710 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



J^ovemier 10, 



brood, and the honey was all well ripened and matured. I 

 put it in oak barrels or kegs; I sent one keg to Mr. Lang- 

 stroth, and he pronounced it first-class in every respect. He 

 said in a letter to me that he had a couple of gentlemen from 

 Boston to dinner, and they made the remark that if they 

 could get such honey in Boston it would be worth 30 cents a 

 pound. It was candied hard, and as white as the driven snow. 



That was the season that my bees gathered honey by 

 moonlight. I had four large basswood trees right in the api- 

 ary, and the secretion of nectar was as profuse as it Is here in 

 Southern California in a favorable season. 



I made some six or seven other hives on the same plan, 

 containing 36 combs each, and made two long-idea hives on 

 the Adair principle; used Gallup frames in all. The Adair 

 principle did not work satisfactorily in any respect. That 

 was the time I hurrahed that I had a non-swarming hive. 

 The colonies did not swarm the second season, but all super- 

 seded their queens, and the third season they were the first 

 hives to cast swarms in the apiary, some 10 days ahead of the 

 12-frame hives, and the swarms were so large that I had to 

 use two and three story standard hives to put them in. 



Well, that was the season that I took 600 pounds from 

 that large colony in 30 days. It was the best continuous flow 

 of basswood honey I ever saw — I mean the first season I used 

 the large hives. I took 150 pounds of fall honey from that 

 same hive that season— 750 pounds in all. Do you wonder 

 that Gallup hurrahed ? It was all gathered by bees produced 

 by one single queen. 



Now, Mr. Cameron, what are you going to do about it, 

 anyway ? 



If I get the time I shall give my ideas about rearing large, 

 prolific, and long-lived queens and bees. Orange Co., Calif. 



Do Italians Bees Produce Better Honey ? 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



On page 646, Mr. Hart again gives me " Hail Columbia.' 

 I wish here to reiterate that what I have said was not said 

 with any feeling of disrespect towards Mr. Hart, nor have I 

 said anything that was designed to do him any injustice. If I 

 was so unfortunate in my choice and arrangement of words as 

 to leave the impression on his mind that I intended him any 

 wrong, I humbly beg his pardon. 



I will go farther, and say that I now believe that Mr. 

 Hart's question was askt in all honesty and sincerity, and 

 without any thought of " putting up a job" on the bee-keep- 

 ers. I did say in the beginning that it "lookt" as if Mr. 

 Hart might be doing this. This seems to be the head and 

 front of m\j offending. I will take that all back, and say that 

 I am satisfied that Mr. Hart askt this question solely with a 

 desire for information. 



Well, how much has he got up to date ? 



Let us look over the ground and see what has been 

 brought out since Mr. Volkert ventured the opinion that the 

 better quality of Italian honey is due to the greater activity 

 of Italian bees. 



But, first, let us have a restatement of Mr. Hart's ques- 

 tion. Mr. Hart wanted to know why Italian bees store a bet- 

 ter quality of honey than blacks and other bees, when all have 

 access to the same sources of supply. As I understood the 

 question, he wanted to know why Italians store a better 

 quality of honey than other bees when all have access to, and 

 all store from, the same sources of suuply, all would gather 

 from these same sources in about equal proportions according 

 to the number of bees engaged in the work. This I think was 

 Mr. Hart's idea, but I am not certain. On this point, and a 

 good many others, he seems able to speak for himself. 



Now for the new light which has dawned on the question. 



On page 595, C. P. Dadant expresses the opinion that the 

 better quality of the honey is due to the fact that the Italian 

 bees have " better developt olfactory nerves, and are there- 

 fore better able to select their food." In other words, the 

 honey of Italians is better because the bees gather from a 

 better class of flowers. If Mr. Hart's question did not have 

 the extended meaning which I supposed it had, then what Mr. 

 Dadant says is a fair answer to the question. If it did have 

 this extended meaning, then what Mr. Dadant says is no an- 

 swer at all. No one ever doubted or denied that Italian bees 

 would store a better quality of honey from white clover than 

 other bees would store from honey-dew and basswood and 

 buckwheat. But suppose that only one source of supply is 

 available at one time, or that bees gather from all sources 

 alike, what will be the difference then ? 



The closing sentences of Mr. Hart's last article betray the 

 fact that he is brimful of belligerency. It is therefore to be 

 supposed that he will continue the warfare until, Spaniard- 



like, his " honor" is satisfied. Then, perhaps, will come the 

 peace for which I plead in a former communication. In the 

 meantime let somebody come to the front and tell us why 

 Italian bees store better honey than other bees when all have 

 access to, and a;t store from, the same sources of supply. I 

 do not yet believe there is any difference that Is discoverable. 



Decatur Co., Iowa. 



CONDUCTBD BY 

 DR. O. O. AOXtBR, atAJtENGO, IXI,. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller dlrect.1 



The " Boil " that made Mr, Taylor " Sic." 



A correspondent writes : " ' Sic ' is a Latin adverb, mean- 

 ing ' so ; thus ; in like manner ;' but on page 612 of the Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal for Sept. 29, it seems to me to have been 

 used as many now use ' See ?' " 



I think Mr. Taylor is too accurate a writer to have used 

 the word "sic " with an unusual and really incorrect mean- 

 ing. In general, if not always, when used by English writers 

 in brackets, the word is used to call particular attention to an 

 inaccuracy of some kind. If, for example, I say that a man 

 of great literary pretensions wrote to me, " I will meat you at 

 the cars," the spelling of the third word in the quotation 

 might be corrected by the printer, or, if not corrected, the 

 hasty reader might not notice it, and the careful reader might 

 think it a mistake of the printer. To avoid anything of this 

 kind, it Is given, "I will meat [sic] you at the cars." That's 

 as much as to say, the word was written "thus," just as here 

 spelled. 



When I wrote, " I wish I knew what Mr. Taylor means by 

 that word " sic," I did not refer to the meanlug of the word, 

 but I wanted to know what there was wrong in what I had 

 said. If he referred to the word " boil," I think he was in 

 error, and If to something else, I'd like to know where I was 

 in error. 



I have faith in Mr. Taylor's desire to be an honest critic, 

 and when he has time for it he will say where my error was ; 

 and If the error was his, he will be more anxious to point it 

 out than to point out the errors of others. C. C. Miller. 



Making Nuclei and Moving to Colorado. 



I lately moved here with the intention of engaging in the 

 bee-business, but find it a poor country for bees. I have 20 

 colonies, and can't sell here for more tlian Si. 00 a colony. I 

 wish to remove to Colorado. Would it pay to purchase queens 

 and divide each colony into four or six nuclei, discarding all 

 the old bees and shipping about 10 nuclei boxes with say 40 

 or 60 nuclei, in the spring, and build them up in Colorado? 

 I have the dovetailed hive with Hoffman frames. There are 

 but a few days that bees are confined here during winter. 

 There are millions of flowers, but they don't appear to secrete 

 nectar, and the bees won't work in tlie sections, as the flow is 

 not continuous. Virginia. 



Answer. — I don't know. It might be a good investment, 

 and it might not. Perhaps it might be better to s,hip the col- 

 onies, and then increase after reaching destination. If you 

 break up all into nuclei, you'll find it slow work building up. 

 When you have bees and brood for only one or two frames 

 they seem to stand still for a long time, but when they get up 

 to about four frames of brood they push right along. So if 

 you want to go fast it's well to go a little slow at the start. 

 Instead of forming all your nuclei at the start, have only a 

 few at first, and then as fast as you get them built up start 

 more. 



^ I ■ 



Cellar Temperature — Putting in Bees. 



1. Would a temperature of 65^ be too warm for a cellar 

 to winter bees in ? 



2. Do you smoke the bees at the entrance a little when 

 you put them into the cellar ? MiCHiavN. 



Answers. — 1. I'm afraid it would. Possibly it m ght be 

 all right if you could have it perfectly dark and the air con- 



