1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



553 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. J. F. H. BRO\VN, AUGUSTA., GA. 



[Please send all questions relating to bee-keeping In the South direct 

 to Dr. Brown, and he will answer in this department.— Ed. 1 



An International Bec-Kecpcrs' Congress. 



It is proposed to hold an International Bee-Keepers' Con- 

 gress on Dec. 4 and 5, 1895, 'in Atlanta, Ga., during the Cot- 

 ton States' Exposition. The call has been signed by most of 

 the prominent bee-keepers in the southern States, including 

 Texas. At this time of the Exposition the railroad fares will 

 bo greatly reduced ; the work in the apiary for the year will 

 be ended ; and the bee-keeper will have a grand opportunity 

 to meet and mingle with his brethren in convention, to shake 

 hands, become acquainted, and talk over questions of vital 

 importance to the success and prosperity of his pursuit. 



This gathering of bee-keepers will know no lines of lati- 

 tude nor longitude, but will take in the whole American con- 

 tinent. It is hoped that every live and wide-awake bee-keeper 

 will make his arrangements to meet his brethren on the above 

 days. Subjects of the utmost importance to the continued 

 success of this industry will come up for discussion, in which 

 every bee-keeper in our country should feel the deepest in- 

 terest. 



All bee-papers and agricultural journals are most respect- 

 fully requested to notice the time of this convention. 



The Kingbird Defended — Birds and Insects. 



On page 455, there is an article on the bee-martin, or 

 kingbird, as he is variously termed. Mr. Rouse's conclusion 

 seemed to be, that this bird did more harm than good, and 

 that he should be exterminated. 



My purpose is to enter a plea in behalf of our supposed 

 enemy, and to invite the readers of the Bee Journal to hear a 

 little more evidence before execution of the capital sentence. 



A pair of these birds nested in my yard this year, and 

 sore has been the temptation, at times, to put a summary end 

 to their depredations. There is no doubt but that they have 

 been living mainly on worker-bees. Early in the morning 

 they are on hand long before the drones are flying. Before 

 the sun is half an hour high they have finished their morning 

 meal. I have seen them catch workers scores of times. They 

 will take up their station on the fence in the line of travel 

 taken by the bees on the way to a patch of early peas, and I 

 have seen them dart into the air and Intercept a bee, and the 

 vicious snap of their mandibles could be heard every minute. 



When not so eager, they will perch on the top-most bough 

 of a neighboring tree, and as the bee goes humming by, the 

 bird will erect his crest, displaying the beautiful crimson 

 feathers, and when the bee draws near to inspect the sup- 

 posed " flower," she will be snapped up in a twinkling. Again, 

 at noon they may be seen repeating the same performance, 

 and so on day after day. 



When their young were able to fly, they were led by the 

 parent birds among the hives, and fed at the expense of my 

 bees, right before my eyes. But looking at my bees I see 

 great clusters of idle bees hanging out in front of each. Eais- 

 iug the cover, I find the hives boiling over with their useless 

 population, and I remember that not until the honey season 

 was over did these birds appear in any numbers. Going to 

 the hive on scales, I find a steady decrease in weight every 

 day. The stores left untoftched by the extractor are being 

 devoured by the horde of useless workers. 



On such occasions I have looked to the bee-birds and re- 

 flected that perhaps they were doing the very thing that the 

 situation required — thinning out an idle horde of consumers 

 merely — for we have no honey-flow at this season, and very 

 little in the fall. 



» So not being a queen-breeder, my conclusion is to let these 

 specimens of the genus fly-catcher live on to fulfil their mission, 

 which doubtless includes the destruction of thousands of nox- 

 ious insects. 



Some of my bee-keeping friends in the country take the 



pains, at this season of the year, to send the children and the 

 servants out in the evening with brush-brooms to kill the nu- 

 merous mosquito-hawks (dragon-flies) that come in scores at 

 nightfall to feed on bees. Realizing that even they are really 

 engaged in reducing a surplus and idle population, I have let 

 them alone. 



To the apiarist in this section, the kingbird saves more 

 honey than he causes him to lose. Our honey-flow is over be- 

 fore the birds hatch, and where there are many hives, the loss 

 of bees by birds and insects before the young birds hatch Is 

 trifling. Afterwards, the apiarist is interested, and ought to 

 be thankful to the birds for reducing his colonies. 



The sportsmen in this neighborhood have made the dis- 

 covery that the bee-martin takes on the most extraordinary 

 amount of fat in the fall, and is, they say, at that period the 

 most delicious morsel that epicure ever tasted. I have never 

 tried them. 



There is a nice balance in nature between the different 

 forms of life in the animal and insect worlds. Some years be- 

 fore the War, the planters in this section, for the purpose of 

 saving their corn in the spring from being pulled up by the 

 birds, put out corn that had been boiled with nux vomica. The 

 wild iDirds were destroyed by thousands. The very next year 

 the army worm ate every green thing in the cotton flelds, and 

 they returned year after year for many years, and until quite 

 lately. It may be conjectured that the just balance in nature 

 between birds and insects has been re-established. 



Fifteen years ago it was the custom of the young men of 

 the village to go out in the evening and shoot the bull bats or 

 nighthawks, and this continued until they were nearly ex- 

 terminated. It was not long before we had a plague of gnats 

 and flies in the summer time. An ordinance was passed for- 

 bidding the killing of these birds, and after some years the 

 bull bats were again numerous, and the nuisance of the flies 

 and gnats abated. 



And so with owls, which are Nature's natural check on 

 the increase of rats. I have seen the latter so abundant that 

 they would come into people's houses at night, so that the 

 noise of their scampering overhead and between partition 

 walls made night hideous. This state of things did not last 

 long before the large swamp or gourdhead owl began to be 

 heard In our yards after dark. They have hooted on my gal- 

 lery and screamed after their peculiar fashion at my windows 

 in the silent watches of the night. It was not many weeks 

 before the rats were gone. A certain painstaking naturalist 

 used to watch at the root of a tree where these birds had fixed 

 their nest. He collected the dung thrown out of the nest 

 from time to time, and in this way discovered that rats were 

 the principal diet upon which these birds of Minerva subsisted 

 their brood. 



The kingbirds consume many kinds of insects besides the 

 bee. They have their place in the economy of Nature, and 

 though it was hard at first to see them snap up my beautiful 

 Italians, I have at last recognized the fact that they do more 

 good than harm to the bee-keeper. T. S. Fobd. 



Columbia, Miss. 



Italianizing — A Question. 



I have been rearing Italian bees for nearly 20 years, but 

 I got careless, neglected discipline, and let them have their 

 own way, until they degenerated into a mongrel race of rebels, 

 with sword unsheathed, ready on the slightest provocation to 

 plunge the dagger into their best friend — the landlord — when 

 he undertook to correct any of their faults, or demand of them 

 rent, which they were seldom able, and never willing, to pay. 



Becoming impatient with their impertinence, I determined 

 if I could not moralize, I would at least try to civilize, the 

 whole race, by a complete revolution, which I saw could only 

 be effected by exterminating the indolent, vicious rebel (black) 

 blood. To effect this end I obtained Italian queens last year 

 from some of the best breeders in Tennessee, Florida, Louisi- 

 ana and Texas ; some of these queens were from imported 

 mothers, and some of them were from the golden strain, and 

 they were beauties. 



This year I have reared my own queens, selecting as 

 breeders the best of the daughters of imported mothers, and 

 the golden type, and rearing about an equal number of queens 

 from each of these. Of course I had nothing to do with the 

 selection of drones to mate the queens, but the chances for 

 mating were about equal between the two types — imported 

 and golden. 



Now I find that the queens of my own rearing are a great 

 Improvement over the queens I purchased. They are, as a 

 rule, larger, more prolificj less spiteful, and better honey- 



