or three customers have complained, saying that a queen was not prolific, or that she did not produce the right kind of bees, and other queens have been sent.

I presume that the queens reared in Italy are very much like the queens reared here; that is, some are good, and others bad or indifferent; and it would seem reasonable that, by selecting the best queens to breed from, and then selecting again from their daughters, and then choosing again from their daughters, and continuing this selection, that a superior strain of bees might be developed; but right here steps in that drone part of the problem, about which friend Viallon so graphically writes. Last spring I had half a dozen black and hybrid colonies on the yard. I kept them free from drones until I reared Italian queens to put in their places, and I can imagine what a task it would be to keep a large number of colonies free from drones. I have read of giving each colony a comb of drone brood, from choice stock, putting it at one side of the hive, away from the brood-nest, and then removing it after the drones had hatched. It was asserted that this would satisfy the desire for drones, and that, if no drone comb was afterward allowed in the hive, no more drones would be reared. I have never tried this plan, but have always kept my own and my neighbors' hives supplied with purely mated queens; in most instances, daughters of imported mothers. If fertilization in confinement could be made practicable, I should have more faith in Apis Americana. We now have several different races, or varieties, of bees in this country, each one of which seems to possess some desirable characteristics. Now, if all these valuable traits could be combined, the result would probably be A. Am. It seems to me that friend Jones, with his isolated islands, is doing as much, perhaps, as any one in developing A. Am.

I would not say a word to discourage any one who is trying to improve the Italians or any other variety of bees; on the contrary, I would do all in my power to encourage them; yet it is my opinion, that, for the present at least, we had better continue importing.

If I am correctly informed, Italy, Cyprus, and Palestine do not afford so grand honey resources as are found in our own beloved land, and the bees of those distant climes are obliged to labor very persistently in order to obtain a subsistence, only the "fittest" surviving. When they cross the Atlantic they bring with them that disposition to labor, even for a small reward; and it is only after living for a time in this land of plenty that they discover how easy it is to live and yet be a trifle lazy. Of course, this is an old and oft-repeated theory, which may or may not be true; but it is well known that the removal of fruits, vegetables, plants, grains, animals, etc., to some distant and more favorable locality is usually followed by excellent results for the first few generations; and why should not this rule hold good in regard to bees? I do not wish to be understood, however, as having no faith in A. Am., because we Americans are such a restless, progressive, go-ahead people (made up from different races, as will probably be the case with A. Am.), a people that are satisfied with only the best, that the time when A. Am. will be placed in a higher rank than all other bees, and be in a great demand the world over, may not be so far distant as some of us imagine.

W. Z. HUTCHINSON.

Rogersville, Genesee Co., Mich.

DOOLITTLE'S REPORT FOR 1881.

INTER seemed loth to give place to spring, so it was April 20th before our bees could fly to any amount, at which time I found the long, severe, cold winter had made sad havoc with my pets, and that I had only 30 colonies left out of my 112, which were in good condition Dec. 1st, 1880. These 30 were obtained by uniting, till I thought they were strong enough to be of use to me; and had I united to 25, probably better results could have been obtained. May 1st, elm and soft maple invited the bees to their opening buds to obtain pollen, while on the 12th, golden willow gave them their first taste of new honey. There seems to be something in this first honey that sets the bees "booming" as to brood-rearing, as nothing else does during the whole year; and often a surplus of 10 lbs. of honey is obtained from the few trees we have along a small stream near us. On May 21st, apple blossoms opened, and our bees were given a fine treat for several days, securing a nice store of apple honey to keep them until white clover bloomed. Owing to the extreme heat during May, white clover commenced to bloom June 1st, about fifteen days earlier than usual. On the night of June 6th we had a hard frost, followed by cold, cloudy, rainy weather, which lasted till the 29th, keeping our bees from the fields, so white and enticing to them, much to the annoyance of their owner, if not to themselves. At this time the bloom was nearly past; but as good weather now favored us, some little was gleaned by the industrious bees. July 8th, basswood opened, and we expected to see a rush made for the honey that always seems to set the bees crazy, as it were. But our hopes were again disappointed, for the honeyflow from this source was very meager indeed; in fact, it was the poorest basswood season I ever knew, and at its close our hopes were blasted, as scarcely a box of surplus honey had been taken. However, our bees were in the best possible condition to secure all there was, so we had no ground to blame ourselves for not doing well our part. Along during the latter part of basswood, we had noticed that the large kind of red clover was blossoming, so that the fields were getting red, which was a treat to our eyes, as a worm in the head had kept the red clover from blossoming for the past few years. As the fields grew redder, our spirits rose, and hope revived; for in 1872 our bees gave us as high as 60 lbs. of box honey from some hives from red clover alone. Soon the bees began to "go" for the clover, and, to our astonishment, the few acres of teasel within the range of our bees' flight was yielding honey wonderfully. The bees now "rolled" în honey at a rapid rate for abou: 10 days, and then "slowed up," so that August 1st found the season for 1881 over with us, as the 100 or more acres of buckwheat within the range of our bees' flight yielded no surplus. Four years have now passed since we have had a pound of surplus honey from buckwheat. As the result of our season's work, we have taken in comb honey, 3317 lbs., and 718 of extracted, giving a total of 4035 from our 30 colonies, which gives an average of 134% lbs. to the colony, and brings our average for the past 9 years up to 92 lbs. per colony. We have increased the 30 colonies to 80, which are in good condition for winter. We have also reared and sent out 83 tested queens, which of course lessened our honey report to a certain extent. When spring opened we had but one

good strong colony, and concluded to work that for extracted honey. We will give the readers the result from this one, so they can see the source from which our honey came, and the yield:

Willow, 5% lbs.; apple, 194; white clover, 58; basswood, 97; teasel and red clover, 232 lbs. Total, 412 lbs. We also worked a small apiary of 15 stocks a mile or so from home, and obtained from them 874 lbs. of box honey and 1400 of extracted, giving 2274 lbs. in all, or 1511⁄2 lbs. average to the colony. One thing we noticed with pleasure, which was, that our colonies gave nearly an equal yield per hive. This is what I have been breeding for for the past few years, hoping to obtain like results from all, and not have one stock in the yard give a large yield, and another nothing. When we, as apiarists of America, can bring our bees up to such a standard of excellence that all colonies will produce an equal amount of honey, and said amount be as

large as that produced by our very best colony of a porting stock, for Apis Americana will be the best

few years ago, we shall have no further need of im

of syrup fed indiscriminately, or were they guided and helped all through the long dry hot summer by the active brain and skillful hand of a thorough beemaster who fed them just right, gave them complete combs when needed, also queens from another apiary? In other words, may these inexperienced friends expect to do half or even one-fourth as well? Please stand up, Neighbor H., and tell us all about it. You see, you and I hope to sell these A BC friends a great many pounds of bees next summer, and we do not want them to lose money; neither do we want our bees to suffer by the mistakes of our customers. Hence I think it would be a good plan for you to tell them just what to do with their bees. Do it now, that they may have plenty of time to study the matter thoroughly. E. M. HAYHURST. Kansas City, Mo., Oct., 1881.

May I not speak a little first, friend Hayhurst? Perhaps I should explain to our readers, that I put the head and sub-head on this article, and I also wrote about what Neighbor H. had done with a single pound of bees. Well, I would say, for friend Hutchinson, that I think he did not intend to say he could get a queen in ten days on

NUCLEUS ONCE IN 10 DAYS, AND INCREASING 1 LB. OF BEES TO 5 COLONIES IN ONE SEASON.

T"

CAN ALL OF THE A B C CLASS DO IT EVERY TIME? THE friends will please imagine that we are sitting on the blue grass, under the elm-tree, near our apiary. As the young bees are gaily sporting in the warm October sunshine, and the workers are busily carrying in the pollen and a little honey from smartweed and goldenrod, we will, as pleasantly, examine October GLEANINGS. As our time is short, we will notice only two items.

First, here is friend Hutchinson, who has something to say about certain very cheap nucleus hives, in which he finds a laying queen once in about ten days. Now look here, friend H.; if that is the way you do, I have got to scratch around and see what is the matter, for I can not begin to do it in our yard. How do you manage it? Don't your bees ever kill any virgin queens, or tear down the queen-cells "ready to hatch" that you sometimes give them? Do your queens never get lost in mating? and do they always begin to lay before the tenth day, so as to have time to leave a few eggs to keep up the strength of the colony?

once or twice with those little hives. I know pretty well that both he and Neighbor H. have their share of bad luck. Now about Neighbor H.'s pound of bees. He said he was going to increase them to five colonies, and I bantered him so much about it that it stirred him up to an unusual degree of determination. They are not wintered yet, and if you had not written your piece, I am afraid they never would have been, all of them. If you want to know whether it does Neighbor H. good to stir him up now and then or not, just ask his wife. Now he may answer the rest.

NEIGHBOR H.'S STORY ABOUT "THAT POUND OF BEES."

As friend Hayhurst requests me to stand up and tell all about that pound of bees, I will arise. On the 15th of May I put up a pound of bees to ship. The weather was very warm; white-clover honey was coming in very fast; they got daubed with honey, and when I got to the factory they were all in the bottom of the cage nearly suffocated. I put them in a chaff hive on empty combs in Mr. Root's apiary. They were Italian bees, but I put a tested

of showing the bees to visitors than any thing else. I also gave them two frames of new honey, mostly unsealed. I covered them with the winter chaff

Neighbor H. makes an experiment which is eminently successful. He takes a pound of bees in May, gives them a few empty combs, and, by and by, some pans of sugar syrup. By the last of September they have increased to 5 fair colonies in good order for winter.

Some of the enthusiastic A B C class who, by the way, need to be curbed in a little, want to know if those bees increased to so great an extent with the help only of the few combs first given, and the pans

cushion, and then left them severely alone for about a month, when I divided them first.* And

here is where the trick commences. There were 7 frames of brood. I took all the hatching and sealed brood and the queen for the new swarm, leaving the eggs and larvæ to rear queen-cells from. When I rear queen-cells I always like to feed the colony. I have fed $11.00 worth of sugar and $3.00 worth of honey. I have raised from that queen over 100 queen-cells and two laying queens, and have given the five two laying queens from the other apiary. Medina, O., Oct. 26, 1881.

NEIGHBOR H.

*Mr. Root asked me how many swarms I could make, and I said five; he laughed, but I have the five.

PATENT-RIGHT BEE-HIVES.

KIND WORDS FROM GOOD FRIENDS.

CAN'T get along without GLEANINGS, for I like it very much, and I like the editor too; but it

hurts to read such sentences as, "Have noth

ing to do with any man who goes around selling

rights for patent bee-hives, or any thing else" (p. 498), for I can say that I'll never engage in a business that I can't ask the Lord to help me in. I have

not taken a cent from a man this season but that

has declared himself perfectly willing to pay, and some of my warmest friends are those I have done work for. Honest, now! don't you believe this is a

kind of hobby of yours? It surely can't be so sinful to get an article patented, or our government would not allow it. Isn't this more a matter of opinion, and shouldn't we cultivate a charity for each other's differences? Why, I believe there comes pretty near being two sides to the temperance question, and yet I earnestly advocate the right, and never drank a drop. But you couldn't scare me off of your subscription list any how, for GLEANINGS contains too much good reading, and if I ever come anywhere near Medina, I'm coming the rest of the way and call on you. Yes, I almost believe I would, even if I knew you would turn up your nose, and say to yourself, "Yes, here is one of those patent-hive men." G. K. HUBBARD.

LaGrange, Ind., Oct. 16, 1881.

Now, Mr. Root, on page 498, October GLEANINGS, you cut the "Kidder" family. Do you know them personally? did they ever harm you, or has your imagination, and letters of hasty writing from others, made out the whole family of “bad repute"? If a relation of yours should "miss it" in some of his dealings, how would it "strike" you should it be said, "The whole Root family are in bad repute"? I believe the Maker of man has room in the field of charity for what is good in the "Kidder family." I don't believe in total depravity, you see; and in the

same article you say, "Have nothing to do with any

man who travels about selling rights for patent beehives, or any thing else," etc. When you consider that, I think you will pass judgment on yourself. I am not in favor of flooding the country with "patent rights," but I believe it just for a person to protect himself from unprincipled parties, by having a thing patented that is meritorious, and where the public is not overcharged by the "right."

A little argument will not build a wall between us, for I won't be any thing else but your friend, and I do not mean to be presumptuous. I believe, if we would obey the great injunction, “Come, let us reason together," the two great powers of heaven and earth (love and charity) would find lodgment in more human hearts. We are too touchy.

W. M. YOUNG.

Nevada, Wyandot Co., O., Oct., 1881.

I must confess, my friends, the spirit of kindness and true friendship shown in both your letters has touched me very much; so much so, indeed, that I have just had the Humbug and Swindle department lifted out bodily from the pages, although it contained two complaints against patent-hive venders. If I have been erring on the side of too much severity, I will try for a little while to err on the side of being too lenient. I am not at all shaken in my position, that the greatest good to the greatest number would be se

cured by just such advice as I gave, but because of just one such man as yourself, friend II., among the number who are traveling about selling rights for a patent bee-hive, (do you go among utter strangers, friend H.?) I will. for the present, refrain. Friend Y., but your friend," has taken a strong hold of that one expression, “ I won't be any thing me. If we could all hold that spirit in all our arguments and disagreements, what a different world this would be! Methinks I see one weak place in your plea. You ask if any of the Kidders have ever harmed me. To be sure, they have not. If they had, it would have been a personal matter, and entirely out of place in my own journal. Bad men are published, to save our readers from Leing defrauded by them; and I do not know how I can very well be excused from holding up this warning, when the Kidders have been practicing a species of blackmailing for nearly twenty years past. When I say Kidder family, of course I mean those of them known in bee culture.

BEES AND GRAPES.

ALSO A LITTLE ABOUT BIRDS AND GRAPES.

S there has been a great deal said about bees eating and puncturing grapes, I take this opportunity to send you by mail one of the bees or birds that do puncture the grapes, making a hole as small as can be made with a fine needle, and larger. I have had about 16 years' experience with bees and grapes; have never seen a bee puncture a grape yet. I know by watching what mischief (to my sorrow) this little bird is among the grapes. If you know the name of the bird, please let me know. C. F. HOPKINS. Brownhelm, Lorain Co., O., Oct. 11, 1881.

Not being posted in ornithology, we sent the bird to Prof. Cook. Here is his reply:

Dear Sir: The bird from Mr. C. F. Hopkins, of Brownhelm, Ohio, and received through you, is the ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula). It is sometimes called the ruby-crowned Wren. It is found from the Gulf, in winter, to Alaska, in summer; and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It appears here in April and September, and the same is true, without doubt, in Northern Ohio. It nests and breeds north of us. This little bird is greenish olive in color, with a bright crimson spot on its crown. It has a sharp bill, which enables it to reach into crev ices under bark, etc., for the insects which form the larger part of its food. The length from tip of bill to tip of tail is 41⁄2 inches.

Mr. Hopkins's observation is new. This little beauty, whose song is as beautiful as that of the

canary, has heretofore borne an untarnished character. True, Wilson says that it sometimes eats the stamens of apple-blossoms, but this could hardly be called harm. But that it should form this new habit of piercing grapes, and sipping the juice, is surely much against its character. Its bill is admirably fitted for just this work, from its needle-like shape; and granting that it should once experiment in the line of tapping grapes, we could hardly wonder that it should continue in that line, nor blame it for so doing, especially as it has more than earned the grape juice by ravaging among the insects.