132 



rHE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee JournaJ. 



More about those Eastern Bees. 



G. jr. DOOLITTLE. 



On page 38 I fintl an article from the 

 the pen of Mr. Frank Benton, which 

 is as much of a surprise to me (if he 

 really means what he says) as the one 

 I wrote on page .500 of the Bee Jour- 

 nal for 1883 seems to be to him. 



He says all my experience in bee- 

 keeping has tended to make me value 

 prolitieness in a queen above all other 

 qualities. That he wants them to be 

 so prolific that lots of brood will be 

 reared at all seasons of the year when 

 the weather will permit. That he 

 wants the hive overflowing with bees 

 in the fall of the year, etc. 



Coming from a man who has once 

 lived in America, I again repeat, that 

 such words are a surprise to me. If 

 he had modified his first statement so 

 as to make it read that he valued the 

 prolificness of a queen above all other 

 qualities, when it could be so regu- 

 lated that such prolitieness would be 

 of the greatest profit to the bee-keeper, 

 I would hold up both hands for it ; 

 but when he writes that he regards 

 the prolificness in a queen at all times 

 of the year above all other qualities, 

 I cannot help but think that the type 

 made him say what he did not mean 

 to say, or else that he is very much 

 mistaken. 



Here, where we have but about six 

 weeks during the whole season in 

 which the bees make any gain in 

 honey, what we want is a queen that 

 can be coaxed to fill the hive to over- 

 flowing with brood during a few 

 weeks previous to this honey harvest, 

 and lay just as few eggs at all other 

 times as is consistent with accom- 



Slishing of the above object. If Mr. 

 lenton had a piece of work which he 

 . must accomplisli at a certain time if 

 he was to receive any profit there- 

 from, he would hire his help before 

 tliat time expired or not at all. If he 

 wished " help "' at a certain time, and 

 they did not come until too late, 

 surely he would not keep and board 

 them six to eight months because it 

 was not convenient for them to come 

 sooner. Oh I no, he would tell them 

 he did not want them, for it was too 

 late. So I say, that when he says 

 that he wants the hive overflowing 

 with bees in the fall, there must be 

 a mistake somewhere. 



Why I prefer the Italian bees to all 

 others is for the reason that they are 

 more susceptible of being handled, so 

 as to get the hive overflowing with 

 bees at the right time, than are the 

 bees of any other race. Also, that as 

 soon as the honey harvest arrives the 

 queen will cease her prolificness, and 

 tlms we do not have a lot of " hungry 

 hands " to board when they are of no 

 use to the apiarist. 



To show ISIr. B. that I am not alone 

 in this, I will quote the following 



from one of the greatest honey-pro- 

 ducers of the West. Mr. O. O. Popple- 

 ton, of Iowa, from page .50 of Glean- 

 ings, for 'iSSi: "I get very much the 

 best results from my purest and 

 lightest Italians. The Italians seem 

 to be much more disposed to partially 

 stop brood-rearing and bend all their 

 energies to honey-gathering whenever 

 there is a heavy flow of nectar, than 

 any other kind of bees I have tried, 

 and this is a very great advantage." 

 That the Syrian or Holy Land bees 

 cannot be managed so as to get a large 

 amount of brood at any other time, 

 save in a heavy flow of honey, is one 

 of the greatest reasons for my discard- 

 ing them. 



Mr. Benton tries to so twist this 

 sentence around as to make me con- 

 fess that I cannot accomplish " what 

 is of more moment than any one other 

 thing pertaining to honey-producing," 

 and asks " how does this agree with 

 his reported success in raising comb 

 honey." Seeing Mr. B. wishes to 

 draw me out, I will say that 1 have 

 never reported success with the 

 Syrian bees, for I have never had any 

 to report. I had one colony of Syrian 

 bees during the year 1883. and 3 till 

 after the honey harvest of 1883 with 

 their increase, and from all I did not 

 get .50 pounds of honey, and had to 

 feed them each fall to "get them pre- 

 l)ared for winter, taking combs of 

 sealed honey from the Italians to do 

 the feeding with, while the same num- 

 ber of Italian colonies gave over .500 

 pounds during the same time, with 

 the same management I gave the 

 Syrians. These IJees would increase 

 but little till the honey harvest ar- 

 rived, when they would crowd every 

 available cell with brood, which 

 brood would use up nearly all the 

 honey the few workers, reared before, 

 could gather while the honey harvest 

 lasted. On the contrary, when the 

 honey harvest opened, the Italians 

 would have a hive overflowing with 

 bees and every comb filled with brood, 

 and this brood would gradually de- 

 crease till at the end of the harvest I 

 had lots of lioney and but few mouths 

 to feed. This is not mere fancy or 

 idle talk, but facts which must be 

 heeded if we would receive a good 

 profit from our bees. 



Next I notice Mr. B. admits tliat 

 these Eastern bees are liable to have 

 laying workers every time a change 

 of queens occurs, but says this is not 

 a bad feature except as "the combs are 

 filled with drones before the young 

 queen gets to laying. , Well, if this 

 were so, the fillin"g of the combs with 

 drones so that the young queens have 

 little room to lay worker eggs, and the 

 feeding of so much honey t'o rear use- 

 less drones, is an admitted fact suffi- 

 cient to uphold any apiarist in ban- 

 ishing them from his apiary ; but 

 queens are not accepted by these bees, 

 with laying workers present, as easy 

 as Mr. B. would have us think ; at 

 least such is not the case here in the 

 United States, as my own experience 

 proves, and also that of others. 



On page S2, present volume of 

 Gleanings, will be found an account of 

 how these Syrian laying workers baf- 

 fled all the skill at introducing queens 



which Mr. Schrook possessed till he 

 gave them combs (bees and brood) 

 from another colony. He also there 

 states (which I also found to be true) 

 that these laying workers so deposited 

 their eggs that the apiarist would 

 suppose they had a laying queen (till 

 the brood was capped over), as these 

 workers lay their eggs more nearly 

 like a queen than do those of the 

 Italians or blacks. Thus the apiarist 

 is " fooled " until all chance of getting 

 the colony in condition to produce 

 honey is passed. 



Once more, Mr. Benton says in his 

 closing paragraph, "Mr. Doolittle 

 gets back to the race of bees with 

 which he originally started, the Holy 

 Lands," and then "elsewhere takes me 

 and others to task for mixing the 

 names of these Eastern bees. If the 

 name Holy Land was not a correct 

 name to apply to these bees, why did 

 D. A. Jones, the importer of them, 

 telegraph to tlie Northeastern Conven- 

 tion, while in session in the city of 

 Utica, N. Y., in 1881, "The Holy 

 Land bees are the best." If an im- 

 porter was calling things wrong, how 

 could those purchasing bees of him 

 be expected to call them otherwise V I 

 see by the last Gleanings that A. I. 

 Root calls all bees coming from Syria, 

 Holy Land bees, and he an editor of a 

 bee paper. I used the words Syrian 

 and Holy Land indiscriminately, sup- 

 posing both meant the same. By Mr. 

 Benton's description, I now see that 

 the bees I had from one party were 

 what he describes as the Palestine 

 bees, and those from the two other 

 parties, were what he describes as the 

 Syrian. As I could not see a particle 

 of difference in them except in color, 

 I do not feel disposed to try the 

 Syrians further, In the vain hope of 

 finding something tolerably fair. 



In his fifth paragraph Mr. B. says of 

 the Piilestine bees, "they creep un- 

 der sleeves and cutt's, biting the flesh, 

 and then curving their bodies and 

 stinging." Exactly ; and this is a 

 peculiarity of the "Syrians and Cyp- 

 rians as well. Mr. B. is the first one 

 who has ever spoken of these bees 

 biting, I believe. With me this is the 

 most disagreeable of all the bad fea- 

 tures possessed by these Eastern bees. 



During the past fall, after the snow 

 came, I feared I had been careless 

 with my colony of Texas Cyprians, so 

 I raised the quilt to ascertain if there 

 was plenty of sealed honey near the 

 top bars to the frames. Seeing but 

 little, I marked on the hive, " Give 

 frames of sealed honey tlie first day 

 the bees can fly." The lOth day of 

 December being warm and fine, I 

 embraced the opportunity to feed 

 them. To procure room in the hive 

 to place inside the two frames of 

 sealed honey, I must take out two 

 frames having little or no honey in 

 them. As Mr. Carroll wrote me that 

 I would have less difliculty in hand- 

 ling the Cyprians if I used no smoke, 

 I placed the smoker well filled and 

 lighted on top of the next hive, and 

 proceeded to carefully raise the quilt. 

 I had not got it half off before two 

 dozen bees or more darted at me. I 

 carefully backed off a dozen steps, 

 with these bees sticking to me, biting 



