 



THE AMERICA!^ BEE JOURNAL, 



make bee-keeping pay. Well, there 

 is more money in bees for the same 

 amount invested than anything else in 

 the world." O, blissful ignorance ! I 

 have tried it and know that it my 

 health would admit I could make 

 more chopping cord-wood, peeling 

 tan-bark, hewing railroad ties, or any 

 branch of farming. And bee-keeping 

 is no easy work either ; but there is 

 one thing about it for one iu poor 

 health, the work, with the exception 

 of marketing honey, is all at home ; 

 but to the one who intends to start 

 in bee-keeping to get rid of work, let 

 me say, do not start at all ; it is the 

 most weary, watching occupation of 

 any I ever tried. Making maple sugar 

 in the backwoods, and carrying sap 

 by hand, is fun by the side of bee- 

 keeping. Only for experimenting I 

 should have quit before this; as it is, 

 I keep only a few colonies. The 

 poison left in the system by the stings 

 of the bees, I am satisfied sow seed 

 for many diseases, especially of the 

 nerves. 



Two years ago a neighbor called on 

 me one evening accompanied by his 

 wife, and said : " My wife wants me 

 to purchase some bees, and has per- 

 suaded me to come and see you as to 

 how the business pays. " This man 

 was a blacksmith by trade, and I 

 quickly answered, " It will not pay 

 you." He seemed greatly surprised 

 until I explained that the grim and 

 dirt necessary to his occupation the 

 bees would not like, and his customers 

 would not like to wait for him to 

 attend the bees, either, when they 

 were in a hurry. He concluded that 

 he did not want any bees.; 



MAIIKETING HONEY. 



One of the greatest curses upon 

 bee-keeping is the holding of honey 

 by some until fall or spring. I went 

 to market with my first lot of honey 

 on June 20, and had hard work to 

 dispose of it on account of so much 

 old honey. Now it might just as well 

 be shoved through as to keep the 

 market full of old honey, and one 

 year's product putting a curse on the 

 next. 



Some prefer a few sections in a 

 case well Blled with honey, instead of 

 a case full of sections half-filled with 

 comb; I will take the latter every 

 time, two to one, tor early honey the 

 next season. 



In my article on page 408, third 

 column, and in the ninth and tenth 

 lines, it should read '" an easy prey 

 for uorms," instead of " for swarms." 



Lockwood,9 jS. Y. 



New York World. 



Descrintion of the Carniolan Bees, 



niANK BENTON. 



The bees of Carniola are noted for 

 their great gentleness. They only 

 rarely resent manipulation, and need 

 very little smoke to subjugate them. 

 It might be thought that they were 

 lacking in pronounced qualities, but 

 on the other hand, they show decided 

 traits peculiar to themselves and ac- 

 companied by distinctive markings. 



and are therefore as justly entitled as 

 any bees found in Europe to be called 

 an established race. 



The typical, select Carniolan queen 

 has a deep copper or bronze-colored 

 abdomen, thorax thickly set with gray 

 fuzz, large, strong wings and a large, 

 stout-looking body. Carniolan queens 

 are larger, on the average, than those 

 of any other race, having especially 

 broad abdomens. Some queens are 

 quite dark, even attaining with age a 

 shining Jet color. Such queens, 

 though themselves resembling queens 

 of the common race, do not produce 

 bees in any way inferior to other Car- 

 niolan queens. Also pure Carniolan 

 queens are occasionally met with 

 which are as yellow as Italians; yet 

 they invariably produce workers and 

 drones which are distinctively Carnio- 

 lan. 



In all parts of Carniola some queens 

 are found which produce bees having 

 the first segment of the abdomen 

 somewhat rusty-red in color, and they 

 are as often seen among the finest and 

 most prolific queens as among those 

 of any other grade. Nevertheless, 

 variation in color and quality is less 

 with Carniolans in their native land 

 than with Italians iu Italy. Yellow 

 workers are not found in Carniola, 

 while black bees— natives, too, are not 

 imported— exist in Italy. The re- 

 markable size and general bronze 

 color of Carniolan queens, in contrast 

 with the grayness of their progeny, 

 make it easy to find them on the 

 combs. They are exceedingly prolific, 

 and herein lies one of the very valu- 

 able qualities of this race. 



The drones are veritable " gray- 

 coats," and stout, active fellows, hav- 

 ing especially large wings. 



Carniolan workers are silver-gray in 

 color, large-bodied and strong- winged. 

 The thick fuzz of the abdomen is dis- 

 posed in light-colored bands, and as 

 dark drab is the ground color of the 

 bee the effect is a decidedly ringed 

 appearance. 



The following are the good qualities 

 of the Carniolans : 1. The race is a 

 prolific, well-established one. 2. The 

 workers are gentler than any other 

 bees. 3. They submit more readily 

 than other bees upon the application 

 of a small amount of smoke. 4. They 

 are excellent comb-builder§, and their 

 sealed combs are of snowy whiteness. 

 5. They gather very little propolis. 6. 

 Colonies in a normal condition are 

 vigorous defenders of their hives. 

 The workers are the largest bees of 

 the species Apis vuUfica, and their in- 

 dividual strength is greater than of 

 other honey-bees. 7. Carniolans clus- 

 ter very compactly and quietly, and 

 winter remarkably well. 8. Queens, 

 workers and drones are more beautiful 

 than those of common bees. 



Their faults are, sofaraslknow : 1. 

 When made queenless they are thrown 

 into great excitement and neglect at 

 first to defend their hives well. 2. 

 They are slightly more disposed to 

 rob during honey-dearths, than are 

 Italians, though far less troublesome 

 in this respect than blacks, or Italians 

 crossed with blacks. 



Some might be disposed to bring up 

 as a grave fault the disposition which 



Carniolans frequently show to cast 

 numerous swarms. 1 believe this dis- 

 position in any race depends almost 

 entirely upon the prolificness of the 

 queens ; in fact it is, with all races, 

 greater in proportion as the queens 

 are prolific. Prolificness in queens is 

 the bee-keeper's corner-stone. Swarm- 

 ing is nature's escape for the surplus 

 strength of the colony, and the bee- 

 master has but to direct this force. 

 Whoever cannot do this, is not a mas- 

 ter in the art. This, to some, seem- 

 ingly " bad trait " is preferable, there- 

 fore, to one of the most indispensable 

 qualities— prolificness of queens — and 

 is implied and properly included under 

 the seventh point above. 



It has been objected by people who 

 claimed to have some knowledge of 

 bee-keeping, and even to know a good 

 deal about foreign races, that •' they 

 could not tell Carniolans from com- 

 mon bees." Such persons will find 

 there is still something for them to 

 learn. A number of writers have 

 said that they could not be distin- 

 guished from the black bees only by 

 an expert. This is not true ot the 

 ones I have seen. There is very near- 

 ly as much diflerence between them 

 and " blacks " as there is between 

 them and the Italians, and we think 

 any child twelve years old would be 

 made to see this as soon as its atten- 

 tion was called to it. 



Even if this objection were sustain- 

 able it could not be regarded as a very 

 grave fault. Color is quite a second- 

 ary matter as compared with qualities, 

 and as regards the latter, I am satis- 

 fied the Carniolans are superior to all 

 other European races of bees. 



Munich, Germany. 



For the American Bee JoumflL 



Apiculture aud Political Ecouoiuy, 



W3I. CAMM. 



I was both surprised and disappoint- 

 ed in reading the answers to the query 

 about taxing bees, on page 404. I had 

 formed the opinion that bee-keepers, 

 as a class, were above the average in 

 general intelligence and in extracting 

 ideas out of printer's ink; yet here 

 are the "doctors" of the profession 

 answering a question that connects 

 their calling with all others, or with 

 political economy, and answering it in 

 total ignorance of the greatest revolu- 

 tion the world has ever known, in ig- 

 norance of the simplest fundamental 

 principles which are fast becoming 

 known and understood by thousands 

 every day here in our own country. 



It is hardly surprising that Messrs. 

 Pond and Demaree should answer as 

 they have done ; for ihey belong also 

 to the legal profession which walks 

 backward and judges of everything 

 by precedents and examples of the 

 past. Mr. Heddon's talk about bees 

 being degraded property because they 

 are not taxed everywhere, reminds 

 one of a young wife in one of the 

 Danubian principalities, where it wiis 

 the custom for husbands to exhibit 

 their affection by beating their wives, 

 and this young woman was crying be- 



