1084 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



without any complication arising, such as is 

 mentioned. 



Whitewood is a much stronger and some- 

 what harder wood than pine. It does not 

 nail as easily, but nails hold better in it, and 

 and therefore end-pieces of wide frames and 

 section-holders can be made to advantage 

 from it. If cement-coated nails of proper 

 size and fair length are used, a wide frame 

 will never give out. The bottom of a honey- 

 shipping case will never come off in trans'it 

 if the head pieces are whitewood. 



Some whitewood is very hard, and splits 

 easily. When nailing through it, nails ought 

 not to be very large or the resulting work 

 will be bad; but I have had pine (cut on low 

 land) which behaved even worse than the 

 hardest kind of whitewood in that respect. 



Whitewood has greater strength when 

 warping, ana it is difficult to draw a wide 



lent material for bee-hives. Under present 

 conditions whitewood of a uniform grade is 

 not as easily obtained in large quantities for 

 the bee-hive factories as white pine. It is 

 harder to work, and more difficult to nail, 

 although it holds a nail better than a softer 

 wood. While it is no cheaper, yet at the 

 same price we doubt if the bee-keeping fra- 

 ternity would accept it in place of white 

 pine. — Ed.] 



THE 



SELECTION OF A 

 QUEEN. 



BREEDING- 



On What Basis Shall the Choice be Made? 

 the Importance of Getting; Rid of the 

 Poorest Colonies in a Breediug-apiar3^ 



BY U. F. BENDER. 



EXTRACTING 



IN THE TROPICS, ALL 

 TRINIDAD, B. W. I. 



OUT OF DOORS, 



badly warped board straight without check- 

 ing the board. I consider this the worst 

 feature of this timber when it comes to hive- 

 making. The boards which come out of the 

 center of the log work pretty well; but those 

 from the outside had better be cut into some- 

 thing narrow. 



Naples, N. Y. 



[Whitewood is, perhaps, the next best sub- 

 stitute for white pine for hives and frame- 

 work, unless we except redwood, which is 

 not obtainable, except at a prohibitive price, 

 in the Eastern States. A large number of 

 bee-keepers do not paint their hives, and for 

 all such the white pine is obviously better. 

 Cypress will stand the weather without paint 

 better than any other wood and is an excel- 



Mr. Holtermann's article on page 413 of the 

 May 15th issue is a very clear 

 statement of what we ought to 

 know about our bees, and don't; 

 but I rather doubt such knowl- 

 edge being of very great use in 

 the practical breeding of bees, 

 even if we possessed it. I should 

 like very much to know which 

 of my queens produce the long- 

 est-lived workers, which bees 

 would riy the furthest, live on 

 the smallest rations, resist un- 

 favorable weather the best, car- 

 ry the largest loads, or make 

 the most trips. But even if I 

 knew all these things I might 

 yet be a little puzzled to know 

 which queen to breed from if I 

 had nothing else to judge by. 



If we turn our attention to 

 practical results, instead of look- 

 ing for the cause of those re- 

 sults, the decision is much easi- 

 er. We want the bees that will 

 store the largest quantity of the 

 most marketable honey, and 

 they must be gentle enough so 

 that we can handle them. Those 

 are the requirements in a nut- 

 shell. 



To take a case from my own 

 practice: 



The season last year was 

 nearly a failure, but I had one 

 colony that produced honey to the value of 

 $11.00, besides their own stores. The next 

 best gave a net return of $(3.00; several 

 others of $5.00, or nearly that. It would 

 be interesting to know what combination 

 of qualities caused those bees to go so far 

 above the average, but such knowledge 

 would pi-ol)aljly make no difference in the 

 selection of a breeding-queen. As it hap- 

 pened, all the best colonies were gentle, and 

 all were pure Italians, and so were more 

 likely than hybrids to hold those qualities in 

 the next generation. Other things being 

 equal, of course the colony storing the great- 

 est amount of honey would be chosen. But 

 the best colony produced watery cappings, 

 so that was not suitable for comb honey. 



