1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



^49 



puny spell in the summer, I thiak he would be con- 

 vinced that pretti/ near an invalid can follow the 

 business successfully. Still, I believe it does re- 

 quire considerable "(//"("t." I say this for the Ijeneflt 

 of such as I, who may read this paper. 

 [To be Continue 1.1 



Friend X., you will notice that Doolittle, 

 in his article in this number, strikes on the 

 same point you mention , but he thinks that 

 Italians came from quite a distance, and 

 fertilized his first yoitng queens, so that they 

 were really pure. It seems to me you are 

 laying more stress on the importance of the- 

 oretical purity than the case demands. I 

 have before said, that I knew of no way to 

 get pure Italians, except they come from It- 

 aly, and we do import queens every season, 

 as you well know. Well, now, there are 

 those who say that even these are not pure ; 

 and mv reply would be, that, as long as they 

 furnish the honey, I do not care particularly 

 whether they are pure or not. Perhaps we 

 had better drop the word " piuity " entirely, 

 and guarantee all queens to produce three- 

 banded bees. AVhere we send out select 

 tested queens, as they have been termed, we 

 ■ can guarantee them to produce three-banded 

 bees, and of general gentle behavior. The 

 progeny of the queens direct from Italy are, 

 as a rule, gentle. But a colony of bees that 

 have been for years gentle and quiet may 

 get aroused and stirred up so as to be perfect 

 tigers ; and therefore we have to bear in 

 mind that three-banded bees are sometimes 

 gentle, and sometimes not ; and again, the 

 same colony of bees is sometimes gentle and 

 sometimes not. 



In regard to three-banded bees : People 

 differ here. I have never found any worker 

 bees from qvieens imported direct from Italy 

 that did not show evidences, satisfactory to 

 myself, of the three bands ; but others pro- 

 nounce these evidences insufficient. Re- 

 member, I do not say yellotc bands, for they 

 are not always yellow. If you turn to the 

 proper place in the A B C book, I think you 

 will find the matter defined sufficiently. 



Now, there is one thing in your letter that 

 seems to me is of more importance than yel- 

 low bands. Your friend, 'Squiie W., be- 

 lieves the majority of queen- breeders to be 

 humbugs. Do you not think that speech 

 comes pretty near to the class of people who 

 sneeringly declare that the workl , as a whole, 

 are humbugs, and who say, and seem to en- 

 joy saying, there are no such things as hon- 

 est men? Has 'Squire W. abandoned bee- 

 keeping, because of the dishonesty he alludes 

 to ? If so, the deduction would be. he is good 

 while the rest are bad. Friend X., what do 

 we usually think of people who speak and 

 talk in that way V does true nobility, and up- 

 rightness of soul, ever take upon itself this 

 phase ? When I first became acquainted 

 with Prof. Cook I was at once struck with 

 his wonderful charity for the world at large. 

 He evidently sees the faults of humanity, 

 but he also sees, in a most unusual way, the 

 good qualities. He not only speaks well of 

 everybody, but he speaks well to everybody, 

 and almost everybody he meets receives an 

 impetus to do batter, from having once 

 known him. Almost the first day I ever saw 

 him, he reproved me with considerable ener- 



gy, for speaking harshly of a certain class of 

 people, much in the same way as 'Squire W. 

 spoke of the queen-rearers. It made such 

 an impression on me that I have never for- 

 gotten it, and I do not believe I have ever 

 called any certain class of people humbugs 

 since then. Charity " rejoiceth not in in- 

 iquity," but in truth; ****** 

 "■ thinketh no evil." 



QUEENS ACROSS THE ATIiANTIC BY 

 MAIL. 



FRIEND BENTON A LITTLE AHEAD OF FRIEND DOO 

 LITTLE, AFTER ALL. 



a 



OU have done it, my friend! You have 



done it! ***** prob'ibly the first 



' live bee that ever crossed the Atlantic in the 



mails," is what G. M. Doolittle, in Oct. Gleanings, 



quotes Angrus Cameron as having written to him. 



Let us see. Mr. Doolittle says in the same com- 

 munication, that he mailed his queen Aug. 3d, and 

 received Sept. 4th word (under date of Aug. 18th) of 

 her safe arrival. The following is verbatim from a 

 letter addressed to me, and now in my possession. 

 Notice the date. 



Breton, .Tuly 5, 1883. 

 Mr. Fraiwk Benton, Munich, Germany:— 



Dear Sir: AVe received a queen from you in a 

 mailing-case. Most of the bees were dead. I think 

 there must have been at least double as many bees 

 as could eret food and water. The live ones were in 

 fine condition. The water was not all used, and not 

 more than about a seventh of the sugar, so you see 

 there must have been onlv a few bees the greater 

 part of the journey. I think from 13 to 30 bees 

 would have been ample. Too many bees are worse 

 than not having enough. ***** j have in- 

 structed the boys to send you a cage of bees, and 

 you can report. I can spnd you some more styles of 

 cagf>s to test, to find nut which goes best, as one 

 trial is not sufficient to decide the matter. 



With kind regards to Mrs. Benton and yourself, 

 yours very truly,— D. A. Jones. 



The queen above referred to was an imported 

 Syrian, mailed from Munich during the month of 

 June. She had previously stood a long journey by 

 mail, having been prepared according to my in- 

 structions in Beyrout, Syria, and bad come via Al- 

 exandria and Trieste to Munich — a journey which 

 takes 11 to 13 days, the distance being about 3500 

 miles, part of which is in a sub-tropical climate, and 

 thus particularly trying to the bees. About 30 work- 

 ers accompanied the queen, and the food was pure 

 sugar candy. The water was in a tin bottle, with a 

 pin-hole made in the middle of solder, to prevent its 

 closing with rust. The form of cage was the same 

 as that T used in 1880, and which was illustrated in 

 the British B&e ■JimrrjaZ for July, 1880, and of which 

 Mr. Doolittle's cage is nothing more nor less than a 

 copy. 



Thus the first queen, which, so far as I am aware, 

 ever crossed the Atlantic; alive by mail, did not come 

 from America to the Old World, but went from this 

 side the water westward. Moreover, this majestic 

 Syrian beauty went all the way from her native land 

 to the New World by mail. A second queen, this 

 time a Carniolan, was mailed to the same address on 

 the 3Tth of July, thus six days before Mr. Doolittle 

 started his queen. Mr. Jones has failed to state 

 how this and several others sent by mail since that 

 date got through. I have, among my letters on this 

 subject, one from John Hewitt, Esq., Shelfield, Eng- 

 land, dated Aug. 7, 1883, in which is the following 

 sentence: "lam glad to hear you have succeeded 



