THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



807 



breeder will always have immense dif- 

 ficulties to contend witli. 



Ever since the creation of the bee, 

 for tliousands of years, tlie theory of 

 the "survival of the fittest" has been 

 in practical operation, and it is very 

 doubtful it the common bee of to-day- 

 is any improvement over the bees that 

 Samson found in the lion's carcass. 

 Nature, unaided, is kind enous^h to 

 perpetuate the race, but she has left it 

 to man's intelligence to assist in tlie 

 improvement. 



It is not yet a quarter of a century 

 since the first Italian bees landed on 

 our shores, and in this limited time 

 they have been improved both in looks 

 and in honey-gathering capacity. 1 

 am bold to assert that there are breed- 

 ers of this race in America, whose 

 queens will average better in looks, in 

 vigor and in proliHcness — workers bet- 

 ter for business — than queens that 

 come from Italy to-day. 



Augusta, Ga. 



Read at Maine State Convention. 



Bee-Keeping — Past, Present, Future. 



LUCIEN FKENCH. 



I shall begin as far back as my mem- 

 ory extends and pertiaps give some 

 stories or reminiscences I have heard 

 fartlier back. I recollect that grand- 

 father and my father kept bees togeth- 

 er, and used a hive about twenty 

 inches high and one foot square, with 

 sticks across. Often, when the busy 

 workers had gathered a winter's sup- 

 ply, they would consign from one to 

 ten colonies to the brimstone pit. or 

 rob them of their stores, getting from 

 five to fifty pounds of honey, such as 

 it was. 



They would then select the whitest 

 and best honey in the comb, to eat in 

 the family. The rest, with bees, larvte, 

 and bee bread, they would mash all 

 up together, and strain it through a 

 cloth (or what they could of it), and 

 soak out the remainder in water and 

 make an intoxicating beverage of it 

 called " metheglin." They kept from 

 10 to 20 colonies and never sold any 

 honey. All thev knew about beeology 

 was that bees had stings and knew 

 how to use them, which I learned to 

 my cost in early life ; that they made 

 honey, not collected it, and that tliey 

 would rob and kill them in spite of 

 their stings. 



Tliey also said that when the head 

 of a family, who kept bees, died, they 

 must go and tell ttie bees, and dress 

 them in mourning, and, if they did 

 not, the bees would all die ; and when 

 the bees swarmed, they must drum on 

 old tin pails and milk pans, and blow 

 on trumpets or anytliing to make a 

 noise, creating a general hubbub in 

 order to make the bees cluster or light, 

 80 as to hive thera. I am sorry to say 

 there are many who manage tlieir bees 

 in this way now, in the nineteenth 

 century, with all the light that has 

 been thrown on the subject of bee- 

 management. 



Now I will contrast some modern 

 improvements with the old methods 

 of managing bees, and will say that 

 these have not been done in one or two 



years, but are the work of from one to 

 three hundred years. 



In introducing my next proposition, 

 i. e., bee-culture at the present time, I 

 shall have to go back to where I find 

 something in the direction of a mova- 

 ble frame hive, which I find in L. L. 

 Langstroth's book on the " Hive and 

 Honey Bee," which book I shall draw 

 largely on, in connection with this 

 subject. I shall also quote from other 

 sources often, giving due credit. 



Mr. L. says on page 210 (foot note): 

 "On page 15 I have spoken of the bee 

 hive as a hundred years ago." From 

 "A Journey into Greece " by George 

 Wlieeler in 1675-6, it appears that it 

 was at that time in common use there, 

 and probably even then an old inven- 

 tion. Francis Iluber, a Sw'iss natu- 

 ralist, born in 1750, an enthusiastic 

 apiarist, invented a hive containing 

 12 frames, one and one-fourth inches 

 wide, and hung with liinges which 

 opened like a book, which he used in 

 liisinvestigations. But to L. L. Langs- 

 troth, I think, we are indebted to-day 

 for full, movable comb hives, invented 

 in the year 1851. Dzierzon used his 

 hives. There liave been many altera- 

 tions in his hives, and I may say, 

 " some wise and some otherwise." 

 From the many changes made, we can 

 all take our choice, or make others, 

 but be sure and not have two sizes of 

 frames in your bee yard. Use tliem 

 until their merits or demerits have 

 been established. 



Comb-foundation is another Indis- 

 pensable article for the advanced bee- 

 keeper. A. I. Root says in liis "ABC 

 of Bee Culture : " " The first mention 

 we have of wax foundation that was 

 accepted by the bees, was published 

 in the German Bienen Zeitung as far 

 back as 1857. Mr. J. Mehring, of 

 Frankinthal, Germany, if I am correct, 

 seems to have been the inventor. Mr. 

 Wagnerandothers tried itand dropped 

 it again. The sheets made in England 

 and Germany h;id no side walls, but 

 simply indentations. Mr. Wagner 

 adopted shallow side walls, making it 

 more like natural comb. Until re- 

 cently it was made upon a pair of 

 plates. Then Mr. Root says : " in the 

 latter part of 1875, I talked with a 

 friend, Mr. A. Washburn, of Medina, 

 Ohio, who is quite an artist in the way 

 of fine mechanical work and machi- 

 nery, and told him wliat I wanted. 

 The result was, he made me a machine. 

 Since that time we have liad the Dun- 

 ham, the Olm, the Vandusen fiat bot- 

 tom, with mine included." Then there 

 are quite a number of plate machines, 

 and probably all have some good qual- 

 ities and their advocates, and with 

 prices from five dollars up to fifty ; so 

 we can all have a chance to get such 

 as we like best. 



We may cliange queens, poor to 

 good, change from black bees to Ital- 

 ians, Cyprians, Syrians, etc., or make 

 other clianges or crosses we please, 

 even to the wonderful Apis dorsata of 

 Java, or the little insigniHcant South 

 American stingless bee (if we could 

 only get them here and introduce 

 them). We can feed weak colonies in 

 the liive, without fear of robbing ; can 

 take out the frames, extract the iioney, 

 and put the frames back in the hives 



for the bees to fill again ; can look 

 over the bees at any time, and know 

 the condition of them at all times. If 

 we have the right kind of movable 

 comb hives, we may pile stories on top, 

 or put them under, according as the 

 bees need room ; or can use section 

 boxes on top or in the sides of the hive. 



The extractor is another improve- 

 ment in getting larger yields of honey. 

 We have from the South some extraor- 

 dinary returns, even as high as 700 

 pounds from one colony in Texas ; 

 getting more swarms, even 12 from 

 one ; getting more honey and better, 

 than the old way of straining from bee 

 bread, larvae, dead bees and dirt. Quite 

 a contrast to the old way of getting 

 strained honey ! 



Comb foundation is another great 

 help to the bees and their owner. You 

 can hive a swarm of bees on founda- 

 tion (in times when honey is coming 

 in plenty) one day, and the next day 

 the bees will be carrying in pollen and 

 honey. In three days, some claim- 

 ing as high as 20 pounds, saving the 

 bees some one or two week's time, 

 perhaps right in the midst of our best 

 honey harvest of white clover or bass- 

 wood. We may have straighter combs 

 and less drone comb in the brood 

 chamber. It takes, it is estimated, at 

 least 20 pounds of honey for the bees 

 to consume while they are secreting 

 one pound of wax, which makes a 

 saving of about 17 pounds of honey, 

 or the price of it, as wax is a secretion 

 of the bees. You can hive small or late 

 swarms on foundation, and instead of 

 consigning them to the brimstone pit, 

 can feed them up (if we have a strong 

 colony) and put in a young and prolific 

 queen, and make a valuable colony of 

 tnem, worth from five to ten dollars 

 the next spring, at a cost of fi'om one 

 to'four dollars. There is still another 

 way in which you can save the loss of 

 your pets, that is to go to some of your 

 neighbors, who kill their bees, and ask 

 them to let you have the bees, if you 

 will take the honey from them, letting 

 them have the honey and you the bees 

 — those they have condemned to death 

 by brimstone, or some other way. 

 I'hen feed them up on sugar, as you 

 would weak colonies, and rescue them 

 from destruction. 



In consequence of the improvements 

 that have been made, and others not 

 named, honey is put on the market in 

 a purer and neater state, gives better 

 satisfaction and commands a higher 

 price than formerly. It formerly sold 

 (when it could be sold at all) from 

 eight to tw'elve cents per pound ; now, 

 honey in Maine sells at from twenty 

 to thirty cents at wholesale and higher 

 at retail. 



Finally and lastly, bee-keeping in 

 prospective, or what I think the im- 

 provements will be. There are points 

 not yet settled, which I think will be, 

 and the first is : the best way to win- 

 ter bees without loss; second, dysen- 

 tery, the cause and cure ; third, the 

 pollen theory, causing dysentery ; 

 foui'th. spring dwindling, the cause 

 and cure ; fifth, improving our race of 

 bees by not only selecting the best 

 races of queens, but the best drones, 

 and the way to doit; sixth, the dry 

 feces theory, but, this I think Prof. 



