THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



639 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



" The Pollen Theory "—Facts. 



A. R. KOmSTKE. 



Exactly what we want. Fact No. 1. 

 Colonies affected with the bee diar- 

 rhoea have always pollen in their 

 hives ; fact No. 2, colonies wintered 

 largely or exclusively on sugar syrup 

 escape the disease ; fact No. 3, void- 

 ings of the bees affected with the dis- 

 ease have the same color as pollen, 

 there being no other substance in the 

 hive having the same effect to color. 



Now, for Mr. Doolittle's experi- 

 ments, as stated in No. 48, page 606. 

 Mr. D. has tried to force bees by 

 starvation to eat pollen, in which he 

 failed. This proves nothing but his 

 failure ; it does not prove that the 

 bees do not eat pollen, for we know 

 they do. Pollen is not, and cannot be 

 the primary cause ; certainly not. Pri- 

 mary causes are those which compel 

 the iaees to eat the pollen when they 

 ought not to ; viz. : out of season, tt 

 Mr. D. had furnished besides pollen 

 and little or no honey, those other 

 conditions necessary to produce the 

 disease, I dare say he would have 

 succeeded. 



Now, I wish Mr. D. and such other 

 bee-keepers as are interested in it, 

 would experiment as to how to pro- 

 duce the disease, at will, whenever 

 they wish ; than we would arrive at 

 facts and try to avoid such conditions. 



Like Mr. D., I have also tried to 

 force bees to eat pollen, just one week 

 later than Mr. D. ; viz. : Oct. 19, this 

 fall. I had some very old combs, full 

 of honey, which I did not want to use 

 Bext spring. I extracted the honey, 

 and found two-thirds of the frames 

 filled with pollen and covered with 

 honey. Quite a quantity of the 

 pollen being soaked through with 

 honey, was thrown out. Having 

 some colonies which are rather scant 

 in stores, I fed five of them of this 

 honey, on the above date, which I 

 chose, to avoid robbing, as it was too 

 cold for the bees to fly, as also the 

 20th and 21st. On the 22d the bees 

 had a chance to fly, and every colony 

 thus fed showed signs of bee diarrhcea. 

 At the same time other colonies, part 

 of which were fed with sugar syrup 

 and part with powdered sugar, made 

 into a dough with clover honey, were 

 not affected. 



By all means let us have facts. I 

 have drawn conclusions from such as 

 have come imder my observations. 

 Of course, I . tu liable to err ; but, as 

 long as my co'iclusions are not proven 

 to be erroniotis, I think I am justified 

 to consider them correct. 



To conclude, I will add, that I lost 

 2 colonies, last winter, by this disease 

 ('?) which had not a particle of brood, 

 hut the honey was gone clean, and 

 part of the pollen eaten. 



Youngstown, O., Nov. 31, 1883. 



®" The annual meeting of the 

 Lorain County Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion will be held in the Court House at 

 Elyria, Dec. 19, 1883. 



O. J. Terrell, Sec. 



North Eidgeville, O. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



My Experience with Syrian Bees. 



L. A. LOWMASTER. 



I will give my experience with 

 Syrian bees, and as 1 do not rear 

 queens to sell, I have " no axe to 

 grind." When I first heard of the 

 Syrian bees. I was anxious to try 

 them, so I sent to Mr. Jones for two 

 queens, which I received in July, 

 1881, and as it was too late in the sea- 

 sou to test them thorougly, I con- 

 cluded to keep them until I was satis- 

 fied whether they were inferior or 

 superior to other races of bees. 



In the fall of 1881 , wiien I prepared 

 them for winter, they were stronger 

 in numbers than the rest of my bees. 

 They stood the winter well, and in 

 the spring of 1882, they were more 

 populous than the Italians and Al- 

 binos ; so I thought that I would rear 

 a few queens for my own use, and I 

 succeeded jn rearing some very fine 

 queens, and as I did not put on any 

 boxes in 1882, 1 did not get any sur- 

 plus honey ; but when I prepared them 

 for winter in the fall of 1882, I found 

 nearly every colony had twice as much 

 honey as they needed to winter on, 

 having the brood-chamber full, with 

 the exception of two or three combs, 

 which was about half-full of brood. 



The winter of 1882-83 was hard on 

 bees in this part of the country, but 

 my Syrians came through in good con- 

 dition ; they wintered better than the 

 rest of my bees, excepting the Cyp- 

 rians, which I had 1>4 miles from my 

 home apiary. 



Nearly all of the rest of my bees 

 (Italians, Albinos and hybrids) were 

 weak, and in a deplorable condition, 

 so I had to take frames of hatching 

 brood from the Syrians to build up 

 weak colonies, and when the combs 

 were full pf brood, and the young 

 bees commenced to gnaw through, I 

 took them out and exchanged them 

 with the weak colonies the second 

 time. 



After taking all the brood out twice, 

 it did not seem to affect them at all ; 

 and by the time white clover was in 

 bloom, they were stronger than the 

 Italians and Albinos, and they com- 

 menced to work in the sections two 

 weeks before the Italians (I did not 

 take any brood from the Italians). 

 The SyriaHS cast larger swarms, be- 

 sides gathering more surplus honey 

 than the Italians ever did for me. 



The young colonies filled 8-frame 

 Langstroth liives, and stored more 

 honey in the sections than did the old 

 colonies of Italians and hybrids, while 

 the Albinos and hybrids only filled the 

 brood-chamber, and only gathered 

 enough lioney to winter on tliis fall. 

 When I prepared them for winter 

 they all had plenty of honey to carry 

 tliem through safely, and more. 



I find the Syrians splendid honey- 

 gatherers ; they work early and late ; 

 they carry heavy loads of "honey, and 

 there are lots of them. And yet, some 

 say they are no good. 



The Albino bees are not as good as 

 the Italians. I have had them on 

 trial for three or four years, and I 



know whereof I speak. I never got 

 as much honey from them during all 

 this time as I did this year from one 

 colony of Syrians. I have " weighed 

 them'in the balance " and " they are 

 found wanting." They liad their day, 

 and must step down and out. I will 

 keep one or two colonies of them just 

 to look at. 



One WTiter says that he would like 

 to see the man " that can tell the dif- 

 ference between the Italians, Syrians 

 and Cyprians." Now, if there is no 

 difference, why is he afraid to try 

 them, before lie says they are not as 

 good as his strain of bees ? If he will 

 come here, I will show him the dif- 

 ference between the Syrians, Italians 

 and Cyprians. 



I find no difficulty in telling one 

 from the other, and even queens 

 fertilized by Cyprian drones, produce 

 bees which are readily known from 

 pure Syrians. The general color, 

 markings and movement of these 

 bees, say nothing of their working 

 qualities, are suflicieiit to enable one 

 to distinguish the races readily, but 

 there are also other points in which 

 they differ. Upon opening a hive of 

 Syrian bees, and using smoke, the 

 workers crawl about in a manner 

 somewhat like black bees, but soon 

 become quiet, if carefully handled. 

 The workers fly in a darting manner, 

 and alight quickly when near the de- 

 sired spot, or, perhaps, it cannot be 

 better expressed than to simply say 

 they flit from point to point, wliile 

 the Cyprians and Italians exhibit a 

 more moderate motion. 



The Syrian bees present a decidedly 

 gray color, though the abdoman has 

 a ringed appearance. The ground 

 color is a grayish-black ; the body, be- 

 fore the fuzz is worn off, being very 

 light ; the gray-colored fuzz is very 

 thick on the thorax, and the latter half 

 on each segment of the abdomen, es- 

 pecially those after the yellow bands, 

 are thickly set with light-colored 

 fuzz, giving them a striking appear- 

 ance. The three yellow bands are 

 very prominent and yellow. 



The shield between the wings is 

 not as prominent as with the Cyp- 

 rians, though still visible. The Syrian 

 drones are very fine, large and vigor- 

 ous, and have an exceedinly thick 

 coat of whitish and blue-tinged "fuzz" 

 over the greater part of the thorax, 

 especially on the sides, and a very 

 noticeable amount on the abdomen. 

 In proportion to their bodies, I think 

 their wings are somewhat larger than 

 those of tlie Italians or Cyprians. 



The Syrian queens are wonderfully 

 prolific, laying an incredible number 

 of eggs in a season ; in fact, I would 

 not be surprised if a Syrian queen 

 would lay as many eggs in one season 

 as blacks or Italians'do in a life time. 

 The Syrian ciueens are very small 

 wlien not laying, and some "persons 

 think them ordinary looking ; but give 

 tliem plenty of bees and room, and 

 tliey get very large, and fill a frame 

 of comb with eggs so rapidly that you 

 would imagine it impossible for one 

 queen to deposit them so fast. One 

 Syrian queen can lay eggs enough in 

 21 days to make from 4 to colonies 

 of bees, if they were all cared for and 



