238 



XHE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



sick during last summer; indeed, at 

 three different times during the year, 

 my life was dispaired of, and, of 

 course, I did not rear as many queens 

 as I had hoped to be able to. But I 

 think tlie season's showing is fair, 

 considering the pecular ciifflculties 

 under which one must labor in cul- 

 tivating bees in the Orient ; and the 

 fact that the " Mt. Lebanon Apiary " 

 had to be wholly created after I came 

 to Beyrout,.at the beginning of last 

 year, which latter fact should be no- 

 ticed, since parties in America stated 

 in 1881, that the apiary had already 

 been established at Mt. Lebanon. It 

 ■was during my first illiness in 1882, 

 that Mr, T. B. Blow, of Welwyn, 

 England, called on me in Beyrout, 

 having previously visited nie in Cy- 

 prus, where I left" him when I came 

 to Beyrout to start the apiary there. 

 He, alone, is capable of understanding 

 the numerous difficulties with which 

 I had to cope at that time. As soon 

 as possible earthen pots and cylin- 

 ders containing bees, were purchased 

 to start up the new apiary, and the 

 work of transferring colonies, rearing 

 and shipping queens began. It was 

 at this time that the weather was un- 

 favorable, cold rains, then later warm 

 rains, with bright warm sunshine be- 

 tween the driving showers. In June 

 I was very sick with cholera morbus 

 again. In July came the sad loss of 

 our only little one. Following this 

 was a serious attack, resulting, the 

 physician said, from too great ex- 

 posure to the tierce tropical heat of 

 the sun in Cyprus in preceding years. 



We had been obliged to " Ree to the 

 mountain" on account of the condi- 

 tion of my health, and the Moslem 

 outbreak "in Beyrout (which, in the 

 Bee Journal of Aug 16, 1882, was 

 wrongly located in Cyprus). The cool 

 air of the upper Lebanon did me 

 good, and as soon as it was safe I re- 

 turned to my work. Notwithstand- 

 ing these interruptions, I was able to 

 send out, during the season of 1882, 

 queens to the number of 340, and 3 

 full colonies (a small amount of honey 

 and wax were also sold). Of these, 

 179 were addressed, by express, directly 

 to Mr. D. A. Jones, of Canada, while 

 a number of the rest were sent by 

 mail to parties in England, who, it 

 was expected, would forward a por- 

 tion of them to Mr. Jones. From the 

 latter I never received any definite 

 statement as to how many of these 

 queens were safely received, but only 

 the assertion that many failed to get 

 through. The cause of poor success 

 in shipping those sent by express, was 

 greatly owing, I believe," to the method 

 of shipping prescribed by the gentle- 

 man just mentioned. The only ship- 

 ments to America made during the 

 past three years, that have been emi- 

 nently successful, were two lots (one 

 of 30 queens in 1881, and one of 42 

 queens in 1882), i)ut up in accordance 

 with the plan I proposed upon first 

 landing in Cyprus in 1880. I have 

 met with fair success, sending queens 

 from Cyprus and Syria by mail to dif- 

 ferent parts of Europe, except when, 

 this last year, some 40 fine Syrian and 

 Palestine queens were seized in Lon- 

 don, and sent to Paris (having been 



mailed at a French post-office in 

 Syria), after which I got them back 

 at the end of about six weeks, all 

 dead! 



I sent the first queens by mail from 

 Cyprus to Europe in June, 1880, as 

 can be seen by reference to the British 

 Bee Journal for July, 1880, wliere the 

 method employed is described and 

 the cage illustrated. With this form 

 of cage as a basis, changing from time 

 to time conditions of putting up to, 

 suit the season of year, and as further 

 experience suggested, I think I have, 

 with the help of one modification 

 suggested by a friend in England suc- 

 ceeded in finding out how to be suc- 

 cessful in sending queens from the 

 East to distant lands. It must be 

 borne in mind that it is a journey of 

 3,000 miles, 1,.500 of it by sea. in a sub- 

 tropical climate, where hot desert 

 winds are particularly trying for the 

 bees, which are buried in tlie ship's 

 hold, under tons of other mail matter. 



During the coming season I shall 

 try to send some queens by mail from 

 Europe to America. I believe I would 

 have succeeded in doing this, last 

 year, had not the 40 queens been 

 seized in England ; for some of these 

 packets were experimental ones ad- 

 dressed to Mr. D. A. Jones. Some of 

 the English postal regulations are 

 very troublesome, and, among these, 

 is that which excludes queen-bees 

 from the mails. The bee-keepers of 

 England ought to protest en masse, 

 and keep protesting until permission 

 is granted to send queens by mail. 

 Tills is surely one reason that has 

 tended to make the introduction of 

 Italian and other improved bees very 

 slow in England. Our British cou- 

 sins, so progressive in many other re- 

 spects, have not even a packet post, 

 without which we would liardly 

 think we could get along. 



Athens, Greece, March 30, 1883. 



Written for the Kuns.is State Board of Agriculture 



Bee-Keeping— Past and Present, 



niRAM J. WARD. 



The subject of bee-keeping has 

 claimed the attention of many of our 

 most learned men of ancient and of 

 modern times, who look upon it as a 

 science worthy of their study and 

 their philosophy, finding in the honey 

 bee an insect worthy of better care 

 and attention than it formerly re- 

 ceived. Gratwell. Schirach, and IIu- 

 ber the elder, were among those of 

 antiquity who devoted their time and 

 wisdom to the advancement of the 

 knowledge of the habits and charac- 

 ter of these insects ; and to the latter, 

 especially, we are indebted for much 

 that it is of estimable value in the 

 studies of the naturalist. Although 

 he became blind at the early age of 

 1.5, his works gave an impulse to this 

 branch of rural industry in Europe, 

 which caused the management of bees 

 in common hives to be brought to a 

 high degree of perfection ; his experi- 

 ments being conducted by his affec- 

 tionate wife, and going so far as to 

 count a full colony one at a time. 

 Debauvoy, in the forepart of this cen- 



tury, invented his movable-frame 

 hive, but it was found to be inconven- 

 ient for general use, and it has been 

 improved and impoved, until we now 

 have hives to suit all men. 



At the present day the bee-keeping 

 world are agitating the production or 

 the Apis-Americana, or the " coming 

 bee," that it is hoped will be able to 

 reach the nectar in our deepest 

 flowers — such as red clover, thistles, 

 etc, and will produce one, two or 

 three hundred pounds of honey per 

 colony. The idea of stripes or color 

 has passed away with specialists, and 

 now they breed for business. Occa- 

 sionally one, who still sticks to the 

 common black bee, warmly defending 

 their excellences. While we all have 

 to agree that they produce the whitest 

 of comb honey, I think I cau safely 

 say that nine-tenths of tlie bee-keep- 

 ers of to-day would prefer the Ital- 

 ians, for they possess more excellences 

 than any other strain that has been 

 introduced yet; being more docile 

 than the blacks, also much larger, and 

 can carry heavier loads against our 

 strong winds, and breed faster— keep- 

 ing their hives full of workers. My 

 advice to all bee-keepers would be to 

 Italianize all of the bees in their 

 neighborhood, and then they can be 

 sure of keeping their bees pure. But 

 if they allow any black colonies to be 

 kept within two or three miles of 

 them, they will have to be very watch- 

 ful if tliey get any purely-mated 

 queens, because the queen goes out in 

 the air to mate, and the black drones 

 being smaller and swifter, outstrip 

 the heavy Italian ; and the conse- 

 quence is, you have a queen produc- 

 ing hybrid bees. This can be pre- 

 vented by any judicious apiarist, to a 

 large extent, by rearing drones from 

 the best Italian colonies, cutting all 

 drone comb out of the black colonies, 

 and not allowing them to rear any 

 drones. 



The hybrid bees has admirers, too, 

 for they produce beautiful comb 

 honey, and are very industrious ; very 

 often storing more than either the 

 blacks or pure Italians ; but they are 

 more irascible than the pure of blacks 

 or Italians, often being very annoy- 

 ing to everybody and everything that 

 moves. But anyone cau put up with 

 considerable trouble to be rewarded 

 wdth a lot of choice honey, for they 

 are indefatigable workers. They, too, 

 are larger than the blacks, although 

 they do not all have stripes. Some of 

 them are pure black, while others 

 have stripes across their abdomen; 

 and, in fact, are pure Italians. Yet 

 queens reared from these will have 

 hybrid drones— the drones being wliat 

 the mother is ; if she is pure Italian, 

 her drones will be pure Italian ; if she 

 is black, the drones will be blacks; or 

 hybrid, the drones will be hybrids. 



Wliile many of our best apiarists 

 advocate breeding from the swarms 

 that store tlie most honey, irrespec- 

 tive of the color of tlie queen or 

 drones, others recommend selecting a 

 pure colony to rear queens from, and 

 select their best working colony to 

 rear drones from. I have never reared 

 queens only for my own use, and I 

 have always selected good, large bees. 



