218 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



five days, is certainly remarkable. Of course, 

 if Mr. T told us he hived his swarms at the 

 rate of one per minute, I would believe him, 

 as he is a bee-keeper, and, like " George with 

 his little hatchet" can not depart from the 

 truth, but the way he must have hopped, 

 skipped, aud jumped, would no doubt, lay 

 any of my former performances, in this line, 

 in the shade. No wonder he has been 

 obliged to reduce his colonies to less than 

 100 on account of physical disability. Work- 

 ing at such a rate, would soon " lay out " a 

 Goliah ! Mr. T. thinks that I must be very 

 awkward, which may be true ; but I am not 

 awkward, or fool enough, to go running up 

 and down the apiary, in the hot sun, with 

 swarm catchers. But Mr. T. finds many 

 other uses for them besides hiving bees. 

 Now that's something I had not thought of 

 — perhaps they would make good chicken 

 coops ! As to controlling swarms that are 

 trying to desert their hives, it will work all 

 right, if you are right there, catcher in 

 hand, to " clap it on to them," the minute 

 the first few circling bees come swarming 

 out ; but it is a good deal like watching a 

 pot commence to boil; the moment your 

 back is turned, or you go to dinner, the bees 

 will be in the air, and you can then watch 

 them as they sail " over the hills and far 

 away." No sir, for that purpose a queen 

 cage or drone trap is worth a dozen catchers. 



Talk about the " citizens of Milan " enjoy- 

 ing a circus at my apiary ! Why, the way 

 Mr. Taylor says he "gets around" I would 

 not be "in it" at all! With his "house 

 apiaries," merry-go-round, non-swarmers, 

 convenient holes about his apiary '• as big 

 as a barrel " to fall into, I suppose when he 

 performs the disappearance act, my perfor- 

 mances would not even pass for a side show. 

 If Mr. Taylor will let me know when his cir- 

 cus will be in full blast, I think I could get 

 up an excursion, of the citizens of Milan, to 

 go to Forestvillo to see the show. 



But Mr. Taylor himself seems to be aban- 

 doning the swarm catcher, as he says at the 

 close of his article, that he now usually al- 

 lows the first swarm in the morning to settle 

 on a convenient bush he has. That is well : 

 and I think he would find it much easier if 

 he would allow all succeeding swarms to do 

 the same, instead of running around the api- 

 ary, in the hot sun, with swarm catchers. 

 What we want is less work for the bee-keep- 

 er, not move, and we want that work more 

 certain, to secure the best results. 



When bees swarm, their efforts are inter- 

 fered with by anything like a catcher, and 

 they will keep up a great fuss for some fif- 

 teen minutes in their efforts to get out. 

 During this time many bees will go back to 

 the old hive, and frequently all return, and 

 they will have to try it over again. But it 

 often happens that part of the swarm had 

 got out before we saw them, and should the 

 bees in the catcher go back to their hive, we 

 can never know just where the queen is 

 should much swarming be going on. With 

 the drone trap or self-hiver, the principles of 

 which are alike, the case is far different. 

 The queens are always kept separate and the 

 bees swarm out naturally. When they miss 

 their queen they return and are hived wheth- 

 er we are there or not. This of course refers 

 to hivers, not mere traps. By the use of self- 

 hivers we can do much of the work in the 

 winter, and when swarming commences, we 

 can do the work mornings and evenings, and 

 little more than seeing what is going on 

 need be done in the heat of the day while 

 the swarming is going on. 



No doubt as Mr. Taylor grows up he will 

 begin to see the error of his ways and throw 

 away his obsolete swarm catchers, and sing 

 the praises of the self-hiver. In about ten 

 years, we may expect to see long articles 

 from him, lauding the hiver, and how ho 

 himself studied them up, and "invented" 

 them. 



Milan, Ills. Aug. 8, 1894. 



The Term "Hybrid." 



JOHN PHIN. 



N the Review for June Mr. Hasty advo- 

 cates the retention of the term " hybrid " 

 claiming that there is no other word that can 

 be used in this connection. To the word 

 "mongrel" he very properly objects, al- 

 though the reason given appears to me to bo 

 anything but sound. 



The correct term has been in use many 

 years (at least a century aud a half) in the 

 case of other animals and was ai)plied by 

 Langstroth, in the 3rd edition of his work, 

 to the progeny of the Italian and the black 

 bee. 



The word is cross. 



A hybrid is the progeny of different species 

 and no entomologist will claim that the Ital- 

 ian bee and the black bee are different 

 species. 



