ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 73 



Above all things, don't be discouraged when the losses come, as 

 come they will; let them find you more determined than ever to push 

 on until success and all its pleasures crown your years of labor. 



February, 1905. 



YELLOW VS. LEATHER COLORED ITALIANS. 



A FEW WOKDS IN FAVOB OP YELLOW ITALIANS; KEEPING THE BEOOD-NEST CLEAB 

 OF HONEY TO MAKE ROOM FOE BROOD. 



For some time many honey-producers have shown a preference for 

 the darker or leather-colored Italians. This would be all right if it 

 were not that they have a tendency to degenerate back to hybrids and 

 blacks when continued a few years. It is the same with bees as with 

 all our domestic stock. We must have a standard to work for, and the 

 color line seems to be very essential in our horses, cattle, swine, and 

 poultry. Now, if we fail to keep up to well-marked Italian bees as a 

 standard, then unprincipled queen-breeders can send us their hybrid 

 mismated queens; and we, not having any fixed standard as to color, 

 will have no chance to complain, as they can say they sent us queens 

 of their dark Italian strain. 



I for one have my doubts if any of the dark strains of Italians 

 are superior to our three and four banded bees — that is, taking them 

 as a whole in large apiaries there are occasionally some exceptions in 

 each class; but one thing we must all admit; and that is, Italian bees are 

 far ahead of our blacks or hybrids in gathering honey; but in order 

 to acquire the best possible results we must give them in some respects 

 especial attention. Their never satisfied desire to gather honey causes 

 them to fill the brood-nest early in the season; but if this honey is 

 frequently removed so as to give the queen a chance to fill and keep 

 filled all the combs below the supers with maturing brood, then you 

 will soon have a large working force, and you are then quite sure to 

 get a nice surplus; but if you neglect to keep this honey out of the 

 brood-nest, then you will have a weak colony and little or no surplus, 

 which will cause you to become prejudiced against all yellow bees. 



Next season make it your especial business to see every comb in 

 all your colonies before you put on your supers. See that each one 

 is full of brood from top to bottom and end to end; remember that 

 each square inch of capped honey in those breeding combs costs you 

 about 30 worker bees every 21 days. 



The convenience and time saved in looking up twenty or more 

 queens a day, as we frequently do during the summer season, is quite 

 an item in favor of yellow bees. Some think these bees do not winter 

 as well as the darker ones. I find that, where this is the case, it is 

 caused by the Italian bees crowding the brood-nest with honey in 

 August so as to stop all chance for breeding after Sept. 1; consequently 

 they go into winter quarters rather weak in bees; and those they do 

 have are mostly old and nearly used up. If you will remove two of 

 the heaviest combs about Sept. 1, and put in the center of the hive 



