THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



405 



In 1881, 1 had as fine hybrid bees 

 as could have been found anywhere. 

 They were excellent honey-gatherers 

 and comb builders, produced in the 

 same way that the " celebrated red 

 clover strain," mentioned in the Bee 

 JouKNAL not long since, was pro- 

 duced, by crossing the large Italians 

 with the brown bees ; that is, I guess, 

 they came in this way, as they were 

 the Italian queens, producing very 

 large hybrid bees that were gentle 

 and " boss " workers when there was 

 plenty of white clover and basswood. 

 The stripes on tliem were very dark, 

 and much smaller tlum "kittens," 

 and they did not have very long hair 

 on their " hind legs,"' and when the 

 extremely hot and dry weather set 

 in, they " sat " in (their hives) ; while 

 our Italians that did not appear to do 

 near so well during clover and bass- 

 wood, went far and near visiting 

 every nook and corner in search or 

 tlie scanty bloom ; maintained their 

 stores and gained a moderate supply 

 for winter. These hybrids consumed 

 their stores in brood-rearing, and for 

 winter supplies had plenty of bees 

 and empty combs. Tliis was not all, 

 shortly after the bloom failed, two of 

 those hybrids swarmed, another two 

 balled and killed their queens, but 

 tire Italians "toiled leisurely on." 



In 1880, a friend and I purchased a 

 selected imported queen, that I have 

 mentioned before in the Bee Jour- 

 nal. She was one of the most pro- 

 litic queens I have ever seen, but her 

 bees, which were gentle and excellent 

 workers, spent nearly all their ener- 

 gies in the early part of the season, 

 in brood-rearing. They were the 

 most excessive builders of drone 

 comb I ever saw, and while other 

 queens in my apiary refused to lay 

 drone eggs until their hives were 

 crowded with bees, this queen would 

 occupy every available cell. 



For these reasons I discarded the 

 imported stock. Besides the qualities 

 of the imported stock, the bees were 

 small and the drones very dark. I 

 made the discovery in June, 1881, 

 that I was losing ground by breeding 

 from imported stock, and during the 

 remainder of the season I disposed of 

 all the daughters of the imported 

 queen but three. During July and 

 August, 1881, 1 reared several queens 

 from the best home-bred stock I had, 

 for the express purpo.se of producing 

 my drones in 1882. In the spring of 

 1882, drone combs were excluded 

 from the few colonies of hybrids and 

 imported stock, and supplied in 

 abundance to tliose from which we 

 wanted drones. Our queens of 1882 

 were all reared from four home-bred 

 queens. About 10 per cent, of our 

 queens mismated. Tlie hybrids were 

 all destroyed last fall. Two queens 

 were superseded late in the fail, and 

 the young queens both mismated, one 

 of which was destroyed this spring, 

 so that, to-day, in 56 colonies, we 

 have but one hybrid queen. 



For two reasons I have given the 

 above short history of my efforts in 

 breeding for good bees. 



1. To give the reader some knowl- 

 edge of my experience with bees. 



2. That a comparison of ray experi- 



ence with that of those whose ex- 

 perience appears from time to time 

 in the Bee Journal, and who are 

 advocating hybrid bees may be had. 



It is not my intention in this com- 

 munication to discuss the merits or 

 demerits in a definite way of either 

 hybrids of Italians, but I wish to drop 

 a few hints tliat may tend to encour- 

 age apiarists to think solidly for 

 themselves, and not allow others to 

 tliink too much for them; and to do 

 tliis in a practical way, I will in- 

 troduce a question here. If such a 

 happy hybrid cross can be " hit upon " 

 so easily as some of our bee-keeping 

 friends are contending for, why is it 

 that, with Italian bees in this coun- 

 try for more than 25 years, our most 

 prominent beeders have never made 

 the discovery i And, again, if such 

 hybrids are so easily produced, why is 

 it that younger apiarists like myself 

 and hundreds of others wlio are read- 

 ers of the Bee Journal, cannot pro- 

 duce the same results, especially when 

 we have the instructions how it is 

 done repeated over and over again, 

 to us y 



Tliese hybrids have been represented 

 as the " celebrated red-clover strain," 

 and " the coming iiee;" yet the re- 

 ports in honey from those having this 

 "celebrated" stock are no greater 

 than the reports of novices. Italian 

 bees from my apiary, numbering 100 

 colonies or more, have worked on 

 red clover every season since I pur- 

 chased them. I have not had time 

 yet this season to visit the fields, but 

 some of my neighbors told me yester- 

 day that the yellow bees were work- 

 ing on the red clover " thickly." 

 Hybrids from our bees, as would be 

 expected, work largely on red clover, 

 and I do not see why hybrids from 

 any other good strain of Italians 

 should not work on it. 



One tiling about red clover, but 

 few apiarists seem to have realized, 

 and that is its failure to secrete nec- 

 tar. Our bees have worked on it 

 best when the weather is warm both 

 day and night, and making the most 

 thrifty growth. Cool nights stop the 

 secretion of its nectar, and there are 

 but few plants that fail as quickly in 

 dry hot weather aT red clover. 



Bryant, 111., June 18, 1883. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



The Humidity Question. 



s. corneil. 



The relation of the humidity of the 

 atmosphere to the mortality of bees 

 in winter, is referred to by the writer 

 of " Bee Notes " in the American Ag- 

 riculturist for January and February 

 last, and quotations thereform appear 

 on page 68 of the present volume of 

 the Bee Journal. After very fairly 

 summarizing some points in an arti- 

 cle of mine on page 728 af the Bee 

 Journal for 1882, he says : 



"The writer then asserts that in 

 those winters most remarkable for 

 bee mortality, the air has been very 

 moist. We have the data whereby 

 this can be determined, as in this 

 place the condition of the atmosphere 



as to moisture has been recorded daily 

 for 19 years. We will compare the 

 figures with the loss of bees, and give 

 itto the readers of the American Agri- 

 culturist mY^hvyvAxy. If this be true, 

 it shows well why sub-earth ventila- 

 tion has been so successful, as by that 

 method the air is kept from getting 

 moist. The appearance of the bees 

 that die of dysentery is also favorable 

 to this view. They look dropsical, 

 and seem fairly oozing with liquid 

 excreta." 



In his " Notes " for February, he 

 says: "An examination of the con- 

 dition of the atmosphere, as to the 

 point of saturation, shows that there 

 13 not the least evidence in favor of 

 the idea that excessive moisture was 

 in any single case the cause of the 

 great losses of bees. It also appears 

 that in all the seasons of bad winter- 

 ing, severe cold was experienced. It 

 is further shown that when the cold 

 occurred early in the winter, the mor- 

 tality commenced at an early period. 

 If late, the bees did not appear dis- 

 eased till near the end of the winter." 



I find no fault with the criticism, 

 but the records examined must have 

 been very different from those of the 

 Signal Service in connection with the 

 War Department at Washington. 

 The Chief Signal Service Otiicer of 

 the United States Army has, at the 

 expense of a great deal of trouble 

 and labor, very courteously supplied 

 me with data from which I have com- 

 piled the accompanying table, an ex- 

 amination of which will show that at 

 most points the humidity, as well as 

 the cold in the winter of 1880-1, was ex- 

 cessive. The temperature for each 

 mouth of that winter has been com- 

 pared with the monthly average at 

 each station since it was established, 

 and so with regard to the relative 

 humidity. In the columns for tem- 

 perature the tigiires preceded by the 

 minus sign indicate that the tempera- 

 ture was so many degrees colder tlian 

 the average. Those having the plus 

 sign signify the reverse. In the col- 

 umns for humidity, the figures pre- 

 ceded by the plus sign indicate that 

 the moisture was so much in excess 

 of the average, dry air being repre- 

 sented by 0, and the point of satura- 

 tion by 100. Those having the minus 

 sign show th;^.t the air was so much 

 drier than the average. 



The way in which cold and mois- 

 ture affect bees injuriously in winter, 

 I conceive to be somewhat as follows. 

 But tirst let me say that I tliink it is 

 fully established tliat the tempera- 

 ture of a cluster of bees is not con- 

 stant, like that of mammalia and 

 birds, but varies, through a consider- 

 able range, with the temperature of 

 the surrounding air, yet never falling 

 as low, as in some of the lower orders 

 of the cold-blooded animals, without 

 producing death. It is also estab- 

 lished that bees do not hybernate per- 

 fectly, but are at all times more or less 

 active ;uh1 consume food, and that 

 this activity and consumption of food 

 are increased by severe cold. Since 

 severe cold reduces the temperature 

 of the bees, the air permeating the 

 cluster will also have a lower tempera- 

 ture, and will, in consequence, have 



