2o8 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



The locality, the character of the honey 

 flow, the time of the year when it comes, 

 the management, etc , all have a bearing; 

 and the characteristics of the stock 

 should be such that they combine har- 

 moniously with all of these other factors. 

 Mr. Doolittle wishes a strain of bees that 

 will build up rapidly in the spring, and 

 then when the flow from clover or bass- 

 wood comes on, they will drop every- 

 thing and attend to that. In other lo- 

 calities the flow does not come until fall, 

 and a strain that builds up quickly in the 

 spring, would only be rearing workers at 

 the wrong time of the year— when they 

 would be useless consumers. 



I am not writing this to discourage 

 people from buying queens, but to urge 

 them to use discretion in the matter. 

 Buy queens from the best breeders, and 

 try them. See which are the best adapt- 

 ed to your locality and management. 

 Because some breeder in the South, or 

 West, or in the North, has a strain of 

 bees that are doing such wonders for 

 him, don't take it for granted that these 

 bees are the best bees for you, and discard 

 what you have and introduce this strain 

 in a wholesale way without trial. The 

 selection and building up of a strain of 

 bees best adapted to a certain locality 

 and management is the work of years of 

 careful comparison and selection. Just 

 one more point: Don't judge of a strain 

 of bees by the work of a queen that you 

 have bought and had sent you by mail. 

 At least, don't condemn such strain be- 

 cause this queen does not come up to the 

 expectations. The value of a queen is 

 often greatly lessened by shipment. Get 

 some daughters from this queen, and try 

 them. Or, better still, have a choice 

 queen shipped in a full colony or, at 

 least, in a strong nucleus. 



ir«*«*'^in<.«^«^ 



TROPICAI. COMPETITION NOT TO BE FEAR- 

 ED IN THE HONEY MARKETS OF 

 THE UNITED STATES. 

 There has frequently been expressed a 

 fear that the splendid honey resources of 



Cuba would yet make her a formidable 

 competitor in the markets of the United 

 States, but W. K. Morrison, who has had 

 much experience in the West Indies, 

 writes an interesting article to Gleanings, 

 giving very plausible reasons why such 

 fears are groundless. In the first place, 

 Cuba is comparatively small. Texas is 

 ten times as large; and the advance of 

 the sugar industry in Cuba will eventual- 

 ly render much of the island unfit for 

 honey production. 



Then, again, honey sells at a higher 

 price in Europe than in America, hence 

 there is a tendency to seek European 

 markets. So long as the European mar- 

 kets are so much higher than our mar- 

 kets, the little tariff that we put upon 

 honey cuts no great figure. If there were 

 no duty at all, dealers in New York 

 might buy the whole West Indian crop, 

 but it would be to re-export it to Europe. 



Mr. Morrison says that the adulteration 

 of honey, and the comb honey lies, do 

 more to depress our markets, than all 

 outside competitors combined, and I can 

 well believe it. 



Another drawback to the production of 

 honey in the West Indies is the class of 

 people with which these islands are in- 

 habited. They are low in the social 

 and intellectual scale, yet, like most of 

 ignorant people, think themselves well 

 informed. Even the white man who is 

 native born, is dragged down by the ter- 

 rible incubus of his enviroment. If the 

 tropics were inhabited by people similar 

 to those of Europe or North America, 

 they would swamp the world with hon- 

 ey and wax; in fact, there is no limit to 

 the possibilities of the honey business in 

 those latitudes, but it will never be done 

 in our day and generation. It has been 

 suggested that Americans will go into 

 those regions, establish huge apiaries, 

 and thereby flood the markets. A few 

 have gone there, but Mr. Morrison says 

 that it is only a s^xy few that would care 

 to live there, no matter how enticing the 

 apicultural prospects. To leave good 

 social, church, educational, and other 



