278. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



eggs, but causes a complete develop- 

 mei)t of the generative organs. The 

 ovaries enlarge, the S|)erniatheca per- 

 forms its olHce of fecundating tlie 

 passing ovum at will. The ovarian 

 ganglion retains a healthy appear- 

 ance. In fact a complete develop- 

 ment of all the animal tissues in the 

 anatomy of the queen bee, giving her 

 ■longevity, energy, strength, prolitic- 

 ness, complete maternal instinct, in a 

 word, i)erfection, is but the result 

 directly or indirectly of fecundation. 

 I will here state that I am unable 

 to prove from my own ex- 

 tended experiments with bees that 

 the drone progeny of a fecundated 

 queen is not inlluenced by impure 

 mating; as I liaveon several occasions 

 noticed hybrid drones from black 

 queens, as well as hybrid drones 

 whose grandmothers gave as pure 

 well marked a progeny as any I ever 

 had. One case in point I will relate. 

 I bouglit from Judge Andrews last 

 year in May, one Italian queen whose 

 worker progeny were all well marked ; 

 at the same time I obtained a sealed 

 queen cell from the same hive, and 

 three others from as tine bees as 

 could be found in the Judge's yard — 

 wliich he could vouch for as being 



Eure—three of these cells hatched as 

 eautjful queens as any one would 

 wish to see — the fourth cell never 

 hatched. Two of these queens were 

 mated with black drones, one of which 

 was from the cell obtained from the 

 queen I purchased. The third queen 

 was purely mated, and gave a well 

 marked progeny. The tirst two pro- 

 duced hybrid workers and occasion- 

 ally a black drone, yet the most of 

 their drone i)rogeny were well marked 

 Italians. This strange exception 

 might bo accounted for by the varia- 

 tion of individuals of the same species 

 and as the Italian bee is not generally 

 recognized by naturalists as a distinct 

 species of Apis, but a climatic variety 

 of Apis nielijica, it may yet turn out 

 that these occasional outcroppiugs of 

 impurity are the result of progenitive 

 inheritance. 



I am of the opinion that the subject 

 is one of much importance, and needs 

 further investigation, and that many 

 theories, hypotlieses, etc., will rise 

 and fall, before anything like a defi- 

 nite conclusion will be arrived at, 

 upon which all may agree. 

 Kingston, Texas. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Italianizing Cyprian Bees. 



EDWARD P. ABBE. 



In 1880 I received from Mr. Jones 

 one of his imported Cyprian queens, 

 early enough to rear one forced queen 

 in the fall— and a very handsome one 

 she was — a duplicate other mother, 

 prolilicand long-lived. She is a reign- 

 ing beauty now. 



During last summer I reared about 

 a dozen other queens from the im- 

 ported one, when I lost her by care- 

 lessness. All of these young queens 

 were very nearly, if not quite, dupli- 

 cates of each other and of the old one. 

 These gave me an opportunity to test 



some of the qualities of full breeds 



and of the half breeds— i. e., half 

 Cyprian and half Italian. There is 

 no need of my mentioning that the 

 pure Cyprian is a cross, active, in- 

 dustrious, prolific beauty; for all, or 

 nearly all accounts agree upon these 

 points. 



For one whose only object in the 

 apiary is the pleasure derived from it, 

 the Cyprian is, in its purity, a calam- 

 ity. But with the mixture of Italian 

 blood to quiet down the rampant 

 growth of Cyprian spirit, I tliink they 

 are a blessing, for they infuse a new 

 and pure blood, increase the fertility 

 and tendency to late breeding, and 

 fix more certainly and permanently 

 the characteristic yellow band, add- 

 ing beauty and grace to the whole 

 apiary. This is my experience, and I 

 for one am not sorry that I have tried 

 them ; but very glad to have got 

 through with the trouble and stinging 

 labor of this infusion of new blood. I 

 had, for the past 10 years, devoted my 

 apiary of 20 colonies to yierfecting a 

 strain of Italians, until it was as good 

 as I think Italians could be made. 

 The bees were large, industrious, 

 three-banded, beautiful, gentle, and 

 easily handled, but there was a strong 

 tendency to lose the broad yellow 

 stripes and nm into what are called 

 " dark Italians." If I have checked 

 this tendency, and have fixed the 

 characteristic bands of the Italian 

 more permanently, I am satisfied. I 

 shall now breed back again to gentle- 

 ness. 



New Bedford, Mass. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



E.ttracted Honey— No. 3. 



JAMES HEDDON. 



The upper story spoken of in our 

 last article (No. 2), on page 55, has a 

 capacity of 4U to 50 lbs. of honey, net, 

 and it will probably be a week or 

 more before it is necessary to examine 

 the supers. Then go to your strongest 

 colonies and remove the covers (and 

 right here allow me to say, that tlie 

 great secret of successful and speedy 

 subjugation of bees depends upon 

 giving them the first blast of smoke 

 before they have liad time to " think 

 twice," after you make the first jar), 

 and smoke down the bees, look at the 

 tops of the combs, and the one that 

 looks the "fattest" and brightest 

 (usually near the center) will contain 

 the most honey ; lift this one, and 

 look at it, then one near the outside, 

 and you will form a close estimate of 

 the amount of honey the super (that 

 part of the hive which contains the 

 surplus) contains, and the speed of 

 development, within the super. Your 

 register shows the date at which the 

 bees commenced to work in the upper 

 frames. Suppose you have found the 

 super y full, just set your " amount 

 pin " to I4, and the date pin to the 

 date, and so on over the apiary.. 



The 10 or 20 colonies most advanced, 

 will need looking at again in 5 to 8 

 days, and even less, if the rate of the 

 flow IS rapidly increasing. When the 

 time has arrived, your registers show 



you a rod or two away, which are the 

 10 colonies out of your 50 or 500 that 

 need looking at. Upon examination, 

 if none are quite ready to extract, it is 

 a safe rule to go by. tliat none in the 

 apiary are. But if, on the other hand, 

 many of these 10 colonies need extrac- 

 ting, look well to the next foremost 

 turned pins, as soon as the job is 

 done, and follow this method of 

 search and work through the year. 



But a much disputed point arises as 

 to what condition the super must be 

 in, to warrant the emptying of it. 

 Messrs. Dadants, who are good auth- 

 ority, believe in having all the combs 

 sealed or capped over before extrac- 

 ting the honey, and more than this, 

 they believe in letting it stand on the 

 hive, lifting it up, and placing another 

 set of combs under it. and so on to the 

 end of the flow, until that flow is over, 

 as they think that on the hive is the 

 best place for the honey to " ripen," 

 or take on that smooth, rich, oily con- 

 dition. On the other hand, as good 

 authority as Prof. Cook says there is 

 no need to wait for the capping over 

 of honey. The Professor has the 

 facts, that the waiting process in- 

 volves increased capital and labor 

 upon this side of the argument. All 

 the Dadants have to sustain their 

 side of the question is, that with their 

 process, the honey is of much better 

 quality. 



I have thoroughly tried both plans, 

 and if the honey taken is to be con- 

 sumed as sweet sauce (as most f)f our 

 surplus now is, the minority being 

 used for manufacturing purposes, as 

 yet), I stand strongly on the Dadant 

 side of the argument. Their words 

 sound as if they came from expe- 

 rience, and from'those who depended 

 upon the favor shown their goods, for 

 their success, viz : the specialist. 



I will say that if you have the 

 combs, use the tiering lip plan of the 

 Dadants. It is good. I have tried it 

 more years than one. It gives you 

 more time to do your work in ; you 

 need not rush because the season 

 does; if you use this plan, at the end 

 of the white honey flow remove all 

 your supers, just as you would boxes 

 or cases of sections, smoking down 

 the bees, and carrying your supers 

 into your room prepared for " getting 

 bees out of boxes," and when the few 

 adhering bees have gone, you can un- 

 cap and extract the combs at your 

 leisure. But on the other hand, if 

 your combs are scarce, or you are just 

 making them from comb foundation, 

 and you feel that your capital will not 

 warrant the making so many the first 

 season, prepare yourself with a light 

 box, with tight bottom, and the size 

 of the hive, with a cloth lid, and con- 

 venient handles, put 6 combs or frames 

 of foundation in it, and approach the 

 hive to be extracted from. The tools 

 I carry are a heavy I X L knife, 

 smoker and turkey quill. I open the 

 hive, smoke down the bees all I can 

 quickly, and then trade combs with 

 them, taking the 6 fullest ones out of 

 the 7, and brushing all clean of every 

 bee. Thus I open and close the hive 

 at one operation. The condition of 

 the 6 combs is this : The honey is 

 partly sealed ; the sealed places are 



