134 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March 3, 



Italian puts the capping right close to the honey, and it has 

 the color of the honey, while the black leaves an air-space be- 

 tween, and it looks whiter. I have been buying bees for 20 

 years, and experimenting with thena. I have received queens 

 direct from Italy, and from the Isle of Cyprus, have tried dif- 

 ferent strains in this country, and I make it a rule to breed up 

 tny bees, and I can say, beyond any chance of being contra- 

 dicted, that the pure Italian is the best honey-gatherer ; and I 

 don't breed for size, either. I have some large bees that are 

 not worth anything, and I have some little bits of things that 

 will gather more honey than any large bees I ever saw. I look 

 for the most gentle bees — bees that I can take up in the frames 

 and carry into the house and not a bee move, aud I have done 

 it very often without a veil. The pure Italian bee you can 

 hardly alarm, while a black bee, the blacker it is the more 

 fussy it is. That is an experience everybody finds. In the fall 

 of the year, after a right dry season — like this fall, for In- 

 stance — I go to a hive, look in front, and I will say, "Hello, 

 these look pretty black ; I will bet they have no honey." Open 

 the hive, aud sure enough, they have hardly auy honey. It 

 is scattered all through the hive. There isn't a frame that is 

 full half way down to the bottom. Go to the next hive, and — 

 "These are pretty quiet, they look pretty nice." Opeu the 

 hive, and it is a fact, I can toll almost by looking at the front 

 what the inside of the hive will be. Year after year my expa- 

 rience Is, that we should do away with the hybrids as much 

 as possible ; get your stock as pure as you can. I don't care 

 how much you work with them, there will be hybrids all the 

 time. I will have a nice Italian colony here to-day, and prob- 

 ably two years from now it will bo almost black. I say, take 

 pure Italians, the purer the better, every lime. 



Dr. Besse — My experience is that the full-blooded Italians 

 are very pleasant to work with. Almost all of mine are full- 

 blooded Italians. I have some hybrids, and I must say that 

 they build whiter honey, when it is first Snisht up, than the 

 others, but if you keep it a few months the cappings will settle 

 down on the honey, and then you can see no difference at all ; 

 that is, if you keep it in a warm temperature, the cappings 

 will soon settle down and leave it the same color that the 

 Italian honey is. But when it is first taken out it is beautiful. 

 I have four or five colonies that are almost black, and I must 

 say I took from them this year the handsomest honey I ever 

 saw. It was almost as white as snow; but I noticed, before I 

 left home, that what I had not sold was changing and getting 

 darker in color. I think the black bees store just as good 

 honey as the Italians. And I must say this, that I got from a 

 hybrid colony more houey than I ever did before from any 

 colony, altho at least % of my bees are full-blooded Italians. 

 The Italians are much pleasanter to handle, but I think if you 

 will smoke the black bees enough you can conquer them. I 

 have blacks you can handle without any smoker at all. I never 

 use a bee-veil, and it is very seldom I get stung. But, in order 

 to be safe, I generally give them a little puff of smoke before 

 I go to work. 



Mr. Thompson — Which give you the most honey ? 



Dr. Besse — The most I ever got was from hybrids. The 

 most I got this year w as from hybrids. I took from one colony 

 of hybrids 2124 one-pound sections, all well filled, and the 

 whitest honey I ever saw. 



Mr. Thompson — It must have been a stronger colony than 

 the others. 



Dr. Besse — A stronger colony, and they didn't swarm. I 

 kept piling on the section-boxes. May be others, if I had 

 watcht them as closely, would have done as well. But they 

 got a start. 



Mr. Baxter — I would ask if Dr. Bpsse has noticed that 

 Italians will travel much farther for stores than the blacks. 



Dr. Besse — I think they will. I would see them further 

 from home. I don't know about the black bees. I don't keep 

 many blacks. My opinion is, from what I have heard and 

 read, that the Italians will go farther than the blacks will. 



Mr. Baxter related an instance which led him to believe" 

 that the Italians traveled farther than the blacks. 



Mr. Baldridge — I understood Mr. Baxter to say that the 

 blacks capt their honey so that it looks whiter right over the 

 houey. Is it true that all black bees do that? 



Mr. Baxter — That has been my observation. I don't know 

 whether it is generally so. 



Mr. Baldridge — That is not my experience. I think I have 

 seen lots and lots of honey that was capt by the Italians al- 

 most as nicely as the blacks. The Oatmans changed their 

 bees to Cyprians the time that Idea was prevailing, and they 

 had i, serious loss in the sale of their honey. They told me 

 they lost one or more cents a pound, and they got rid of that 

 blood as fast as they could. 



Mr. Green — This matter of the quality or, rather, the ap- 

 pearance of the honey, is a very serious matter. But I will 



agree with Mr. Baldridge, that it is not all strains of Italians 

 that will produce this watery-looking honey. Pure black bees 

 will cap their honey so that it has a chalky-white appearance, 

 and that continues with some of the darker hybrids, but we 

 can get the pure Italians that will cap honey almost the same 

 as the blalck bees, not to that chalky-whiteness, but practi- 

 cally just as nice. There are only a few strains of Italians, 

 and possibly none of the pure Italians, but those mixt with 

 Cyprians and Syrians, that put the capping down on the honey 

 aud make this watery appearance. I had a strain of bees I 

 had neglected breeding up for several years, and they got 

 badly mixt, but they produced practically just as nice honey as 

 the black bees. They were originally from Diolittle's strain. 

 There are other breeders in the country that have the same 

 strain, aud they can be obtained, or almost any body, I think, 

 could breed it up. 



Pres. Miller — Doesn't the flower that the honey is gathered 

 from have considerable to do with that watery-appearance of 

 the honey ? 



Mr. Thompson — No. 



Pres. Miller — It may have something to do with it, but 

 then the watery-appearance depends maiuly on the fullness of 

 the cell, and the different bees make that. I may say that I 

 hear and read with some degree of surprise, the so commonly 

 exprest opinion, that the Italians make so much darker combs 

 than the others. It comes from so many quarters I can't dis- 

 pute it, and yet thousands and thousands of pounds of honey 

 I have produced, with pure Italians and hybrids of all sorts, 

 and I have never had that fault to lay at the door of the Ital- 

 ians. I don't think they are all alike. I believe, if you are 

 trying to keep pure Italian stock, you will have fresh crosses 

 all the time; and the more distinct the cross, perhaps the 

 better will be the result. I think the best workers I have had 

 within the past two years are of that much despised stock, the 

 Funics; and this is Ijecause, I think, there was a very distinct 

 cross — they were not the pure stock. But they're bad about 

 gluing. If you want to sell propolis, get Punic bees. 



Mr. Baxter — I believe you practice moving your bees 

 around to different yards, do you not ? 



Pres. Miller — Yes, I take them out in the spring, and back 

 in the fall. 



Mr. Baxter — Have you ever noticed that that makes a big 

 difference in the amount of honey produced ? 



Pres. Miller — Decidedly. 



Mr. Baxter — I move an apiary to a certain place, and that 

 apiary will produce more honey than the same amount of bees 

 elsewhere. It isn't always in the bees alone. There are other 

 things to take into consideration. 



Pres. Miller — I have supposed that it was the pasturage. 



Mr. Baxter— I can't account for it in that way. 



Pres. Miller — I can hardly believe that the moving itself 

 would do it, because that is simply the shaking up. If that 

 would do it, all that you would need to do would be to go and 

 kick all of your hives. 



Mr. Baxter — I don't know but what that would be a 

 good idea. 



Mr. Baldridge — Do not bees get in the habit, if perma- 

 nently located, of going certain directions, and continuing to 

 go in certain directious, whereas, if moved to a new location, 

 they have to hunt their pasturage more, and find a greater 

 variety of pasturage ? Don't they follow each other, to a great 

 extent, in the old locations, and neglect some fields that may 

 be within reach of them ? 



Dr. Besse — My experience is, they find forage wherever it 

 is close by. Mr. Baxter says the Italians store richer and 

 better honey than the hybrids. I think the reason is, they 

 work very industriously on the common red clover, and you 

 won't see the hybrids or black bees working on the red clover 

 at all; and the red clover makes very tine honey, a rich- 

 flavored honey, aud a little darker than the other grade of 

 honey. [Continued next week.] 



Report of the Marylaud Bee-Conveutioa. 



BT W. J. VALENTINE. 



The bee-keepers met in Hagerstown, Md., to organize a 

 bee-keepers' association. The meeting was called to order by 

 S. Valentine, who was elected chairman of the meeting, and 

 W. J. Valentine was elected Recording Secretary. 



S. Valentine stated the object of the meeting. In his 

 opinion the time bad come for the bee-keepers to have a 

 union as much as any other industry; that apiculture is no 

 longer a secondary business, but that it had grown to be a 

 industry of itself ; that bee-keeping of to-day is not what it 

 was 50 or 25 years ago ; apiculture had developt into a 

 science. He who expects to be a successful bee-keeper must 



