THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



295 



host of beautiful little flies. Those 

 wliicli do take wing, just buzz about 

 witluHit any inclination to sting, and 

 if a comb is wanted out. all that is 

 needed is to give it a sliakc, and tlie 

 bees drop otT into the hive bottom, 

 and run up amongst the otlier combs. 



The hive or combs must never be 

 jarred ; but if you want to see them 

 savage, just smoke them, and jar the 

 hive (like you would blacks or Ital- 

 ians), and I do not care how you are 

 dressed or protected, you will be well 

 stung. 



Tliey are tlie most energetic work- 

 ers I have seen, and this trait is im- 

 proved when a Syrian queen is mated 

 with a black drone ; but the charac- 

 ter of the Syrian is changed with the 

 cross, for tliey require a dose of very 

 dense smoke to (juiet them, but on no 

 account must they be jarred ; for 

 when roused they are worse than pure 

 Syrians at stinging, besides they sting 

 deeper, draw blood, and it is much 

 more painful. They rear and pack 

 brood just the same, and collect more 

 lioney. 



I think this will reconcile some of 

 the very conflicting accounts of these 

 bees, and I should think some of the 

 bees which have been sent out for the 

 Cyprians and Syrians, have had a fair 

 share of Italian blood in them to 

 stand the smoking with whicli Mr. D. 

 doses them. 



All my Eastern queens have been 

 obtained direct from Mr. Benton, and 

 every one came from her native land ; 

 so I speak with conHdence as to their 

 purity. 



In the second part of Mr. D.'s let- 

 ter, he condemns their brood-rearing 

 powers, and says the secret of honey 

 getting is to have the bees just in the 

 niclie of time. I think here he is 

 quite at sea as to their real best na- 

 ture. There have been proposals 

 enumerated to get two queens to lay 

 at one time in the same hive, so as to 

 get an enormous population and econ- 

 omize the heat. Here the problem is 

 practically solved ; for we have one 

 queen capable of laying double the 

 quantity of eggs of an ordinary good 

 one, or 26,000 per week. 



Let us go a little farther. On page 

 69 of Oleanings for ISH3M writes, "Mr. 

 Beisinger says, and I agree with him, 

 that if we had the same number of 

 bees in a hive in apple-bloom that we 

 do in basswood bloom, the yield would 

 be as great. I once bad 8 pounds 

 stored in one day with not over one- 

 third the bees I have in basswood 

 bloom." Is it not possible with these 

 bees to get a colony up to its full 

 strength in time for apple bloom V — 

 78,000 unliatched bees, with more than 

 twice that number in the wing state ; 

 surely they would gather much honey. 



Then there is the sycamore bloom 

 just after, which I consider the king 

 of all in honey-producing plants ; 

 after which they might be divided for 

 the clover, and divided again for the 

 basswood. Some have 4 enormous 

 colonies for that harvest, instead of 

 one. 



Suppose, for argument, that they 

 are so savage as to be unmanageable ; 

 have not bee-keepers who keep Ital- 

 ians always some rather weak colo- 



nies when spring comes ? And does 

 it not strike one to exchange tlie 

 queens of tliese, so that these savage 

 bees can be rephiced by Italians in 

 time for the lioney harvest (for he ad- 

 mits they winter well, and are very 

 strong in tlie spring), and let the sav- 

 age lot build up another colony for 

 winter V I tliink the secret is, they 

 have not been allowed sutticient room 

 to breed in, so as to reach their full 

 streiigtli. 



In the third paragraph, he makes 

 an assertion, which, I am afraid, he 

 has never proven by actual fact, but 

 is reasoning from analogy, viz : "Tliat 

 fertile workers kill the young queens." 



It is a fact that a large quantity of 

 fertile workers appear in the hives 

 after any attempt at queen-rearing, I 

 might say hosts of them ; for I have 

 had 8 square feet of comb, egged in 

 every cell, and some cells had upwards 

 of 6 eggs in them, within 24 hours, 

 with tliese workers ; but the only seri- 

 ous drawback is, that no queen-cell is 

 allowed to hatch out, being destroyed 

 when about 14 days old. I think by 

 reasoning on tills fact, he has gotten 

 wrong, or very likely missing the cells 

 and finding no (jueen, he thinks she 

 was killed as soon as hatched. 



I find no difiiculty in introducing 

 queens to such, or uniting them with 

 otlier colonies. I have never known 

 them to kill a queen, but this I have 

 proved ; they will live on peaceably 

 and lay tlieir eggs side by side with a 

 laying queen, as I have shown in the 

 British Bee Journal for 188.S, page 66. 



What bee-keeper has not noticed a 

 number of drones in worker cells, 

 when a young queen commenced lay- 

 ing I A\' hy y These have been laid 

 by fertile workers only. I may here 

 remark that some think a young 

 queen ought to begin laying before 10 

 days after hatching; but this is an 

 error, as the best queens I have had, 

 have been those which longest de- 

 layed laying. 



I once had a black queen hatched in 

 .July, which did not lay until March : 

 and last year I had a Syrian hatched 

 Aug. 9, which did not lay until the 

 end of February ; and both of these 

 were fertile. I have several times 

 found the cells filled with the produc- 

 tion of fertile w-orkers before the 

 queens commenced to lay ; and, no 

 doubt, many a fine queen has been 

 condemned as a drone layer on this 

 account ; and many a queen has been 

 thought to have begun laying when 

 onlv the workers had begun. 



I had hoped, during the past sum- 

 mer, to be able to encourage the use 

 of these fertile workers ; but the 

 weather spoiled my experiments. 



If people will consider that every 

 time a queen of these races is reared 

 in tlieir native colonies, a lot of fer- 

 tile workers are also reared, and that 

 the queens, whether virgin or mated, 

 are not destroyed by them ; or these 

 bees would have been extinct hun- 

 dreds of years ago ; in fact, would be 

 in less than five years. It will be 

 plain that ]\Ir. Doolittle has made a 

 mistake in saying that they are. 



As I have hinted that many of the 

 queens doing duty for tliese Eastern 

 bees, may only be mongrels, and some 



may think I mean to advise getting 

 rid of them, but I do not; for no mat- 

 ter how tliey may lie crossed, if tliey 

 have only tiie Eastern blood in them, 

 they will pay for keeping, at least 

 until an uiuiuestionably pure one can 

 be afforded, and when one can be got 

 from a source whicli can lie depended 

 upon for getting a genuine Simon- 

 pure, it would be as well to compare 

 the bees f loin her carefully with those 

 already in Ihe apiary, particularly as 

 to size and disposition to sting when 

 handling them ; for peradveiiture 

 these you have may be pure ones, and 

 it would be a loss to throw them away. 



Palestines are better than Italians, 

 but do not come up to the Syrians; 

 while for profit in honey, give me a 

 Syrian queen mated with a black 

 drone ; but never attempt to keep 

 these bees unless you are prepared to 

 let them have sutticient breeding 

 space. They ought to have at least 16 

 Langstroth frames to breed in ; 

 though if the Langstroth is used, I 

 should prefer two rows of frames 

 placed over each other for a brood- 

 nest; making it really two stories 

 high ; then with a good locality, a 

 good season, and good management, 

 the Carroll record could be outdone in 

 most places, for I see nothing extra- 

 ordinary in it with these bees. 



Sheflield, England. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Supers for Surplus Comb Honey. 



E. p. CHURCHILL. 



I am surprised to see how any one 

 can advise a % inch space between 

 the top of the frames and the section 

 case, unless he has strips to rest on 

 the top-bars; for if there is nothing 

 but the rim to the case, the bees must 

 of a necessity go up only about the 

 edges. I prefer a case to rest at the 

 sides on a chamfered edge thin enough 

 so that the bees can pass from the 

 side of tlie hive, as they crawl up on 

 the inside combs, which is Sg of an 

 inch from the side of the hive ; and 

 unless the side of the case is beveled 

 down to at least }i of an incli, the 

 bees are obliged to leave a passage 

 from the outside comb. 



I used them a long time before I dis- 

 covered this fault. My case is a little 

 like Root's. I use glass only on one 

 side, and a solid % inch wood on the 

 other, and to stiflen the rests under 

 the boxes. I use a partition y inch 

 thick, and the bottom of the end* are 

 \i inch thick, and are beveled from }4 

 inch at the bottom to 5-16 inch at the 

 top. so that two lengths of 4,14 boxes 

 just fit each side of the partition ; 

 thus I can have half a ease or a whole 

 one. 



I rabbet 3-16 of an inch at the ends, 

 and J^ of an inch deep tor box rests ; 

 these'are 3-16 of an inch thick, and 

 are nailed to the partition, which 

 makes a stiff, good case, and leaves 

 very little surface to stick to the 

 frames. At each end of the top of 

 the crate is a wedge to tighten the 

 boxes; there is a bee-space of 5-16 of 

 an inch, which is enough for a free 



