THE AMERICAIT BEE JOURNAL. 



561 



tall inevitably is that 1 or 2 have far 

 exceeded the others in the amount of 

 honey gathered. I have studied the 

 matter to some considerable extent, 

 but have not as yet fully solved the 

 problem of why this is so ; still I have 

 formed an opinion in regard to the 

 matter and will venture to give it, 

 hoping that it may not be looked upon 

 as the chimera of a visionary, or the 

 vagary of a disordered intellect, but 

 instead will create enough interest in 

 the matter to start an amicable dis- 

 cussion in regard to it. 



My idea is tliat each colony chooses 

 a foraging ground, wliich may vary 

 from year to year, and consequently 

 the amount of stores gathered will 

 vary also, depending upon the amount 

 of honey-producing flowers growing 

 thereon. It is supposed that a radius 

 of three miles from an apiary com- 

 prises the ground usually covered by 

 its bees. I conclude that while all 

 this territory may be, and pDobably is, 

 covered by a large apiary, tlie individ- 

 ual colonics that compose such apiary 

 have their own favorite localities, 

 which may change somewhat, but 

 which will be visited so long as any 

 amount (no matter how small,) of 

 honey is found; and that this locality is 

 not abandoned so long as any honey 

 can be gathered therefrom. 



If my reasoning is not correct, it 

 certainly is possibly so. and ^until 

 someone gives better, I snail stick to 

 my opinion. The remedy, if any there 

 is, and I admit that a remedy is al- 

 most impracticable, is to plant honey- 

 producing flowers in every direction 

 from an apiary, as a means of aiding 

 nature to counteract her own sterilty. 

 With a small apiary it will make little 

 difference, but with a large one it will, 

 I think, make enough to be fairly ap- 

 preciable. At any rate some good 

 will result from efforts made in this 

 direction, the difficulty being to per- 

 form the labor in a manner such as 

 will bring about the best results. 

 Who will give the subject some atten- 

 tion, and the readers of the Bee Jour- 

 nal their views upon it y 



SHALL WE HYBRIDIZE OUR BEES? 



Mr. Ileddon claims to have made 

 such progress in crossing his bees 

 as to have obtained a new strain, with 

 characteristics so fixed that they are 

 invariably reproduced, and that from 

 the strain so obtained, to gain the 

 best results. Hybrids have always 

 been considered valuable as honey 

 gatherers, their exceeding fero- 

 ciousness being the principle objec- 

 tion brought against them. I myself 

 have made some attempts in this 

 direction, but I admit I have most 

 signally failed, and that too where my 

 own bees are the only ones within 

 probable flight-range of any apiary ; 

 some five miles being the nearest dis- 

 tance at which any bees are kept. I 

 have crossed the black drone with an 

 Italian queen and "vice, versa" but 

 have never been able to fix any qual- 

 ities save crossness. Stripes of all 

 kinds, from 3 to none, and of all 

 shades of color have been found, but 

 nothing have I been able to produce 

 in the matter of equalizing either 

 color or number of bands. I am a 

 lover of beauty in everything, but do 



not carry it in my apiary to the extent 

 of sacrificing other qualities to the 

 maintenance of beauty alone. 



I liave had Italians for 17 years, and 

 more, and have found them far supe- 

 rior to the blacks, and as a rule, far 

 superior to any hybrids. I have occa- 

 sionally found a hybrid queen whose 

 workers were the best of workers, but 

 have not been able to fix those quali- 

 ties so desirable to retain, but have 

 been able to do so to my satisfaction 

 with the Italians. I do not say it is 

 impossible so to do, but it does seem 

 difficult to create a new strain (using 

 tlie term strain for all it implies,) 

 from hybrids (the Italians are now 

 admitted, I believe to be hybrids, us- 

 ing the term hybrid to mean a cross,) 

 when it has taken so many years to 

 make them what they are. 



I have no doubt Mr. Ileddon has 

 produced excellent bees, but will they 

 stand the test, as do the Italians, of, 

 being kept alone for a term of years? 

 That question as yet remains to be 

 answered, and my advice to beginners 

 (the old ones can take care of them- 

 selves,) is to go slow in the matter of 

 running after new things. The Ital- 

 ians have been fully tested, and stand 

 the test too; their record is made, and 

 it is a good one ; so I say be careful in 

 selection; take nothing upon credit in 

 making a start, and as you become 

 older in the business and gain in ex- 

 perience, you will be better able to 

 judge of the value of making experi- 

 ments in new fields and with untried 

 instruments. I do not wish to be un- 

 derstood as detracting from the value 

 of Mr. Heddon's new strain, far from 

 it ; he is a bee-keeper of experience 

 and honesty, but I do wish to deter 

 any beginner from leaving the old 

 beaten track until he fully knows the 

 new paths and can safely follow them. 



Foxboro, Mass., Oct. 26, 1883. 



Rend at t,he Maine Convention. 



Mortality of Bees— Winter & Spring. 



WM. MCLAUGHLIN, M. D. 



Adversity and losses often teach us 

 more important lessons and produce 

 greater range of thought than pros- 

 perity and gain. So the usual mortal- 

 ity of bees during the winter and 

 spring may be an incentive for us to 

 make further investigations, learn 

 more important facts, and yet dis- 

 cover some means to avert or prevent 

 this fearful drawback on bee-keeping 

 in our State. And when we consider 

 what enormous losses have been sus- 

 tained, year after year, it behooves 

 every one who has any interest in the 

 success of apiculture to " help, aid and 

 assist " all those means and measures 

 designed to bring about so desired a 

 result. It is no part of wise men to say 

 that our present attainments are suf- 

 licient, that we know all about bee- 

 keeping or that we should settle down 

 on a standard frame for all sections 

 and climates, but rather by experi- 

 mentation and practical research try 

 to discover other and belter methods 

 of carrying our bees through our 

 severe and long winters and springs. 



I took considerable pains last spring 



to canvass at least one town, the town 

 of Harmony, in order to accurately 

 estimate the death rate of bees and 

 the causes that led thereto. And I 

 believe when we know the particular 

 cause we may apply the treatment or 

 prenventive measures, and thus attain 

 our desired results. There were 1& 

 bee-keepers in this town the past year 

 and the whole number of colonies put 

 into winter quarters was 80. Three 

 colonies were in the Torrey hives, 10 

 were in box hives and the rest were 

 in the Gallup hives or some modifica- 

 tion of it. A very few were wintered 

 in cellars, some in house chambers, 

 while the most of them were left on 

 the summer stands. Those left out 

 doors were protected by an outside 

 hive or house with a 6 inch space filled 

 with chaff and a chaff cushion over 

 the frames. Now out of the 80 that 

 bid fair to winter, only 50 came 

 tlirough alive, making the loss by 

 death 37Ja per cent., a fearful loss 

 indeed ! Upon careful examination I 

 found those that died in cellars starv- 

 ed to death with no honey in the hive, 

 which showed that they would have 

 lived if there had been food enough in 

 the hives ; while 20 colonies died on 

 the summer stands in Gallup hives 

 and protected with chaff and outside 

 hives, and honey in one or both ends 

 of the hives. Twenty colonies died of 

 starvation with a plenty of honey in 

 the .hives. 



Honey'to the right of thetu. 

 Honey to the left of them, 

 Honey by side of them, 

 But none above them. 

 Suffered and hungered, 

 Died tliere unnumbered, 

 Some one had blundered; 

 'rlieir'8 not to make reply, 

 Thelr'a not to reason why, 

 Their'B but to do and die, 

 A BCore of awarm8 in eighty. 



The treatment or preventive meas- 

 ures, it seems to me, are self evident. 

 We must either winter in cellars or so 

 construct our liives that they may 

 winter safely on summer stands. If 

 we could liave the temperature in the 

 hive above the freezing point all the 

 time, and have a plenty of sealed 

 stores, we should not lose our bees to 

 any material extent ; but so long as 

 we cannot expect to do that, it is nec- 

 essary to ward off all the cold we can. 

 But this packing is inconvenient, and 

 results are so uncertain that they will 

 die unless we adopt the natural means 

 which the bees would claim if they 

 were able to speak. We all know that 

 bees cluster on the approach of win- 

 ter beneath their winter's store in the 

 middle of the hive, and when the air 

 within is too cold for them to go side- 

 ways, they naturally approach the 

 upper partof the cluster, tor the lieat 

 of their bodies and breathing keeps 

 their combs immediately above them 

 in a condition for their occupation. 

 They cannot go across or sideways for 

 it may be frosty and contrary to their 

 nature when the air is cold ami chilly. 



Now if we can so construct a hive 

 or frame that shall give depth of 

 honey above the cluster, we shall have 

 an additional assurance that our bees 

 will not starve in winter or perish 

 with cold. And further we must pro- 

 tect our colonies to such an extent 

 that the temperature within the hive 

 may not fall below the freezing point. 



