236 



THE' AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the Amertcan Bee JournaL 



The Best Bees— How Obtained. 



JAMES HEDDON. 



The following was received April 

 18, and 1 asked Mr. Hutcliinson if I 

 might insert it, at tlie liead of my re- 

 ply as an excuse for again coming 

 forward with what, to me, is not the 

 most pleasant of subjects to discuss 

 at the present time. 



Mr. Heddon. — When you have the 

 time, please give us one more article 

 on " The best bees — how they were 

 obtained." Please tell us if the bees 

 that you now have are any better than 

 those you had when you tirst made 

 the cross between the dark Italian 

 and brown German, if so, in what re- 

 spect, and what methods and selec- 

 tions were employed to bring about 

 the desired results. What I wish to 

 know is, if I would obtain as good re- 

 sults at once, by crossing the two 

 above mentioned varieties, as 1 would 

 to obtain some of your bees ; that is, 

 can I gain live years by commencing 

 where you are now V Some bee-keep- 

 ers have remarked, in my presence, 

 that " Ileddon's bees were nothing 

 but hybrids ; anybody can get hybrids 

 easily enough, without obtaining his 

 hybrid queens." Now, what I wish 

 to know is, if your hybrids are super- 

 ior to the hybrids that would naturally 

 result, at once, from a cross between 

 the dark Italian and the brown Ger- 

 man varieties, or whether, by selec- 

 tion and care, you have developed a 

 superior strain of hybrids ; that is, 

 superior to what would result nat- 

 urally at once from a cross between 

 the above mentioned varieties. In a 

 year or two more, if I get well started 

 in the production of comb honey, I 

 shall cut loose from this band-busi- 

 ness. I shall make the production of 

 comb honey my speciality, then if any 

 vrish to obtain my queens they can 

 take such queens as I know to be 

 best, or they can let them alone. Now, 

 it is my honest opinion that the kind 

 of bees that you have, are the best for 

 the production of comb honey, and I 

 wish to know which is the simplest, 

 easiest, quickest and bestw'ay to stock 

 my apiary with siicli bees, and 1 feel 

 certain that you will let neither mod- 

 esty nor self-interest influence you in 

 giving me advice upon tlie subject. 

 W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Kogersville, Mich., April 16, 1883. 



I started into this business with the 

 purchase of 48 colonies of black or 

 German bees, all in box hives except 

 eight, which were in old-fashioned 

 Langstroth hives. They were pur- 

 chased of farmers about this vicinity, 

 not buying more than six of any one 

 person ; generally gotten in lots of 

 1, 2 and 3. Six colonies were bought 

 of one Mr. Southerland. Let us call 

 these the S. bees. Not knowing 

 enough about the business at that 



time to keep busy all the time with 

 this apiary, and bees being a new and 

 mysterious thing to me, I spent many 

 hours sitting close to the hives and 

 watching the little sharp and indus- 

 trious individuals come and go, and 

 guard the entrance. I was not long 

 in discovering that different colonies 

 possessed remarkably different char- 

 acteristics and looks. Right away I 

 became attached to the S. bees, and 

 the superiorities that these colonies 

 plainly manifested, were very well 

 marked in each and every colony. 

 With these superior traits, was a 

 marked physical difference ; these 

 bees were all larger and lighter in 

 color than any of the other 42 colonies. 



Five colonies purchased of Mr. II 



were the meanest and most worthless 

 colonies in the apiary. Every colony 

 was vicious, and seemed to spend 

 most of their time "seeking whom 

 they might devour." They never 

 looked into the .surplus boxes that 

 season. The season was the worst in 

 my experience. But little honey was 

 gathered, and the 6 S. colonies (all in 

 box hives) had more than all the rest 

 added together. The 5 H. colonies 

 were the smallest and blackest bees 

 in the yard. Ever since I have noticed 

 that traits and marking like the 

 above, keep company with each other 

 wherever I have seen German bees. 



A few seasons later I got bright 

 three-banded Italians of several promi- 

 nent breeders. These Italians pos- 

 sessed some points of merit over my 

 brown S. strains, but on the whole, 

 they were not their equal for the api- 

 cultural pursuit of dollars and cents. 

 Crosses between the two races were a 

 cross "cross." 1 wished I had never 

 seen them. I wrote against the Ital- 

 ian bee. and the trade in them. The 

 " hybrids " were pretty good workers, 

 better than the pure Italians, but too 

 irascible for comfort. While I was 

 freely exclaiming my disgust for 

 these Italians, Mr. Oatman, of Dun- 

 dee, said to me : " If you will just try 

 some of my stock, vvhich is of the 

 dark leather-colored Dadant impor- 

 tation, you will become a convert to 

 the Italian bee, I feel sure." 



Always open to conviction, I tried 

 once more, and sure enough, I did 

 find these bees vastlv superior to the 

 bright, shorter bodied Italians. At 

 the time of their advent into my 

 apiary, I had bred my colonies, nearly 

 all, to these brown Germans, and, as 

 I suppose all do, who breed bees, had 

 selected colonies of the best qualities 

 to breed from. This was forced upon 

 me, as I was somewhat mixed up with 

 some of the inferior blood. Not much 

 so, however, as severe winter losses 

 had assisted me to rapidly get rid of 

 this blood. As good as these dark 

 Italian bees were, the brown bees 

 still possessed some marked traits of 

 superiority over them. Of course, 

 crossing between these races took 

 place at once, and I soon had the 

 happy privilege of observing bees that 

 possessed more valuable characteris- 

 tics, valuable to him who wants protit 

 from the business than either one of 

 the races in their purity. 



A curious fact here presented itself. 

 None of the crosses (or hybrids) be- 



tween the brown German and dark 

 Italian bees were bad in temper. 

 Both of their parent strains were the 

 mildest of their races, and the crosses 

 are just as amiable as any bees I ever 

 handled. 



That was about six or seven years 

 ago, and since that time I have, in as 

 great a measure as practical, directed 

 the breeding and crossings, and with- 

 out knowing the reason why, colony 

 No. 36 gathered more than No. 29, 

 and believing that whatever the rea- 

 son might be, the law of hereditary 

 claimed it for its own. I have bred 

 from the colonies that gave me the 

 most surplus honev, and were the best 

 behaved toward their operations and 

 each other. These two, have I made 

 the vital points. I soon learned that 

 I need not care for the number of 

 rings. Two years ago I sold to Mr. 

 Shirley my Glenwood apiary. At that 

 time the bees were of my mixed races, 

 as mentioned above. Mr. Shirley is 

 an energetic and skilled apiarist, and 

 a master at breeding, but he has a 

 fancy favoring the rings, and he has,^ 

 in breeding, added to my list of good- 

 nature and honey gathering qualities, 

 the other pointof three bands, and 

 he works with my bees liere some 

 every season, and I cannot but believe 

 that he will agree with me that he 

 cannot see that his bees are any better, 

 in any respect, than my hybrids, as 

 Mr. II. 's acquaintances are wont to 

 call them. They are hybrids, but I 

 avoid tlie use of that word, for it has 

 been made to sound ugly, because of 

 the old irascible crosses that went 

 by that name. I think that Mr. 

 Hutchinson has made a wise determi- 

 nation, and one that he will not regret. 

 I am satisfied that, with good bees, 

 proper fixtures, and the clear calcula- 

 tion of Mr. H., the production of comb 

 lioney has far more protit with it than 

 any queen business. 



This is not all. I find that the time 

 has come when large numbers of bee- 

 keepers are looking at the matter as 

 does Mr. H. and myself, and I predict 

 that, within two years, four-fifths of 

 the bees sold in this country, will be 

 ordered for their merits, and not for 

 anv special number of bands. 



I have frankly told you of my ex- 

 perience in the matter, and once more 

 given my deductions, drawn from that 

 experience, and I leave Mr. Hutchin- 

 son to answer the rest of his ques- 

 tions from the reasonings of his own 

 brain. 



Dowagiac. Mich. 



For the Amertcan Bee Journal. 



Old Fogy's Plan of Bee-Culture. 



FRANK. B. RIFK. 



The terrors of winter has passed, 

 which has kept our little workers con- 

 fined for so long ; spring has opened 

 again, and the busy hum of their 

 wings is heard from morning till 

 night, gathering the nectar from the 

 wild flowers. 



I wintered my bees on the summer 

 stands, with excellent results. I put 

 13 on a long bench in November, and 

 boarded up the west side, so as to be 



