Chapter M: S. Snow

Mr. C. Thielmann, in the BEE JOURNAL, says he has bees which
are mostly hybrids, and he does not know where they came
from, but there are Italians 5 miles from him. Another says
he has no black bees, and his queens must be purely mated,
&c.; another that a neighbor has had some 10 or 15 colonies
so many years, breeding in-and-in, but states he manages to
keep his number about the same. Breeding in-and-in with bees,
I am fully convinced, is not much done. Bees are free rovers
and it seems to be their nature or instinct to mate at some
distance from the parent hive.

This question was discussed by one of the speakers at a
bee convention in N. Y. some years ago. He claimed that
in-and-in breeding had a great deal to do with the failures
in bee-keeping, &c. He compared an apiary to a yard of fowls,
in this respect, and that they could be bred in-and-in
until entirely worthless. This may be done, for fowls are
confined to a particular locality, but how is it with prairie
chickens? what is the reason they do not degenerate and run
out? Because they are rovers, like the bee, and are mated by
others from some remote part.

I claim that bees will mix from 5 to 7 miles, and if there
are 50 or 100 colonies within that distance the progeny of a
certain queen will stand a poor show of mating with drones
from its own hive.

To illustrate: While living in N. Y. I obtained one of Mr.
Langstroth's $20 tested Italian queens; I reared some 70
queens and introduced them into as many colonies. The next
season I had Italian drones by the thousand. My stock of
Italian drones were the only ones in the locality, so I had
a good chance to test breeding in-and-in. The next season,
and even that fall, there were hybrid colonies all over the
country, even at the distance of 7 miles, one man had one
colony. One man, 5 miles from me, wished me to introduce an
Italian queen into one of his colonies. I think he had 6 and
I was surprised to see 4 of them hybrids, how they came there
he did not know. Others said to me, “I have your kind of
bees, but where they came from I cannot tell.”

All breeders of Italian queens find it very difficult to
keep their stock up to the standard of purity. I obtained 5
dollar-queens (Italians) from a breeder in N. Y., which when
tested proved to be hybrids, showing conclusively that there
were black bees in that section.

Osakis, Minn.

For the American Bee Journal.

How to Prevent Robbing.

J. D. ENAS.

My location for surplus honey is not as good as some other
sections of the State, and from the middle of June to the
last of July, from 4 to 6 weeks, there appears to be no honey
flow, and the weather being hot and dry, scorches what bloom
is left, soon after June comes in. Our last rain is in April,
or sometimes late in May, and no more, generally, before
October or November. All kinds of stock depending on pasture,
especially in the hills, suffer at that time. When bees
can gather no honey, Italians especially go about visiting
for the purpose of plunder, and woe to the colony that is
not strong enough to defend its stores. I have reduced the
entrance, covered the entrance with cow-chips, wet hay,
brush, and, in fact, tried all remedies that ever I saw in
print or heard of, without success. While the robbers were
helping themselves, the colony robbed was not discouraged,
but appeared to be robbing some other, and the queen was
laying eggs, to be starved as they advanced to brood; no bees
appeared to be killed at the entrance, as no blacks were
about; they were all Italians, and they can rob when they get
started.

I exchanged the places of the hives without success, until I
thought of changing after dark; so while they were robbing I
went to all colonies that appeared to be quiet and minding
their own business and placed a single stone on the cover,
then on those that were getting robbed the worst, I placed
2 stones. Then when so dark that no bees were flying, I
exchanged places and put a strong colony on the stand of a
weak one. Sometimes I had to repeat this, but not always.
Some of those weak ones filled their hives with golden rod
honey and robbing was stopped for that season. It was amusing
to see the robbers when those strong colonies had fairly
awakened, to know that they had callers; they mustered out at
the entrance solid and were ready for business. The robber
seemed to think he had made a mistake. The strong colony had
not got discouraged; the robbers could not force the entrance
and the weak colony not in a fighting humor, received the
recruits from the strong one, which were a little too
surprised at the change to interfere with the queen and
inmates. Most of the old bees would go to their own stand but
in the confusion of things they would gradually be at home
in their own hive. I found the plan very successful, when
closing the entrance did not do. I extracted as late as June
10 to keep down swarming.

Last spring my Italians took the grafting wax from my peach
grafts. I also observed them gathering the worm dust from
decayed oak wood, and filling their pockets instead of
pollen, about Christmas. In the valley 2 miles from here,
frost was quite severe, but here the mercury got below 32°
only twice; the lowest was 28°. Natural bloom was 2 months
behind, owing to early frosts which appeared to drive the sap
down to the roots.

Napa, Cal.

For the American Bee Journal.

Bees Killed by Kindness.

B. F. WHITEAKER.

I commenced the year 1875 with 12 box hives and engaged
my brother to hive the colonies in movable frame hives on
shares, but the bees swarmed faster than he had the hives
ready—one swarmed 5 times in one week. In the fall I had 16
colonies in movable frame and 20 in box hives. I prepared
them for winter by cutting up a light bed-quilt to cover the
frames; drove stakes about a foot from the hives all around
except in the front, (which faced the south) and packed straw
in the spaces and filled the cap with chaff and straw, and
covered the hives with straw. In the spring but one colony
was living and that was in a box hive. The quilts were laid
down flat on the frames, leaving no ventilation. When it
became cold the bees died and fell on the bottom board,
filling up the spaces between the frames, the moisture fell
on the bees and froze solid, closing the entrance so that I
could not open it even with an iron rod. In the corners of
each hive was a chunk of ice, running half way up the frames.
The bees cut holes through the quilts and when they could,
had crawled into the straw and died. This was murder, but
such was my experience in 1875-6.

Florid, Ill., Mar. 1, 1881.

[We have no doubt your first disasters were attributable altogether to a too rapid increase.—ED.]

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☞ The North Western Wisconsin Bee-keepers Association will meet at Germania Hall, LaCrosse, Wis., on Tuesday, May 10, at 10 a.m. All interested in bee-keeping are requested to be present.