10 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



I do not think there is a breeder who 

 warrants the untested queens he sends out to 

 get more than three-bauded bees. 



For the coming season my bees will be di- 

 vided into five grades, viz. : Warranted, Test- 

 ed, Selected Tested, Breeders and Best. 



The warranted will be untested, but war- 

 ranted to get bees with no less than three 

 bands. Tested, get three-band bees and 

 some of them may show a few four and five- 

 banded bees. Selected tested, will show 

 probably one-half of her bees four and five- 

 banded, the rest three-bauded. Breeders, 

 will show mostly four and five-banded. Best, 

 will show all four and five-banded bees. All 

 queens to be reared from one of the best 

 grade. 



I am not writing this to boom the yellow 

 bees for they seem pretty well boomed al- 

 ready ; but will say that I was at the Illinois 

 State Fair this fall and noticed that the Gol- 

 den Italians were always qaiet while the 

 other races : Syrian, Cyprian, Black, Punic, 

 etc.. were everlastiugly tearing around try- 

 ing to get out. 



The colony that got the first premium was 

 about like the fifth grade above (Breeders), 

 and beloQged to a Mr. Short, of Peoria, 111. 



SwEDONA, 111. Nov. 1, 181)2. 



The Diversity of Southern Bee-Keeping, as 

 Compared with that of the North, is 

 Very Great, aud That is why a South- 

 ern Bee Journal Cannot Succeed. 



O. O. POPPLETON. 



[Every little while somebody at the South com- 

 plains that the bee journals are of little value 

 to Southf>rn bee Keepers, and it was with a view 

 to remedying this deficiency that I asked our 

 old friend, O. O, Poppleton. to write a series of 

 articles on Southern bee-keeping, making them 

 seasonable for the Soutli. He did not think it 

 would be possible for him to doso, but the letter 

 that he sent in explanation is of so much inter- 

 est that I have obtaine<l his permission to pub- 

 lish it. Among other tilings hesaye : — ] 



^jB WILL try and take time to explain to 

 G|) you some of the peculiar conditions of 

 «^ Southern bee-keeping, but I doubt 

 whether I can be full or clear enough to give 

 you a good understanding of it. 



In the North the difference between the 

 seasons, so far as bees are concerned, is 

 sharply defined ; that is, they pass quickly 

 from the working season to the one of entire 

 quiet and cessasion from all work, even that 



of brood rearing, and from that condition 

 during the winter almost at one bound into 

 the full activity of spring work. Very little 

 surplus honey is obtained outside the four 

 months of June to September. As we go 

 Southward the seasons more aud more in- 

 sensibly shade into each other, and the pos- 

 sible honey season commences earlier and 

 lasts later. Thus, at my old location in 

 northern Iowa, my bees rarely ever com- 

 menced gathering surplus honey before June 

 loth, and seldom any after Sept. 1st, while in 

 extreme south Florida, where my bees are 

 now, the conditions are exactly rever.sed, the 

 bees getting more or less honey every month 

 in the year except June and July, and during 

 those two months I move the bees to this 

 place (Hawk's Park) in middle Florida 

 where we get quite a large surplus during 

 June and July only. The bee-line distance 

 between my two locations is about 125 miles, 

 and yet the flora of the two localities is en- 

 tirely different. 



North of the Ohio conditions of bee-keep- 

 ing vary but little in different localities. 

 Time of surplus honey flow : kinds of flow- 

 ers yielding same, etc., are much alike. 

 The main reliance for surplus honey is on 

 few if any more than half a dozen different 

 kinds of flowers. In the South, conditions 

 in different localities vary much more than 

 in the North, and the number of kinds of 

 flowers yielding surplus honey is many times 

 more. Even the one State of Florida hasjat 

 least four widely differing conditions in her 

 limits, viz. , the swamp region of north 

 Florida, which Mrs. Harrison visited last 

 winter, the orange region of the State, the 

 few small and isolated black mangrove lo- 

 cations, and the extreme Southern part of 

 the State where the wild pennyroyal and 

 other plants flourish. 



Bee-keeping in the Cumberland Mountains 

 and north Georgia is very different from 

 what it is in the hills of middle Georgia, and 

 there again it differs from that of the piney 

 woods of south Georgia. All again differ 

 from the conditions in which friend Blanton 

 keeps bees in Mississippi or Mrs. Atchley in 

 Texas. 



The central idea which I wish to convey is 

 that owing to the different flora, and differ- 

 ent surplus honey seasons in so /(lonj/ differ- 

 ing localities in what is known as "the 

 South," makes it impossible to formulate 

 any " Monthly Needs" for Southern bee- 

 keepers that would be of value in any large 



