.THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



151 



Mr. Heddon Uiinks that I err in 

 calling the cross-bred bees " irascible 

 insects." My experience has not been 

 so extensive as that of Mr. Heddon ; 

 but, with me, the bees that show from 

 one to two yellow bands have always 

 done the best vifork for me in the way 

 of gathering honey, and have also 

 proved themselves more nervous and 

 ill-humored. That my experience 

 should prove an infallible guide, I do 

 not claim. 



My handsomest, yellow bees have 

 invariably been my laziest, as well as 

 most docile ones ; but as I said in the 

 Bbk Journal of Jan. 31, I am in- 

 clined to the opinion that if careful 

 breeders would select the very best 

 yellow bees to breed from, and with- 

 out " variableness or shadow of turn- 

 ing," behead every queen whose bees 

 proved to be indifferent worlters, that 

 there could be a magnilicent strain of 

 golden Italians produced. Let it Ce 

 well understood that, no difference 

 how pretty a queen may be, or how 

 many well delined, yellow bands every 

 one of her progeny may show, unless 

 they are good workers in the lield, the 

 queen should be superseded at once. 



Dr. I. P. Wilson, of Burlington, 

 Iowa, has some very handsome yellow 

 bees, and some excellent workers. I 

 asked the doctor where he got his 

 strain, and he said it was a cross of 

 several strains ; or, to be more ex- 

 plicit, he got Italians from several 

 good breeders, and bred his strain out 

 of the combination. To my mind 

 this tells the whole story. I have no 

 wish to be dogmatical, but I believe I 

 am right in my conclusions; further 

 experience will tell. The bees in my 

 apiary, last season, were the out- 



frowth, largely, of a cross between 

 talians from Dadant & Son and 

 Henry Alley, and native blacks. From 

 19 colonies, spring count, I increased 

 to 43 colonies, by natural swarming, 

 and swarms went to the woods, be- 

 cause of my alisence from the a|)iary 

 at the time of their swarming. From 

 this little apiary I harvested 2,000 

 pounds of nice comb honey and UOO 

 pounds of excellent extracted, and 

 this, too, witliout the use of any comb 

 foundation, except small starters in a 

 portion of tlie sections. 



But cannot just as good a record be 

 made with a well-bred strain of Ital- 

 ians V I mean, bees that are beauti- 

 fully marked with three yellow bands, 

 and as gentle to handle as the more 

 lazy beauties with which I have had 

 some experience. I purpose getting 

 some of the best Italian queens, the 

 coming spring, from different breed- 

 ers, and breed them into a strain of 

 my own. and see what the ultimate 

 result will be. 



Mr. Heddon thinks that my advice, 

 or my prescription of honey, eggs, 

 milk and blackberries not a good one. 

 I did not make the suggestion for 

 men like Mr. Heddon, who have op- 

 portunity and ability to make honey- 

 production, alone, a paying business. 

 But there are thousands of people 

 who cannot do as Mr. Heddon and a 

 few others have done, and are still 

 doing. People must be governed by 

 their circumstances, and while but 

 comparatively few can do as Mr. 



Heddon does, there are thousunds 

 who might procure a few acres of land 

 and raise some small fruit, cultivate 

 a vegetable garden, keep a hundred 

 hens, and a good cow or two, and cap 

 the climax by having a small, well- 

 conducted apiary. If the products 

 of this combination would not tickle 

 the palate of an epicuiean, he would 

 be hard to please ; so it seems to me. 

 Any man or woman who has common- 

 sense can take a good Manual, like 

 that of Prof. Cook and the Bee Jour- 

 nal as guides, and make a success of 

 bee-keeping on a small scale; if not 

 prepared, or disposed, to go into the 

 business exclusively. The course I 

 have suggested may not make people 

 rich, but it will make them happier 

 than if they were rich, that is, if you 

 call money hoarding, riches. 



If all persons, who keep bees, should 

 make it so large a business as does 

 Messrs, Heddon, Doolittle, Scudder, 

 Miller, and a few others, the best 

 comb honey, in my opinion, would 

 not bring 5 cents a pound in the best 

 markets. 



Keithsburg, 111. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



"Was That Bad Advice?" 



JAMES HEDDON. 



Yes, doctor. We still consider your 

 admonition to " set a rack of thin sec- 

 tions down on the brood frames, as the 

 worst kind of advice. You are sur- 

 prised, however, that I should call 

 such manipulation a violation of the 

 instincts of the bees. In the way in 

 which I mean " violation," I will try 

 to show you that it is. Some .5 or 6 

 years ago I got the idea that I could 

 make top bars to movable frames an- 

 swer the double purpose of top bars 

 and honey-board. I made them thick 

 and just wide enough to leave a ^g 

 space between tliem ; these made the 

 narrow, bottom piece of my section 

 the same width, and arranged the rack 

 to hold sections in such a way that 

 they would rest directly on the top 

 bar, which came flush with the top of 

 the hive. It seems to me that all vvill 

 readily guess the solidity with which 

 the sections will be glued to these 

 bars and the dlfHculty of removing 

 them. 1 found, when putting this sys- 

 tem into practice, that the bees took 

 to the honey boxes no more readily 

 than when they pass through a honey- 

 board and two shallow air-chambers. 

 I found I had been " straining at a 

 gnat," and had now, either to " swal- 

 low a camel," or throw away this ex- 

 periment. Of course, I tlirew it away. 



When I began bee-keeping, I lost so 

 much by following bad advice, coming 

 from those who wrote up a big tiling 

 before they had thoroughly tested it, 

 I decided that I would not advise the 

 use of methods that I did not know to 

 be best by actual experience. Hence, 

 I passed this experiment into oblivion, 

 from whence I never should liave 

 called upon it, but for the very bad 

 advice given by the doctor. With the 

 case or super method, more especially 

 with the honey-board between the 

 upper and lower stories, there will be 



no bits of comb or glue connecting 

 the sections Willi thelowei'storvof the 

 hive; the case will liftoff easily an<l 

 clean. While there are most serious 

 objections to the sections touching 

 the frames below, I see no advantage 

 unless it be to make it more difficult 

 for thieves to steal your surplus honey. 

 Let " several apiarists of large expe- 

 rience " assure us of what they please, 

 is there one such apiarist vvho now 

 adjusts his sections as advised by the 

 doctor y If so, let us "chip in" and 

 send a missionary to visit him. 



The doctor infers that his impracti- 

 cal method is almost a necessity to the 

 half-pound sections. Why, I cannot 

 conceive. I can make bees work just as 

 fast in half-pound sections as in two- 

 pound sections. The facts are these: A 

 worker bee is a small animal which 

 can readily pass through a space 5-32 

 ot an inch. She is ever ready, when 

 in the least crowded for room, to oc- 

 cupy the 5-16 spaces above the frames 

 with a cell here and there in which to 

 place her nectar, and yet many sup- 

 pose she is going to bump her elbows 

 in halt-pound sections. It seems to 

 me she has more room to turn around 

 in a row of eight half-pound sections 

 than in a one-pound section, whose 

 either side is lined with tin separators. 



Allow me to thank Mr. C. R. Isham 

 for his nice samples of wood separa- 

 tors, as well as his concise replies to 

 my queries. I shall not only put the 

 samples he sent me into "practical 

 experiment," butlikewise a whole box 

 from the same source. 



F. C. Benedict, on page 117, strikes 

 right out from the shoulder, and hits 

 us non-separator men a pretty hard 

 blow. I like him for it. His article 

 carries with it evidence of earnest- 

 ness (that's twin brother to honesty, 

 you know) and experience. He says 

 that no one can manipulate 100 colo- 

 nies for comb honey, and produce it in 

 Urst-class marketable order without 

 the use of separators of some kind. 

 Regarding the first part of his propo- 

 sition, I will say, that with my case- 

 method, without separators, I can 

 manipulate far more colonies, and 

 with greater comfort, than can be 

 done with any system with which sep- 

 arators are used. Whether the honey 

 is in tirst-class marketable order, the 

 question will arise, what is " lirst- 

 elass ? " I get the combs so straight 

 that nearly all producers and honey 

 merchants think I must have used 

 separators. More than 2-5ths of my 

 combs will glass. None touch each 

 otlier in the cases. I see no more dan- 

 ger of leakage or breakage than with 

 combs stored between separators. Of 

 course, not all the combs are as 

 smooth and straight as those built 

 with separators. I wish tiiey were, 

 but is the difference great enough to 

 pay me for using separators V 



The experiments I made some years 

 ago, pointed to my assistants and my- 

 self, the fact that we lost honey by the 

 use of separators. We may have been 

 mistaken. Mr. Benedict's sentence, 

 " I know of what I speak," has 

 weight with me, and strengthens my 

 determination to put this matter to 

 an extensive and undoubted test the 

 coming season. What Mr. Benedict 



