

VOL. II, 



FLIHT, MICMM, FEBRUARY 10, 1889. 



NO. 2. 



Too Large and Hasty a Venture with Cy- 

 prians and Foundation as the Result of 

 Undue Confidence in Our Leaders. 



E. M. HAYHUBST. 



fjRIEND HUTCHINSON:— If I were 

 to comply with your request, and re- 

 count my mistakes as a bee-keeper, 

 for only the past live' years, yovi would 

 trouble to find room for my paper, 

 poor, weak humanity ! How easy it 

 is for us to look back and see how much 

 better it would have been to have done thus, 

 and so, instead of doiny as we did. 



Perhaps the greatest mistake I have made 

 as a bee-keeper has been placing too much 

 confidence in the judgment of our leading 

 authorities, and not carefully experimenting 

 for myself on a small scale tirst, before 

 adopting their plans or suggestions. The 

 latter course would have saved me some 

 severe losses. In fact, I have met with such 

 great disappointment in this way that I am 

 likely to go to the other extreme, of being 

 too incredulous. 



As an illustration, take the "Cyprian bee 

 craze. I bought one of friend Jones' im- 

 ported queens, and raised a number of fine 

 queens from her. The first part of the next 

 season I raised all my drones from these 

 queens, so that nearly, if not quite all, of my 

 early queens were mated by pure Cyprian 

 di"ones. Of these queens I sold over three 

 hundred Cyprians and about four hundred 

 Italians, before I discovered, just as swarm- 

 ing commenced, that the Cyprian bees were 

 the most vicious and vindictive stingers, in- 

 stead of the "gentlest btes in tlie world," as 

 had been stated, in substance, several times, 

 over Mr. Benton's signature. So, right at 

 the beginning of my heaviest trade, I had to 

 stop nearly all shipping, take time to de- 

 stroy all Cyprian drones, and raise Italians 

 in their stead ; also throw away hundreds of 

 jnature Cyprian queen cells, and re-stock 

 (entirely with Italians. The direct loss to me 

 was over !S^;>r)().00 in cash, besides contingent 

 losses amounting probably to nearly as much 

 more, saying nothing of the disappointment 

 and inconvenience of my kind patrons, and 

 the wear and tear of my own temper ( no 

 small consideration), I tell you I teas in a 

 "stew " for about six weeks. I cannot think 

 of that time now without a shiver. Nearly 

 ,all of this loss and vexation might have been 



saved if I had been a little more cautious. 

 It would have been all right to have gotten a 

 Cyprian queen and tried this variety — my own 

 interests required this — but I should have 

 carefully tested them myself before raising 

 so many for the market. I now have no dei- 

 sire whatever to invest in any new race Or 

 strain, preferring to hold to the honest, 

 steady-^oing Italians. 



At a time when wife and I felt as poor as 

 Job's turkey, and could ill afford the outlay, 

 I sent to Bro. Root for over 100 lbs. of 

 foundation. This was at the beginning of 

 the foundation history. If I remember cor- 

 rectly, Bro. Root stated that his foundation 

 was " iwacflij irorkcr size.''^ I did not meas- 

 ure it, but put the whole lot into brood 

 frames, and as as rapidly as possible gave 

 them to the bees. I was surprised to find 

 that the queens avoided the combs thus 

 made, not laying an egg in them as long as 

 they could find any unoccupied natural 

 comb. I afterwards was greatly disappoint- 

 ed to find about as many drones as workers 

 produced in them. By applying the rule, I 

 discovered that the cells wer( neither worker 

 nor drone size, but about half way between. 

 All this big stock of combs was utterly 

 worthless for the purpose I wanted them, 

 and had to be melted and re-worked. How 

 much more sensible it would have been if I 

 had listened to Bro. Root's oft-repeated ad- 

 vice to his readers to go slow and experi- 

 ment, buying only a few pounds of the 

 foundation and carefully testing it to see if 

 it were suitable for my purpose. But in re- 

 calling this bit of experience, I have this 

 iuiDii'Dse satisfaction: I rather got ahead of 

 Bro. Root fhnf time. The one lesson settled 

 me ; but it took him several years to learn 

 that thirty cells, instead of twenty-six or 

 twenty-se^'en. to each six inches was the nat- 

 ural size of worker comb, although I tried 

 hard to convince him at the time. 



By these and many minor crazy specula- 

 tions, I am learning that it is best for me 

 to observe the rule so often suggested by 

 most of our best writers, namely, to demon- 

 strate by careful experiment whether the 

 ways given by them are suited to my ways 

 and circumstances, before adopting them 

 extensively. 



By the way, where would we, the rank and 

 file, be, were it not for the noble band of 

 leaders, such as Langstroth, Root, Miller, 

 Cook and others, who have so fully and al- 

 most gratuitously given us the benefit of 



