For the American Bee Journal.
The In-and-In Breeding of Bees.
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.
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.
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.]
☞ 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.
L. H. Pammel, Jr., Sec.