182 



NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



sion. The owners are doing thtir 

 best to get rid of them. So that there 

 is a difference in the bees or a dif- 

 feienco in the people nandling them. 

 One mail was so disgusted with them 

 (his start was given to him by a friend, 

 and he is a very rough man and uses 

 very rough language) that he said he 

 would just as soon the man had givea 

 him the Prince of the warmer regions. 

 (Laughter). 



Mr. Snyder — Of course one swallow 

 doenn'l always make a summer, but 

 I have had one colony of these Cau- 

 casians, and this is the second summer, 

 and I have not oibserved any of these 

 bad qualities. They have neither 

 built burr combs nor propolized their 

 entrance, and this one colony ha-; 

 gafhered more honey than any other 

 colony in the yard. I have some very 

 fme Italians, but this colony of Cau- 

 casians has outstripped them a little 

 bit this summer, and they did not 

 swarm either. 



Mr. Morgan — I would like to admit 

 the facts with regard to this burr 

 comb a.uestion. I didn't think of that 

 at the time I spoke first. I will admit 

 they are a little more likely to Duild 

 burr combs than any other races 1 

 have seen, and the only separator I 

 have been able to use with success 

 is the tin separator, and I have tried 

 four different kinds this season. I 

 use wire, quarter inch mesh, gaivan - 

 ized, and I use the solid wood. I shall 

 Caucasianize anything I have hereaf- 

 ter, no matter what color they are. 



Dr. Phillips — I have noticed one 

 rather striking thing in regard to the 

 crosses between Caucasians and other 

 races. I noticed in a striking manner 

 particularly last winter the fact that 

 they propolized the entrances. We 

 maliciously left the hive >entranceaf 

 Avide open to see what they would do, 

 and the.v did all that we could expect, 

 where they were pure Caucasians. 

 Our bees are very close to some good 

 Italian bees from one of the best 

 breeders in the country, and whenever 

 the Caucasians had interbred with the 

 Italians the entrance propolizing was 

 almost entirely absent, and the brace 

 and burr combs were almost always 

 entirely absent, but the cross of the 

 Caucasians and the Italians is about 

 as cross as the two combined; there 

 is no half way business' in gentleness 

 between the Caucasians and any other 

 race; they are decidedly ungentle. In 



fact that is about the quickest and 

 easiest way to tell whether you have 

 bred your Caucasians purely or not. 



Question — Is bee-keeping not rather 

 a loss than a profit to the general 

 interest of apiculture for persons who 

 know little or nothing of the habits 

 or scientific care of bees, and do not 

 and will not read or study standard 

 works, or read standard periodicals 

 on bee-keeping to help them? 



Dr. Bohrer — I have mad'e it a cus- 

 tom for several years, especially since 

 foul brood has come into the coun- 

 try, to discourage all persons who 

 know nothing about the management 

 of honey bees. When they talk to 

 me about buying them, I tell them 

 unless they do soemthing of that 

 kind — study standard works on the 

 habits and management of the honey 

 bee, and read the Bee Journals — • 

 that they can buy decidedly more hon- 

 eV than they will ever get ofit of bees 

 by owning them; and they will let 

 foul brood get into them and cause 

 more trouble than one can imagine. I 

 believe it ought to be discouraged by ■ 

 bee-keepers throughout the length and 

 breadth of the land except where 

 they go into it and study the habits 

 properly. They know nothing about 

 the diseases of bees, and when they 

 get aonmg them they are about the 

 hardest class to deal with, to allow 

 you to go to work and effectually 

 treat and rid them of foul brood. I 

 find it is so in our country. One man 

 threatened to prosecute me if I re- 

 ported any more that he had foul 

 brood, in his apiary. I said, if you 

 don't get rid of foul brood, I will 

 cause you to be prosecuted and de- 

 stroy all the bees you have. Then 

 he permitted our County Bee Inspec- 

 tor to go and examine the bees, but 

 before he would agree that he should 

 take comb and honey all away from 

 them and treat them properly, he 

 must cut out some isolated patch to 

 see if he couldn't cure them in that 

 way. The inspector said to me. What 

 do you think about that? I said, if 

 it happens to be confined to those 

 localities he may perform a cure, but 

 otherwise it will spread. I said, You 

 go back. He went back, and it was 

 still spreading. For reasons of that 

 kind I discourage in every way pos- 

 sible those that know nothing about 

 bees from owning them at all unless 



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