In going into winter quarters I have never found the winter nest above but always below, directly under eight frames of solid honey, and heat penetrates these combs of winter stores. They never select a wide home but always a long narrow space, so the heat goes above and their surplus is always warm from the heat of the swarm below. Consequently brood rearing commences early and they build up rapidly, and as a rule I have to be careful that my bees do not get too strong at the beginning of fruit bloom, which is frequently cut short by frost and leaves me with hives full of brood and bees to be cared for until the white clover bloom comes. But usually at this time dandelions help me out; but should even that fail, I always have hives with a surplus, and frames carried over that I can place down by the brood nest. I have twelve hives with sixteen frames of this surplus above each swarm today. They being clustered on eight frames below, they will have at least 100 of these frames of honey to spare in the spring. In treating disease they are very easy to manipulate. "UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. "WASHINGTON, D. C. June 24, 1909. "Mr. C. B. Palmer, Bradshaw, Nebraska. "DEAR SIR: The sample of diseased brood which you sent with your letter of the 15th is American foul brood. "It is quite true that even the strongest hives get this disease. There ought to be a rigid inspection of apiaries in your state, since. we get a good many reports come to us from Nebraska. From the above we can see we are badly in need of a foul brood law in this state. For winter put an empty body above frames and fill with chaff and prepare for winter the same as any hive. In closing, I wish to say that these few lines are not from the pen of an expert in the art, but simply from one slowly groping his way in the shadows of Apiculture, and at times like one lost in a dream. Ever encountering obstacles that seem to entirely block the way. Startling at new visions ever presenting themselves to our view. As we pause before their city we behold, the gay bridal party, the frolicking children, the armed sentinels, the aged and the funeral procession. A city whose crowded streets are ever crowded with a vast army of laborers, ever gathering together, as one mind and one object, these ever sparkling diamonds of nectar from dew drops, those ever glittering nuggets of gold from the beautiful flowers. MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE DIFFERENT RACES OF BEES. BY REV. ALOIS J. KLEIN, V. G., BRAINARD, NEB. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: This is the second time I have had the pleasure to appear before this body of practical men, engaged in the cultivation of honey bees, in both instances gladly responding to the kind invitation of our efficient and untiring secretary, Mr. Odell, to address the members of this association on a topic of my own choosing. My private research work is of a rather subjective nature, no claims being laid to deductions drawn therefrom, to hold good absolutely. Yet numerous examinations based on a twelve years' experience in handling diverse races, and crosses between those races, have aided me greatly in arriving at some conclusions, which methinks may be advantageously employed by other friends of the Apis mellifica (honey bee). My observations are presented here with the candor of a disinterested observer, as I have no axe to grind and no queens for sale. THE ITALIANS OR LIGURIANS. I commenced my bee-keeping career in 1899 with one colony of pure leather-colored Italians, in a twelve-frame, home-made portico hive with a gable cover. The colony and hive were a present from Mr. Frank Facula, one of my parishioners, living near Weston, Neb., who conveyed it to me by wagon early in September, 1899, across rugged roads over a distance of thirteen miles. In the spring of 1899 Mr. Pacula lost nearly all of his bees through winter and spring dwindling, out of eighteen colonies only two surviving, and of the remaining two he donated one to me. This colony teeming with bees and overflowing with nectar, when delivered, formed the basis of my present apiary of forty-eight hives, and the progeny thereof has been holding a conspicuous place among my colonies of foreign strains and later introduction. During the subsequent years an increase was made by natural swarming. The parental colony with an one-year-old queen stored 149 pounds of surplus honey in 1903 in Langstroth frames, nearly all their comb having been built from starters up to August 16, when a swarm issued, foilowed by an after-swarm eight days later. In 1904 the same swarm yielded a surplus of 132 pounds, and in the following year 85 pounds. its queen being a middle size type and rather slender; lived for five seasons, manifesting only a slight lessening of her fertility in her more advanced age. In her fifth year, in 1907, I saw her swarm out June 14. An eightframe hive with six starters and two partly-built white combs was provided for this beautiful swarm. Just three weeks later the colony was inspected and found to be hopelessly queenless. There being entirely no brood in any stage of development in the hive it was obvious, that the queen must have perished shortly after the hiving of the swarm. The peculiar feature about it was, that except a little corner in one of the side-frames, all the newly built comb was worker comb filled throughout with honey, as against the commonly held belief, that queenless colonies will apodictically build drone comb only. I am unable to offer any extion of this, other than that the bees appear to have been so thoroughly intent in hustling for honey and building-comb during the profuse flow as to scarcely perceive their bereavement. While many advertisers may lay stress upon the queen's prolificness as the only essential requirement toward securing bounteous crops in favorable locations and seasons, I would differ from them on this par ticular point. I still have several colonies of the original Pacula strain, with their queens displaying the same prolificness, as in former years, and their bees the same energy, hardiness, strong wing-power, etc., and yet their present productiveness has been reduced at least fifty per cent by their having acquired, through crossing, the habit of stubbornly lay. ing out during the after-noon hours of the intense summer heat. The activity and gathering qualitics of the off-spring should not be lost sight of. It is the combination of several good traits, with the queens prolificness as one of the foremcst, that will be instrumental in the attainment of splendid results, in a propitious season and under proper management. Efforts to still improve the yields brought me in contact with more than half a dozen of distinguished queen breeders of the land, but not little was I surprised at finding that none of the celebrated red-clovers, I got hold of, came near the standard of my original "Pacula" stock. Beekeepers are, to a certain measure, mistaken in presuming, that queenbreeders must necessarily and ipso facto produce superior queens to those of their own rearing. I then turned my eyes to the "Goldens." Their pleasing beauty and bright color rendering them attractive objects. This point together with the casiness with which their queens can be found, even in populous colonics, in the sarming period, their alleged gentleness and readiness to enter the sections, and what not, induced me to give them a trial. But because, at my hands, they wintered poorly on the summer stands, the stock having perhaps been wintered indoors for years, and because of their tendency to deteriorate and revert to the original strain, they were discarded. I am inclined to the opinion, that for our climate and the freaks of our flow and for my conditions and methods of manipulation,* the darker shaded three-band Italians are by far the more desirable variety. It must be admitted, however, that some types of the leather-colored Italians surpass others in industry, gentleness and honey-yielding ability. The disposition of some strains to spring dwindling and to untimely ceasing brood rearing, wholly or in part, and to the occasional clogging of the brood-chamber with honey, will often stand in the way of their reaching, in proper trim, the opening of the honey flow. Still other breeds are more or less slow to take to the section supers. With Italians, more so than with other races, I made the observation that, every now and then, daughters of exceptionally good queens will prove worthless.-The Italians were introduced into this country by Richard Colvin, away back in the early '60's. THE GRAY CARNIOLANS. This is a race of well established qualities, but it is somewhat difficult to obtain pure stock. It is a native of Carniola, or Kranjsko, a Slavic duchy, traversed by the Julian and Karavanken Alps, and a crownland in the Austrian empire near the Adriatic Sea, formerly the heart of the Illyrian province under Napoleon, its capital then and now being the city of Ljubljana, or Laibach. * Is the second shaking necessary in treating foul brood? Alois J. Klein, Beekeeper's Review, Vol 20, No. 8, page 240. By Rev, |