THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



593 



in less than iil hours ! These queens 

 are exceedingly strong and liardy, 

 often being able to fly from the cell as 

 soon as they cut their way out, which 

 occurs in from 12 to 14 days, or from 

 2 to 4 days earlier than the Italian or 

 German bees. 



Their bees come out of the cell in 17 

 days from the time the eggs are de- 

 posited in the cell, or 4 days earlier 

 than do Italians or Germans. This, I 

 think, to be due more to the abund- 

 ance of food furnished to the larvie, 

 tlian to any essential difference in 

 their natural time of development. 

 These bees give food in such abund- 

 ance to the larvje, as almost to cover 

 them, like the queen larvse is covered 

 and floated in the royal jelly, so pro- 

 digally supplied in the queen-cells. 

 The tiermans and Italians are poor 

 nurses, leaving the larvie to become 

 hungry, until at times they may be 

 seen with their necks stretched and 

 mouths gaping, mutely pleading for 

 more of the food which brings them 

 life. 



The Syrian bees are possessed of 

 wonderful energy, working early and 

 late, flying far and wide in search of 

 stores ; they come rushing from the 

 hive, and are off like a flash to the 

 fields, returning heavily burdened 

 from the fields of toil, they hasten 

 past the thresliold of home as though 

 the fate of nations depended upon 

 their speed ; and this tremendous 

 activity is kept up all day long. This 

 race has the reputation of being more 

 cross than Italians. This, I tlunk, to 

 be due to their being more irritable on 

 the first opening of the hive, and to the 

 fact that they are more sensitive to 

 any jarring of their hives or frames 

 than are the Italians. The latter stick 

 closely to their combs after a jar, 

 which would send dozens of the Syrian 

 bees upon the war-path. 



If proper care and gentleness is used 

 in opening the hive and handling the 

 frame, they are not, I think, any more 

 irascible than are the Italians. In 

 rearing queens, they will often build 

 from 30 to 50 cells upon a single frame 

 of brood. Their fighting qualities 

 abolish all danger of robbing, as they 

 not only seize an intruder before he 

 gets inside of the hive, but they will 

 often dart upon an intruder while a 

 foot or more from the entrance. 



The Cyprians are very similar in 

 every respect to the Syrian bees, ex- 

 cept they are, possibly, a little more 

 irritable and nervous. They have the 

 same intense energy and combative- 

 ness. When once aroused, it is almost 

 impossible to subdue either of these 

 races by smoke. They are, I think, 

 longer-lived than the otlier races. 



The Egyptians are quite similar in 

 appearance to the Italians, only they 

 are somewhat smaller and lighter- 

 colored. Their queens are wonderfully 

 fertile, "breeding all tlie year around," 

 and, without very judicious manage- 

 ment, their owner will get all bees and 

 no honey. 



The Italians are the beautiful golden 

 bees which revolutionized our bee- 

 keeping, and, by their gentleness and 

 docility, made scientific apiculture 

 pleasant and proHtable. Their queens 

 are more fertile than the Germans, 



but less so than the Syrians. Tlie same 

 is true as to strength and hardiness, 

 they, in common with the Syrians and 

 Cyprians, being able to drag out and 

 fly off with the larva of the bee-moth, 

 which was formerly such a pest to bee- 

 keepers. As honey - gatherers, they 

 are almost equal to the Syrian and 

 Cyprian bees ; that is, a full colony of 

 Italians and a full colony of Syrians 

 or Cyprians would probably gather 

 nearly equal amounts of honey, but 

 the greater fertility of the Syrian 

 queens give them the • advantage by 

 enabling them to have a full hive at 

 the beginning of the honey harvest. 

 In gentleness, the Italians are un- 

 doubtedly ahead of any other race, 

 yet this gentleness has a limit, and 

 they may be aroused into a perfect 

 frenzy of ungovernable rage. If at- 

 tacked by robbers, they form a cordon 

 of guards about the entrance, which 

 effectually bars it. 



As to the German or black bees, it 

 is difficult to name any one point in 

 which they excel tlie yellow races, and 

 yet there are men of no small expe- 

 rience in apiculture, who maintain 

 that they are equally as good as any 

 yellow race. It is claimed by their 

 friends that they are less apt to win- 

 ter-kill, and that they are better comb 

 builders and make finer -appearing 

 comb honey. 



Now, as to the method of securing 

 the "ideal bee " from these different 

 races, I should recommend that a pure 

 Syrian queen be fertilized by a hybrid 

 drone from the Italian and German 

 races ; that is, the drone should be 

 from the egg of a queen whose mother 

 was a pure Italian, mated with a Ger- 

 man drone. This would produce a bee 

 one-half Syrian, one-fourth Italian, 

 and one-fourth German. 



I would have this much of the Ger- 

 man blood, not because I think the 

 German superior or even equal to the 

 yellow races, but because I believe it 

 to be demonstrated fact, that, other 

 things being equal, this admixture of 

 the German blood greatly increases 

 the honey-gathering qualities of our 

 bees. 



Another point of equal or even 

 greater importance than the race we 

 breed from, is the character of the 

 queen from whose brood we rear our 

 cjueens; she should beourvery clioicest 

 in every respect : size, beauty, fertil- 

 ity, strength and activity ; her bees 

 should be tested and proven to be 

 strong honey-gatherers, good comb- 

 builders, full size, and gentle, (the 

 color Is a matter of no importance, 

 tliough I must confess that, other 

 things being equal, I greatly prefer the 

 beautiful golden-banded fellows.) 



The drones with which our queens 

 are to be mated, is a matter we cannot 

 absolutely control, unless we succeed 

 in getting queens fertilized in a closed 

 room, which I intend giving an exten- 

 sive experimental trial next summer; 

 without this, we can, by careful man- 

 agement, control it to a very large ex- 

 tent, unless we have neighbors within 

 a very few rods who have bad bees. 



My plan is to select a choice queen 

 or queens such as I desire to breed 

 from, and very early in the spring to 

 place a section of drone comb in the 



center of the brood chamber of their 

 colonies, (and I usually have no diffi- 

 culty in getting them filled with drone 

 eggs.) I then remove them and put 

 some sections in such colonies as I do 

 not want drones from. The bees in 

 this colony now care for the drone 

 larva;, and in due time the drones are 

 hatched and the sections removed. 

 The colony is thus supplied with the 

 right kind of drones, and are satisfied 

 without rearing drones from their own 

 queen. If they attempt to do so, their 

 drone larvai are removed, and more 

 drone brood given to them from a 

 selected queen. I thus have my apiary 

 supplied with selected drones, and 

 very rarely have I had a mismated 

 queen, although there are dozens of 

 black colonies within half a mile of my 

 apiary. I think if an apiary is properly 

 supplied with drones, a very large 

 majority of its young queens will find 

 their mates from the home yard. 



In rearing queens, I place a strip of 

 foundation in a frame, and hang it in 

 the center of the colony containing the 

 queen I wish to breed from, and allow 

 it to remain until drawn out and par- 

 tially filled with eggs. In the mean 

 time I prepare a strong nucleus of four 

 frames of young Syrian bees, with 

 plenty of honey and pollen, but no un- 

 sealed brood. In the center of this 

 nucleus I place the frame of eggs from 

 my choice queen. I thus get the whole 

 attention of my nucleus concentrated 

 upon a comparatively few eggs, and the 

 queen larvie are kept abundantly sup- 

 plied with royal jelly, from their hatch- 

 ing and before, until they are capped 

 over. On the 11th day from the laying 

 of the egg. I remove the frame of 

 cells, without any bees, to a lamp nur- 

 sery, where, if I happen to be unable 

 to attend to the queens as fast as 

 hatched, they will live peaceably to- 

 gether for several hours. The young 

 queens are at once introduced to 

 queenless nuclei, previously prepared 

 for them, where they remain until 

 fertilized and ready for use. All the 

 small, sluggish and feeble queens are 

 destroyed, and I think I thus secure 

 the best possible results. 



If this weeding- out process were 

 rigorously persisted in, other things 

 being equal, I think we would get 

 more uniform results from our colo- 

 nies, and not have one colony yielding 

 100 pounds or more of surplus, while 

 another by its side gives only 10 

 pounds, or even nothing ; in other 

 words, perfect, strong, active queens 

 should give us strong, active honey- 

 gatherers. 



Finally, whatever race or races of 

 bees we keep, let us breed both our 

 queens and drones only from our very 

 best queens. 



Fountain City, Ind. 



^"Do not let your numbers of the 

 Bee Journal for 1883 be lost. The 

 best way to preserve them is to pro- 

 cure a binder and put them in. They 

 are very valuable for reference. 



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