1%1 



GLEANINGS IN Bj:E CtJLTURE. 



1085 



The point I am aiming at is this: That, 

 while the qualities enumerated by Mr. Hol- 

 termann are important, they are important 

 only as they affect the honey crop. And of 

 the honey produced we have a ready means 

 of judging. 



In regard to controlling the drone parent- 

 age, I think the best we can do is to follow 

 Dr. Miller's plan. If one has more than one 

 apiary, keep all the best colonies at the home 

 yard — that is, those that gave the best records 

 the previous season. Then do all the queen- 

 rearing at the home apiary, and let the drone 

 question take care of itself. Where we have 

 a hundred colonies in one place, the mating 

 with drones from other sources will not ex- 



side. Missionaries are expected to teach al- 

 most every thing, and Mr. Thomson set 

 about learning bee-keeping that he in turn 

 might be able to instruct the East Indians 

 among whom he labored. It did not take 

 him long to master the elements of the busi- 

 ness in Trinidad, where beesmay be handled 

 nearly every day in the year. Among his 

 most apt scholars was his own little son, who 

 speedily mastered the details sufficiently well 

 to be able to raise queens for sale on his own 

 account. >▼ .^ _^ 



It is evident this young '.bee-keeper'^s an 

 exponent of the shallow hive, which is ad- 

 mirably suited to his strength, and, more- 

 over, answers all the requirements of a^tropi- 



YOUNG QUEEN-BKEEDEK THOMSON MAKING NUCLEI. 



ceed five per cent. If we are to make any 

 improvement in our stock, it is quite as im- 

 portant to weed out the poorest as it is to 

 breed from the best. 

 Newman, 111. 



A SEVEN-YEAR OLD BEE-KEEPER 

 WHO RAISES QUEENS. 



BY W. K. MORRISON. 



The little boy shown in the two illustrations 

 is John Thomson, of Couva. Trinidad, an 

 island on the coast of South America. His 

 father is a Presbyterian missionary from 

 Canada, also his grandfather on the maternal 



cal bee-hive. He not only does not use a 

 veil, but, as may be observed from the pic- 

 ture, does not use shoes to protect his feet. 

 The bees he has are pure-bred Italians. 

 There is, of course, an occasional hybrid 

 colony, and one of these produced $24 worth 

 of honey, sold at only fairly low prices. He 

 gets $1.20 for pure-bred queens. His father 

 is away so much looking after out-missions 

 that the burden of the apiary falls on this 

 boy. One day when all were absent he took 

 down a very large swarm and successfully 

 hived it. just as he appeal's in the illustration, 

 bax'efooted and barefaced. 



Fifteen of the East Indians have small api- 

 aries fitted out with these hives and the lat~ 



