574 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Sept. 5, 



when it is ready to po to the field to gather nectar — the age at 

 which those who claim to know tell us a bee becomes a field- 

 worker. This gives us 87 days. Now if we could stop all 

 egg-laying 37 days before the main honey harvest commences, 

 without throwing the colony out of a normal condition, would 

 we gain anything ? Let us draw a comparison : 



"Suppose you have a number of men working for you — 

 six in the harvest field, and one about the house to do up 

 chores, but need one more in the field. Now if you hire a boy 

 to do up the chores, and send the man to the field, is it not just 

 the same as if you had hired a man to put in the harvest field? 

 So it looks to me as though these so-called useless consumers 

 might not be so useless after all. The bee that takes the 

 place of a nurse-bee or comb-builder, and allows that nurse- 

 bee to become a field-worker, it seems to me is just about as 

 useful as the field-worker. What say you ? 



" 'Useless consumers ' is a term that seems to take well 

 with many writers on apiculture, and some have got to hand- 

 ling it in a very reckless manner. I would caution them to be 

 very careful, lest it might be loaded and go off, and injure the 

 one that is handling it." 



DARK ITALIAN QUEENS. 



Among imported Italian queens some are very dark and 

 produce finely-colored workers. W. J. M. says in Australian 

 Bee-Bulletin : 



" I reared some queens from an imported tested queen, 

 and one queen I reared was quite black, indeed so black that 

 I thought here was a game of stealing eggs, and she was 

 marked for removal. However, having gone away for a short 

 holiday I loft her, and when I came back I found her so pro- 

 lific that I built up the nucleus to a full colony by the usual 

 methods. Four months afterwards, having received another 

 imported queen, I went to remove her black majesty. On 

 opening the hive I found the bees unusually quiet, and on 

 further examination I found the hive full of pure Italians, 

 although the queen was to all appearances a common black 

 one. Now for this reason alone, we should be careful when 

 discarding dark-colored queens till they have been given a 

 fair trial." 



CONBUCTED BY 



DK. a. p. 11. BROW2V, 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.] 



Purity of Italian Bees — Honey.Plants. 



1. Will ordinary 3-banded bees hold up to their markings 

 when kept at a safe distance from other bees to prevent 

 crossing? Now, if they will hold up to 3 bands, it is con- 

 trary to my experience, and I have been experimenting with 

 Italian bees four or five years. I find that bees showing 3 

 bands, and those that show 3 bands when filled with honey, 

 make very dark-colored queens and drones ; the drones are 

 commonly very dark, some showing do yellow marks at all. 

 My experience with such bees is, you have to select the verv 

 best marked queens and drones to breed from, or you will 

 soon have plenty of black bees in your apiary. Now, is it im- 

 purity, degeneration, or what? 



I have a queen that I bought for an imported Italian ; her 

 bees show 3 yellow bands very clearly at all times, and under 

 the bottom of the abdomen they are yellow to the tip ; she 

 produces uniform drones, and they are yellow except a little 

 dark on the end of the abdomen ; and her queens are uni- 

 formly and highly marked. It is no trouble to get these bees 

 to hold up to 3 bands, and they are doing just as good work 

 as the leather-colored bees. The bees that will hold up to 

 their markings and do good work are the bees for me. 



2. Does cotton-bloom give any honey ? 



3. My bees work rapidly on sumac. Is it a good honey- 

 plant ? 



4. Does golden-rod give much honey? My bees don't 

 seem to notice it much, but they come down on aster all right, 

 and get a lot of honey from it, too. 



A. P. L., Batesburg, S. C. 



Answers. — 1. The term "safe distance" in my friend's 

 interrogatory is very indefinite. One person might think a 

 fourth of a mile a safe di-stauce to prevent one variety of the 



honey-bee from crossing with another; while another bee- 

 keeper might have in his mind some other distance. I have 

 known black queens to mate with Italian drones distant four 

 miles. I was the first person in this portion of Georgia to in- 

 troduce the Italian bee, and I availed myself of my advantage 

 to test this question. If you wish to keep your bees pure you 

 should have all Italian drones in a radius of four miles. This 

 you cannot do, for there may be many colonies of black bees 

 ensconced in trees within the range of your bees. Besides, if 

 you want to keep up the purity of your bees, you must select 

 your breeders — both queens and drones. The best marked 

 queens are not always the best breeders. There is not one 

 queen in 50 that will invariably duplicate herself in markings 

 in her queen progeny. A queen that will do it is worth money. 



The Italian bee is no fixed type of bee. It is only a va- 

 riety, and as such it is liable in breeding to revert back to the 

 original — to sport. Recently some one in the bee-papers has 

 been giving rules to test the purity of Italians by invariable 

 yellowness, etc. Such tests do not amount to a bagatelle. I 

 have imported hundreds of queens direct from some of the 

 best Italian breeders, and I found the queens to vary very 

 much in markings ; the drones from quite dark to mottled 

 with bright yellow ; the queen progeny from nearly black to 

 bright yellow. Because of this variation is no signs of im- 

 purity, if the fact of their coming from Italy will make them 

 so. When that bee-keeper who has mapped out in his fancy 

 his Italian queen, worker, or drone with markings of inva- 

 riable fixedness as the only test of purity, he will be as much 

 disappointed as when a redheaded, or blackheaded, or white- 

 headed, or cockeyed baby pops up in his family. He should 

 constantly stick to his uniform markings. 



From what I have said I think the correspondent will 

 have no trouble to formulate answers to his questions concern- 

 ing preserving the purity of Italian bees. 



2. In some seasons, owing to atmospheric or soil condi- 

 tions not understood, it yields honey in large quantities. 



3. Sumac is a good honey-plant, but the honey is very 

 dark. 



4. Golden-rod, in my section, is very unreliable for the 

 secretion of honey. 



Equalizing; the Streng;tli of Colonics. 



I have several strong colonies and one weak one, all lately 

 transferred to 8-frame hives from box-hives. I wish to build 

 up the weak colony as quickly as possible. May I, after 

 smoking a strong colony, place the weak one on top of it 

 with a honey-board between them, with the hope that the 

 colonies will become more equal in strength? If not, what is 

 the best course to pursue? If I feed the weak colony, the 

 others persist in robbing it, although all the usual methods 

 have been tried to prevent it. E. B. T. 



Lynn, N. C, Aug. 15. 



Answer. — I don't think the plan of placing the weak 

 colony over a strong one with a honey-board between will ac- 

 complish the object you desire. You say when you feed this 

 weak colony the others persist in robbing it. This has to be 

 stopped. Give it a frame of crawling-out brood from one of 

 your strong colonies; contract the entrance to the hive so 

 that only one bee can pass at a time. Set up in front of the 

 entrance a lot of weeds, brush or boards to ward off the rob- 

 bers. Place the feed inside the hive over the brood-frames, 

 where the bees can easily get at it. Do this near dark ; and 

 do not give any more feed than they can take up during the 

 night. When you open the hive do it at times when few bees 

 are stirring, and then use a cloth to throw over the exposed 

 frames. In a week give it another frame of crawling-out 

 brood. 



If you find the hive is still robbed with all this care and 

 attention, close it up with wire-cloth and carry it into a close, 

 dark room, and allow it to remain 48 hours (meantime, feed), 

 and then place it on a new stand with all the precautions 

 previously taken. If this will not succeed, unite it with 

 another colony. 



