264 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



dollar queen, and have the price but little 

 above cost of importing? I have never seen 

 an imported queen, that I should pronounce a 

 really poor queen ; and none but what produced 

 3 banded workers. 



[Including Postage.] 

 For Glvb Rates see First Page. 



3Sd:EIDIlSrA., OOT. 1, IST'T. 



Bnt. brother )2;oeth to law with brother, and that be- 

 fore the unbelievers.— Corinthians, C; 6. 



On and after Jan., Ist, 1878, our $30. fdn. machine, 

 will be $35. 0(^ 



Several have feared their dollar queens were not 

 fertile, because they did not commence laying at once. 

 It is fjuite usual for them to wait several days, and 

 l)erhaps a week, in tiie fall of the year, when no honey 

 is coming in, but if we feed the colony a little after 

 Introducing, she should very soon commence laying. 

 One friend was going to send a queen back after being 

 safely introduced, because she did not lay at once. 



1 MK\Ti().VEi> that the first smoker Mr. Bingham 

 sent us was rather poorly made, but rather shabbily 

 neglected to make mention of it, when he sent a sam- 

 ple of a most excellent one, for only $1.00. All of the 

 three sizes he now makes, are neatly and strongly 

 made, and are giving excellent satisfaction, so far as 

 we have heard, and we have sold quite a number. 

 Friend B., I beg your pardon. 



Many will, doubtless, be inclined to decide that 

 Doolittle's locality is a very superior one, but I think 

 such is not the case. When friend Hill told of not get- 

 ting a lb. of honey in 1875, and of liaving to buy over 

 two tons of sugar to feed his bees up so they would 

 winter, I decided liis locality was a very poor one, and 

 felt glad I did not live there ; but when he got lO.OOO lbs. 

 from the same apiary the very next season, I changed 

 my mind. 



The demand lor hybrid queens has been much 

 greater than the supply. Some of our customers, said 

 they wantstl a queen of some kind, they cared little 

 what; even a black queen would do, just to enable 

 the colony to winter. The consequence was that ev- 

 ery thing in the shape of <)ueens has been gathered 

 up, and many we have sent out are not from import- 

 ed mothers, and will not produce pure drones, as per 

 our advei-tiseraent. The mention last month of that 

 heap of queens on our table, was I fear indiscreet; 

 criers have poured in at a rate that swamped us near- 

 ly as ba'lly as in July, but we are now getting ahead 

 again except on hybrids. We have done the best we 

 l)ossibly could, but for all that, I wish you all to speak 

 right out if any thing in the (I'.ieen business is unsat- 

 isfactory. 



-■^-♦^» m 



I HAVE never seen a queen whose brood would not 

 occasionally produce dark queens, especially if the 

 calls Tvere built during cool weather. If they are 

 hatclied in tlie lamp nursery, with a temperature of 



nearly 100°, lighter colored queens will be obtainecl 

 than any I have ever seen raised in any other way; 

 but still a dark or black one sometimes appears even 

 then. These dark queens, if daughters of imported 

 mothers, will often produce as yellow, and as perfect- 

 ly marked workers, as any in the apiary ; in short, I 

 do not know but they are just as likely to. There 

 seems yet, to be a perfect mania for yellow queens, 

 and I fear some are more anxious al»out the color of 

 tlie queens than the bees. My friends, you will cer- 

 tainly repent it, if yon choose looks, rather than 

 working qualities. The Albino queen, so called, has 

 given no surplus honey, has had all her brood, and 

 yet has scarcely enough bees to winter. I have sev- 

 eral times tried selecting the yellowest queens, but 

 alter about three generations, they woula have to be 

 "boosted" with brood Irom the hybrids. 



The brood from every onsofonr imported queens 

 showed distinctly the three yellow bands, but on some 

 of til im, the yellow was so dark, you would be pretty 

 sure to call them hybrids. They are however quite 

 distinct from hybri<ls in one respect, and that is gen- 

 tleness. I never use smoke in liandling the imported 

 slock, and I rarely if ever get stung. When you first 

 turn back the quilt, you would think by the color of 

 the bees that it were best to stand back ; but when 

 you lilt out the frames, not a bee moves, or makes any 

 sign of stinging, nor do they all dive into the unsealed 

 honey as do the blacks and hybrids at thiS season of 

 the year. Among the 14 that we imported, was one 

 that was almost all over black, or perhaps rather a 

 dark brown and, strange to tell, her bees arc the 

 largest and yellowest of any in the lot. I should pre- 

 fer her, to the Blood queen, to rear from, were it not 

 that her queens would most likely prove dark, ani» 

 then what a scolding I would get from customers. I 

 would really like to have you take a look at these 

 large sized yellow bees and if you care to send 10c. for 

 cage and postage, I will send yuu some to look at and 

 to show you what kind of bees a " black " imported 

 queen produces. To have them show their lull size, 

 you should feed them well with honey after they 

 reach you. It you would care to see some of the poor- 

 est bees— with leather cotoreil bands, instead of yel- 

 low—that the imported stock, produces, I wUl mail 

 some on the same terms. 



I HOPE you will forgive me if I am in the wrong, 

 mj' friends, but 1 can not conscientiously approve ot 

 bee conventions, especially, of tliose held in our large 

 cities. Tlie expense of attending tliem, is more than 

 most of us can afford, and where I have had an op- 

 portunity of looking into the matier I have invariably 

 found enough to, I think, fully justify me in warning 

 genuine bee-keepers to keep away from them. The 

 bee shows of England, the records of which go a great 

 way tjwards filling the pages of the jB. iJ. J., are no 

 exception to this rule. I liad intended to be silent in 

 the matter, but some of the friends would not excuse 

 me. Now I will tell you wliat I do approve : 



Get a couple of stout horses, and a big lumber 

 wagon, call on your nearest bee-keeping neighbor, 

 and ask him to get in ; go on in the same way to the 

 next, and the next, then call on the most successful 

 ones you liave in your vicinity. Look over their hives, 

 honey, bees and queens, in a pleasant and genial way, 

 and discuss the good and bad qualities of all the dif- 

 erent methods of doing things. You need no president, 

 treasurer or secretary, but can make the woods ring 

 with youv merriment if you feel like it. At such meet- 

 ings I usually laugh imtil hoarse, but 1 never yet knew 

 of an unkind word being spoken of any one. It does 

 not cost us a copper and often results in much benefit, 

 for we olten at such meetings, buy, sell, ana exchange 

 bees, queens, lioney, &c. We have just made a visit 

 to friend Shaw of Chatham, where we found him suc- 

 ceeding beautifidly with the lamp nursery, and from 

 the prettiest little apiary of about 7.1, 3 frame nuclei, 

 we ever saw, we all went to work and i)icked out and 

 caged the nicest lot of yellow queens I ever saw or 

 heard of. I purchased all that were laying, at 00c each, 

 just to give you my friends, a pleasant surprise. After 

 "an excellent dinner, we went with him to a swamp, 

 wiiere he had moved over lOO colonies ; after we ha<l 

 overhauled the hives, seen how they were building 

 comb ao yellow as dandelions, and tasted the rich 

 honey as yellow as gold, we took a big tramp away 

 into the heart of the great swamp, and watched tlie 

 Italians as they hummed over the rainbow hued flow- 

 ers, that stood higher than our heads. 



Will you my friends accept the above as an apology 

 lor my not having advised you all to attend the con- 

 ventions? 



I 



