34 
“NOVICE’S” GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTITBE 
out; also, a small door over one of the 
large ones gives access to the loft by 
means of a light ladder. P. S. — Don't 
leave the ladder op Saturday nights for 
the children might climb up and play in 
the sawdust on the Sabbath. 
But, Mr. Novice, you haven t consid- 
ered 'box-honey' at all, yet.” 
" Why, yes we have ; see Jan No. page 
5 Wh6n we get our hives full of brood 
and young bees we are just right to put 
them into the hives double width and put 
on boxes, etc. ” 
" But bow will you prevent swarming? 
Our bees always swarm, or generally do 
when their combs are filled, in spite of 
boxes, and in an apiary of 50 or 100 stocks 
clipping the queen's wings does not pre- 
vent her bees from joining in with some 
other swarm. You have also said that 
such arrangements as Quinby queen-yard 
and Mrs. Farnham's non-swarmer would 
not prevent the bees from hilling their 
queen whe.n retained in that way." 
" You are right, and we cannot think it 
good policy to use any means to restrain 
swarming that is apt to induce the bees to 
replace their queen. If our hives are 
worked for box hone} - , for aught we can 
see natural swarming must be allowed, 
and to be frank, we have as little patience 
with one operation as the other, for both 
seem to us too disorderly and wasteful In 
he tolerated in a well conducted apiary.” 
Kind readers all, our opinion in regard 
to the value of the Extractor may be a 
mistaken one, but it is honest, neverthe- 
less. Should we presume to teach the 
method of securing the largest amount of 
box honey with least labor and expense, 
as we now do extracted, we should be at- 
tempting that in which we have, of late 
.years, had but little practical experience, 
and so we hope to lie excused : but wo 
shall watch tor and welcome anything new 
that may conn; up, and try to keep our 
readers posted on the subject. That ex- 
tracted honey (with the market we have 
now for it) can be made to pay, even poor 
seasons, we haven’t a doubt, and trust that 
the same may be true of box honey. 
CAN Of It IIKI.N RK I.XIPBOVEM? 
J E think that any candid, reasoning 
individual will he perfectly satisfied 
that our Italian, Egyptian and native bees 
have descended from a common parent- 
age, by reading an article in the Popular 
Science Monthly for May, 1872, entitled ; 
"The Unity of the Human Species.' Any 
bee-keeper who has any doubts on the 
subject, will find it profitable to send tol). 
Appleton & Co . 51 SI Broadway, lor the 
number in question, and we shall a-mme, 
in all our future writings, that the Italians 
are only distant relatives of our common 
bees, having accidentally acquired valua- 
ble qualities while closed in from the rest 
of tbeir family by the encircling moun- 
1 tains. 
The three yeliow bands, (ben, are only 
an indication of the branch from which 
they came, and for superior honey gath- 
erers it is much more important that wr 
select colonies to rear queens from, that 
have desirable qualities pracMcally con- 
sidered, than that they have three or more 
yellow bands, or, in fact, that they have 
yellow bands at all ; only that, at present, 
i our best honey gatherers are yellow band- 
ed. 
We will give a few facts to illustrate this, 
and wc presume almost all intelligent and 
observing bee-keepers can give as many 
|i similar ones. 
About three years ago we had a fine, 
colony of cross hybrids that persisted in 
building little bits of comb at right an- 
gles to the main comb, and by no manner 
of means could we cure them of it. If 
they built a new comb, it was sure to be 
abundantly interspersed with these "fins." 
and on giving them a complete set of the 
finest comb we had, placed as near as they 
could be used, we (bund them in three 
days all "edgewise” again, and all we 
could do was 1 3 pinch ofl these extras 
every time the comb was "extracted.” 
The next season, in that hive and no oth- 
er, wc found the same peculiarity, but as 
they were strong and industrious, we rath- 
er liked to study their idiosyncracy. 
In June their queen was lost carelessly, 
and another substituted immediately; and 
strange to say, when the new workers em- 
erged, we had sensible comb builders once 
more, and have had since. 
Does any one doubt but that queens 
raised from this queen might, some of 
them, have shown the same trait, and 
that constant encouragement might have 
developed, in a brief time, a race of bees 
ail having that trait developed in such di- 
rection as we chose to encourage? 
Again, most Inis, when shaken in front 
of (lie hive, crawl directly in ; yet we 
have had two colonics thnl always per- 
I sisted in crawling into some other place; 
and one of them was a "perfect bother 1 ' 
b for a whole season, until she crawled o(T 
with a few followers and "lost herself.” 
When the young lives hatched from a 
succeeding queen in the same hive, they 
showed no such disposition, and as the 
former were dark hybrids and the latter 
yellow, wc ha<i the spectacle of the dark 
oid bees crawling away, and the young 
yellow ones going home as "honest bees 
should do.” 
We presume Air. Darwin would say, in 
both cases we have mentioned, that these 
sports would cure themselves unless man 
steps in and encourages them, for the bad 
comb-builders would die in bad seasons in 
consequence of poor economy in the use 
of their wax, and the 'perambulating 
queens, when the extractor is used, would 
oltenc-st get lost. 
Now, leilow bee-keepers, do wc not 
j sometimes play the ‘‘mischief’ by saving 
