THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Beautiful Bees. 



J. "W. WHITE. 



" I do not breed bees for beauty, 

 but for business." '' I do not care for 

 bands, but for honey." " Tlie bees 

 which gather most lioney are tlie bees 

 which look tlie prettiest." How many 

 songs of this kind are sung and caught 

 up and repeated !ill over the land, un- 

 til the uninitiated would think that 

 there must be some inherent weak- 

 ness in beauty, and some peculiar 

 virtue in uncomeliness. Is it true V 



The all-wise Creator has given us a 

 sense of the beautiful, and he ever 

 seeks to gratify it in ten thousand 

 ways. He has also given us a more 

 or less clear perception that the beau- 

 tiful and useful are in some way very 

 closely related. Who, in beholding 

 beautiful homes and lawns, beautiful 

 farms and gardens, beautiful horses 

 and cattle, beautiful fruits and grain, 

 beautiful implements and machinery, 

 and, not to add more, beautiful bees 

 and lioney, does not feel some gratifi- 

 cation, and does not believe that in 

 some way, excellent qualities are, or 

 should be, embodied in their beautiful 

 forms ? Why do people pay more for 

 honey put up in neat packages than in 

 uncohiely ones ? Is it not because 

 they know tliat the good and the use- 

 ful are closely related. 



For this reason I am in favor of 

 beautiful bees, beautiful in form and 

 beautiful in color. 



BEAUTIFUL IN FORM. 



This is the lirst and most important 

 factor of beauty in bees, as it is of 

 their use. Agility or rapidity of mo- 

 tion in tlie animai kingdom, in birds, 

 beasts, fishes and insects, is found, in 

 a corresponding form, graceful, long 

 and tapering. The Italian bees are 

 just as much superior to the blacks as 

 their form is more beautiful. In look- 

 ing over some old volumes of the Bee 

 JouiiNAL this morning, I found in 

 vol. IV., page .57, the following from 

 the pen of Charles Dadaiit : 



"All (Italians) are alike in all hives, 



all have three yellow bands and, 



above all, an alidoinen more tapered — 

 a body more slender, giving them a 

 more graceful shape and brisker ap- 

 pearance than those of our would-V)e 

 improved bees. As it is above all 

 in tlie slinx>e of Hie body of the workers, 

 that their superioritij over the black bees 

 resides, we must adhere especially to the 

 sh<n)c of the Italian bees.'''' 



The italics are Dadant's. Has not 

 this iwint been lost sight of toomucli, 

 and in the effort to raise many queens 

 for the market, has not beauty, and 

 hence superiority, been sacrificed in 

 many cases to numbers ? Long, slen- 

 der, tapering queens and workers are 

 the most beautiful bees, and they are 

 the best. 



BEAUTIFUL IK COLOR. 



Form should never be sacrificed for 

 color, nor is it necessary. Can we not 

 have the best qualities, not only in 

 the prettiest forms, but also in the 

 brigtitest colors ? There is no law of 

 necessity by which they can be di- 



vorced. The best fruits have the 

 richest bloom. The best cattle may 

 have the prettiest marks. The brigliter 

 color, as well as prettier form of the 

 Italian bees, is the signal and promise 

 of their superiiu" qualities. When 

 tliey are kept perfectly pure in the 

 clear, bright atiuosi)liere of America, 

 they grow into l)riglUer colors, and, if 

 they retain tiieir perfect form, are as 

 good honey gatherers as the newly 

 imported Italians, or even better. Is 

 it not possible that a good deal of the 

 contempt for liglit-colored bees has 

 arisen from prejudice, or something 

 worse ? In most places, owing to more 

 or less admixture of black blood, it is 

 a good deal easier to raise dark or 

 leather-colored Italians than it is to 

 raise queens which will produce light, 

 three-banded workers. The first Ital- 

 ian queens I ever had, I bought from 

 Langstroth, tjuiuby and Gary. They 

 were all warranted to ju-oduce three- 

 banded workers, and they did it. 



In 16 years' experience, I have 

 found that the bright Italians, as a 

 rule, are in no way inferior to the 

 darker ones. This last summer I gave 

 special attention to this, and found 

 that my liglitest-colored bees are the 

 very best workers I have. As I saw 

 in the papers so much about superior 

 colonies of tlie dark Italians, I sent 

 to a number of the most reliable and 

 widely-known men who offered queens 

 for sale. It cost something, but I got 

 my money back, if not in better bees 

 — in a betterknowledgeof what others 

 are doing. 



If these dark-colored Italians have 

 not some black blood in them, their 

 looks and tlieir manners belie them. 

 Possibly their mother, or their grand- 

 mothers had a taint of black blood in 

 tliem before they left Europe. They 

 may Ije good hoiiey gatherers — so are 

 the hybrids. A pure Italian queen 

 which has mated with a blade drone, 

 the kind I had bJ years ago, will pro- 

 duce good workers, and tlie queens 

 raised from her will be large and pro- 

 lific, and tlieir workers very energetic 

 and industrious. But as yet, I have 

 found nothing which pleases me so 

 well as beautiful Italians — beautiful 

 ill both form and color. 



One jioiiit more : Bees, as every- 

 thing else, have their normal size. 

 All "queens under the normal size 

 should be rejected, at least they should 

 never be used to breed from. It may 

 produce no apparent change to breed 

 from small queens for one or two gen- 

 erations, but if persevered in, it may 

 produce dwarfed bees. 



When I first commenced raising 

 queens, I had some quite small ones ; 

 some of them did well, and some of 

 them laid small eggs, and their bees 

 wlien they lirst came out of the cell, 

 were too small. There isdangerhere. 

 In all the queens I have bought for 

 yeai's from different jiarties, there was 

 only one or two which were not below 

 the normal size. 



As the result of all my experience 

 and observations, I say "in all sincer- 

 ity, let others have what they will, 

 but give me the long, tapering, three- 

 banded Italians, and if they have been 

 long enough in this country to become 

 naturalized, and to hang out the 



American colors, so much the better. 

 A bright and beautiful bee is the bee 

 for me, the bee for honey, and the bee 

 for money. 

 Milroy, Pa.,Dec. 1.5, 1881. 



For the Americ;*a Bee JoumaL 



Handling Bees Without Protection. 



AV3I. F. CLARKE. 



I have just been reading a bit of 

 Mrs. Harrison's experience in bee 

 manipulation, as narrated in the Prai- 

 rie Farmer oi I>ec. 17, and enjoyed a 

 hearty laugh over it. Her ladyship 

 was in such a hurry to try " Hill's 

 Devices" for successful wintering, 

 tliat, to use her own words, "we for- 

 got to put on our wire liat and gloves, 

 until reminded of them by receiving 

 a sting on the nose, another on the 

 cheek, and a bracelet of them around 

 our wrists. Although we were desti- 

 tute of an audience, we expressed our 

 mind pretty freely with reference to 

 those who advise working with bees 

 without any protection. After deliv- 

 ering this " essay we retired to the 

 hinise, ]ialled out the stings, and. don- 

 ning wire hat and gloves, went out 

 again to the apiary a much smarter 

 though sadder woman." The above 

 woul'_! read better to my notion, if " I " 

 and " my " had been used instead of 

 " we " and "our." jSJot only so, but 

 we could then concentrate all our sym- 

 pathy on one sufferer. I wish I bad 

 been the audience to have heard that 

 piece of Mrs. H's mind which she de- 

 livered so freely in regard to those 

 who advise working among bees with- 

 out any protection. But I add my 

 " Anieii " to it all the same, that is if 

 she didn't say anything stronger than 

 " drat-em," or "cbnfound-em." which, 

 of course, being a lady, may be taken 

 for granted. Still, if she felt like the 

 school- girl who wished she were a boy 

 just for a little while, when she 

 dropped her school-books in the mud, 

 I should not be disposed to blame her 

 very severely. 



Very absurd things are sometimes 

 said by bee-keepers of high standing 

 about the use of veils and gloves, and 

 the idea is often conveyed that, hav- 

 ing recourse to them, is proof positive 

 of want of certain qualities essential 

 to apiarian eminence. I wish this 

 class of bee-keepers, as well as my- 

 self, had heard Mrs. Harrison's im- 

 promptu remarks on the occasion in 

 question. Judge M, an old friend of 

 mine, and an enthusiastic amateur 

 bee-keeper, was one of those who 

 would have been " hit hard " by Mrs. 

 Harrison, if he had been within hear- 

 ing of her cursory remarks. But he 

 was converted a long time ago by a 

 bit of personal experience. It was a 

 favorite pastime of liis to poke fun at 

 me for using a veil and gloves, but 

 one day he called on me and said : 

 " I have come to own up ; yes. I con- 

 fess tlie corn. After this, I shall 

 wear a veil and gloves in handling 

 bees." He then went on to relate, 

 that, the day before, be was taking an 

 after-dinner look at his apiary, when, 

 by some mischance, bis foot slipped, 

 I and he fell heavily against a hive of 



