THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



377 



i-ace of bees lays the latest. Last fall, 

 after the frosts, 1 put in a drone comb 

 in the centre of one of my Syrian col- 

 onies, and fed them to gel the queen 

 to lay in the comb, but she would not. 

 I also fed another Syrian colony to 

 stimulate the (jueen to lay, so I could 

 get a few eggs to rear some queens, 

 but it was all in vain. I had one col- 

 ony of Cyprians which had not killed 

 their drones at this time, so 1 went to 

 the hive that my Doolittle queen was 

 in, and I found lots of brood and efjgs. 

 I then coiichuled to rear a few Italian 

 queens and have them fertilized by 

 Syrian drones. This is no opinion 

 or idle talk, but facts. 



Some say the Holy Land bees do not 

 ripen their honey. If he means the 

 Syrians, I emphatically deny all such 

 absurd statements. They "do ripen 

 their honey well; and if any one 

 denies it, I will send him some honey 

 to prove it. 



A strong prejudice exists against 

 the Syrian bees by Italian queen- 

 breeders ; but in spite of all the oppo- 

 sition, they are fast moving toward 

 the front. " To prove it, I quote from 

 Gkaninys, page 241, May number of 

 1SS3. Mr. Good says : " Again the 

 Holy Land bees have proven them- 

 selves to be the most hardy, as the 

 Italians are all dead except a few 

 weak colonies. I had about 80 colo- 

 nies of Italians last fall. I have a 

 brotlier who has a Holy Land apiary 

 of 30 colonies only 40 rods from my 

 own. He wintered his bees on the 

 summer stands, and lost but one col- 

 ony. The rest are nearly all in good 

 condition, and very strong also." And 

 farther on Mr. Good says : " In a letter 

 from Mr. H. Alley, March 30, 1883, he 

 says : " Have not the Holy Land 

 {meaning the Syrian) bees wintered 

 best with you ? They have with me. 

 The Italians are the poorest race we 

 have to winter, and I am breeding 

 Cyprians and Holy Land bees largely." 

 At another place he says : "T tell 

 you the new races will sweep the 

 board sooner or later." 



Dr. J. P. H. Brown, of Georgia, at 

 the National Convention of 1881, re- 



Eorted that the tongues of the Cyprian 

 ees. in a trial of six, aggregated 1-32 

 of an inch longer than his improved 

 Italians, and they in turn aggregated 

 3-.?2 of an inch (1-10) longer than the 

 imported Italians. Equally pro- 

 nounced is the result of Prof. Cook's 

 numerous microscopical measure- 

 ments of the tongues of the Syrian 

 bees, which he finds to equal those of 

 the Cyprians, and .006 of an inch 

 longer than those of the Italians. If 

 the Syrians are capable of as great 

 improvement as has taken place in the 

 Italians up to this time, we may count 

 upon a tongue more than ^i of an inch 

 in length, which will be sufficient to 

 reach the nectar in the first bloom of 

 red clover. 



Last summer my Syrian bees worked 

 the first bloom of red clover. If there 

 is any one particular race of bees that 

 may be claimed as the perfect one, it 

 is the Syrians ;• but as no one race pos- 

 sesses all the good qualities of the 

 " ideal bee," it is safe to say that the 

 Syrians come nearer to that point 

 than any other. They have less bad 



qualities than any other race of bees, 

 and they have more valuable qualities 

 not possessed by any other. As they 

 have powers of locomotion not pos- 

 sessed by any other race of bees I 

 have ever seen, they seem to be able 

 to carry immense loads, and fly won- 

 derfully swift when so loaded. 



I most emphatically afllrm that in 

 the Syrians we find larger numbers of 

 the necessary qiialities for the foun- 

 dation of the " coming bees " than 

 in any other race or strain iu existence. 



At the Eastern Iowa and Western 

 Illinois Bee-Keepers' Association, Mr. 

 T. c;. Newman, in speaking of the 

 bees of the future, or " ideal bee," 

 said : " The queen must be prolific 

 to be able to keep the hive full of bees 

 in order to gather the honey harvest 

 when it comes. The bees must be in- 

 dustrious to let nothing escape their 

 vigorous search while gathering the 

 sweet nectar. They must be docile to 

 allow the apiarist to manipulate them 

 with ease and pleasure ; they must be 

 strong and h;udy to withstand the 

 rapid changes in climate ; and they 

 must be of singular beauty to attract 

 the admiration of the fancier of fine 

 stock." 



In the above we have the whole 

 story of the Syrian bees "in a nut- 

 shell." In conclusion I will say that 

 I have been speaking plainly upon 

 this matter, because I have the best 

 interest of apiculture at heart, and 

 consider that when stricter attention 

 is paid to rearing better queens, we 

 shall have made a step in the right 

 direction ; and if there is any better 

 bee in existence than the Syrian I 

 would like to know it. 



Belle Vernon, O. 



For the Americaa Bee JoumaL 



My Report on Wintering. 



W. IIARMER. 



I have wintered my bees without 

 loss ; but I could not help it as they 

 would live, contrary to some of the 

 rules laid down by a few writers on 

 safe wintering. I commenced last 

 season with (> colonies ; sold one, and 

 increased the remaining 5 colonies to 

 21. 1 sold 2 colonies in the fall, thus 

 leaving 19 to winter. My receipts for 

 bees and honey, last season, were :?97. 

 I obtained from 20 to 25 cents per 

 pound for honey here. I fed them 

 about 50 pounds of granulated sugar 

 syrup. 



Allow me to say a word or two con- 

 cerning their condition before going 

 into winter quarters. 1. They had 

 stopped breeding for weeks before 

 being put away. 2. Some of them 

 had to be fed at " the eleventh hour," 

 when it was impossible for them to 

 seal their honey. 3. After increasing 

 over 300 per cent, in this northern 

 latitude, you may imagine that they 

 were none too populous. 4. (Last rule 

 broken). I did not crowd the bees to- 

 gether with division-boards. 



Now for the rules which I tried to 

 follow: 1. On account of the great 

 increase, there was very little pollen 

 left in tlie hives. I th'ink that was 

 one reason why they stopped breeding 



so early in the fall. 2. I cut a passage 

 way through the combs. 3. They were 

 kept at a temperature of from iCP to 

 M-' above zero, except the last 2 or 3 

 days of their confinement, when it 

 went up to 52^. 4. There was thor- 

 ough ventilation in and out of the 

 trench. 5. They were in a dry place. 

 G. They were ni a quiet place— a 

 trench in dry, sandy ground (under 

 the house) covered with boards, and 

 2 or 3 inches of sand upon the boards. 



I had a hole cut through a board at 

 the end of the trench, so that I could 

 see the thermometer. I had no other 

 way of regulating the temperature 

 but by ventilation. The hives could 

 not be seen, and there was not a hand 

 placed upon them for Kit days — the 

 exact time of tlieir confinement vni- 

 der ground, besides 10 days or 2 weeks 

 in which they could not possibly fly, 

 before they were put away for the 

 winter ; making in all 174 days of con- 

 finement. 



I took them out on April 25, and 

 found every colony alive. Not one bee 

 (let alone a colony) was affected with 

 diarrhoea. They were gathering pol- 

 len the next day, and about half of the 

 queens had commenced laying ; but 

 there was not a piece 6 inches square 

 of sealed brood and larvai in all the 

 hives put together. 



Some of the bottom-boards were so 

 dry, and so few dead bees upon them, 

 that you would think they had only 

 been shut up for a day or two in the 

 busy time. The entrances were left 

 wide open, and they went outside to 

 die. I found very few moldy combs, 

 although there were a great many un- 

 occupied. 



My experience in 1883 led me to 

 winter in this way ; for I had one col- 

 ony buried for 165 days, and it came 

 out clean, dry, and good-natured on 

 May 1 ; while 10 colonies which I had 

 packed outside on the summer stands, 

 all died but one. Although the 10 

 had the advantages of outside cases 

 packed with planer shavings ; and 

 also the chance of a cleansing flight. 

 But they ran the chance of being 

 smothered or frozen. Some starved 

 (with honey by their side) while breed- 

 ing on a fine day. They were attacked 

 by diarrhoea, and then wanted a 

 cleansing flight when it was too cold. 

 So you can easily see how I lost 

 them. 



I think I have learned one impor- 

 tant fact, and that is, that bees will 

 live eight months when kept in a 

 proper temperature and not allowed 

 to breed out of season ; or, perhaps I 

 should say, in confinement. I believe 

 some of mine are that old now, and I 

 have no young bees hatched out yet. 

 Every colony has a good laying queen, 

 and promises to come through the 

 spring all right. 



My experience in wintering bees the 

 last 3 or 4 years has led me to believe 

 that Mr. Heddon's " pollen theory " 

 will come out ahead. Breeding in con- 

 finement, 1 believe, to be the cause of 

 diarrhoea. I think it is generally un- 

 derstood that bees have to digest a 

 great deal more pollen when breeding 

 than when they .are compelled to take 

 only enough to sustain their own 

 bodies. 



