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A. I. ROOT,

Publisher and Proprietor,

Medina, O.

Devoted to Bees and Honey, and Home Interests.

JAN. 1, 1882. Published Monthly.

No. 1.

TERMS: $1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE: 2 Copies for $1.90; 3 for $2.75: 5 for $4.00; 10 or more, 75 cts. each. Single Number, 10 cts; Additions to clubs may be made at club rates. Above are all to be sent to ONE POST

Established in 1873. OFFICE. Clubs to different postoffices, NOT

NOTES FROM THE BANNER APIARY.

No. 26.

MY REPORT FOR 1881.

RIEND O. H. TOWNSEND would like to know how much those seven colonies, that I bought of him, helped me in queen-rearing. Well, as our little girls say, they helped a "whole lot." Of the eleven colonies that I owned one year ago, only one colony remained alive last spring; and that was so weak that I united it with another colony that I bought. Although it was up-hill work getting started last spring, yet I did not become discouraged. It was with difficulty that I obtained money with which to buy bees, while to find bees to buy, unless at exorbitant prices, was an equally difficult task. Every swarm that I bought was in box hives, or else in movable-comb hives having frames that differed in size from mine; consequently, all had to be transferred. Finally, June 1st, I found myself the possessor of 18 colonies; all transferred, and in fair working order. The weather continued cold so late, that queen-rearing was not commenced until about a month later than usual. Although white clover was so abundant that some fields reminded one of a snow-drift, yet the weather was so cool that no surplus was stored until the latter part of June. White clover yielded fairly from about June 21st until about July 8th, when it was deserted for the bounteous, fragrant basswoods. A fair crop was obtained from basswood, but the yields from fall flowers was cut short by the drought.

LESS than 90 cts. each.

I have reared and sold 263 queens; extracted 1100 lbs. of honey, and doubled the number of my colonies. Estimating the colonies now on hand (28) at $5.00 each, my profits have been only $15.43 per colony.

In closing his report, friend I. R. Good fairly takes the words right out of my mouth; that is, they express my feelings exactly. Please allow me to quote them: "I wish to thank the many kind friends who have sent me their orders for queens. If there is one among you who is not satisfied, let me know, and I will try to satisfy you. I tell you it does me good to receive such kind letters as some of you bee-keepers write."

MR. ROOT DIDN'T COME.

How I did wish that I could go to the convention at Battle Creek! but circumstances were such that I could not attend. I could not help thinking, however, that there was a slight possibility, about one chance in ten, that Mr. Root (Novice) might swing around this way on his way home. Saturday evening, in hopes that he might come, I filled the woodbox heaping full of wood, so that we could "sit up" and "talk" if he did come; and, as I started for Rogersville, I laughingly told Mrs. H. that I was going to the train to meet Mr. Root. But no Mr. Root alighted from the cars; and then I even went so far as to go through the cars to see if, by any possible chance, he might be on the train. I saw only one man that I thought could possibly be him, and while I was debating in my mind whether or not I had better speak to him, he up and squirted a smallsized deluge of tobacco-juice behind the stove. That settled it, and I left the car, went over to the

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postoffice, and then went home with nothing for company but my own thoughts, and my pockets full of mail. W. Z. HUTCHINSON.

Rogersville, Genesee Co., Mich.

Friend H., although I very often tell young bee-keepers to have fewer colonies, and take better care of them, I do not know but that it is sometimes well to advise them to have more colonies, and take better care of them; and I do not know but that I should do so in your case. As you have 28 now, and will probably have pretty nearly all of them in the spring (?), I presume you will next season show us that you can handle a larger number as profitably as you do a few. I should have been very glad indeed to have passed the Sabbath with you, friend H.; but I was urged to stay with quite a number of others in the same way, and some of them were very urgent too. When I got almost home, my own son got almost out of patience with me because I wouldn't stay with him. Here is what he wrote about it:

Dear Mother:- I heard that pa came through Oberlin yesterday, and I was very much disappointed to think I did not know of it in time, so as to be at the depot. If I had, I should have endeavored to make him stay over Sunday; and I don't see why he didn't when he had such a good opportunity. But as he is one of those impatient home mortals, I think I can excuse him. Next time, I wish he would inform me a little in advance, for I think I could capture him.

Mr. House sends his respects to all Medina friends, and told me to give pa a free lecture" for not stopping in Oberlin, for he thinks he missed a good deal. ERNEST.

Oberlin, O., Dec. 11, 1881.

Come to think of it, I believe this is the first time one of our own children ever before penned a word for GLEANINGS. Well, I knew my duty was at home. The great stack of letters that awaited me lay heavily on my shoulders. Just one illustration: Friend Doolittle almost got cross, because one of the clerks had charged him $8.00 for 400 printed postal cards. The clerk said it was according to the list, which was true, but the list also said five hundred would be only $6.00. Shall I hire somebody to look after all these things? I never yet knew of anybody who would look after things as well as the one to whom the things belonged.

THE CYPRUS APIARY.

OUR FRIEND FRANK BENTON IN HIS HOME ON CYPRUS ISLAND.

T

HE photograph-the best and largest that could be obtained here, shows only a small part of the apiary, whose foreground is cut off, and which extends some distance to the right, and a part of which is the large inclosure back of the house.

The costumes of Greeks, Arabs, and Turks, with the group of camels, give to the view a decidedly Oriental air. The camels have just arrived from the interior of the island, and the attendants are busy removing their loads of clay cylinders-the native bee-hives. A Turkish woman belonging to the caravan stands near.

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CYPRIOTE CLIMBING A TREE. Most of the hives shown in the picture are plain boxes, of about 2000 cubic inches capacity, designed to hold medium-sized colonies for queen-rearing all queens being reared in full colonies. The whole apiary is devoted to this branch of bee culture, and of course movable combs are used exclusively, the loose-fitting Langstroth being employod to the exclusion of all other styles. The size, however, is 9 inches deep by 10 long outside. Twelve of these are placed in one story, but sometimes twelve more are put into a second story, placed above the other. But even on four of these combs, a queen with plenty of young bees and a good supply of honey will winter

In he group at the left is a priest of the Greek here.

At the extreme left of the porch are some twenty clay cylinders piled up like drain-tiles. These are some of the bee hives of the natives, and this shows exactly the manner in which their apiaries are arranged-is, in fact, a model of a Cyprus apiary. The cylinders are made of clay, and burnt, and each is about a yard long and 9 or 10 inches in diameter, except each end, which is a little larger.* A stone disc is fitted into each end, and the crevices, except an entrance-hole, filled with puddled clay.

On the roof is another model (!) apiary, such as may be seen at many a Cypriote's home. The cylinders of this collection are made of clay, into which short straw has been incorporated, and they have been merely dried in the sun. Inside they are of about the same size as the others, but the walls are

from the back end, after the removal of the rear disc, and after the bees have been driven forward with smoke. But brood and some dirt often get mixed with the combs taken out, which are then crushed, and the honey strained out; hence the quality is very poor; yet 13 cents per pound (14 plastres per oke) is the price which is commonly asked for it in the bazaars. It often happens that the poor bees find their winter-stores have been stolen from them, and that, after a hard year's toil in the hot, scorching hot, summer sun, they must starve in the cold. Surely, I hope there are no Cypriotes in America, and that all of the beautiful little workers I send over there will fare better than would have been the case if they had been left to the not very tender mercies of Greek or Turkish Cypriotes.

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FRANK BENTON'S APIARY, LARNACA, ISLAND OF CYPRUS, MEDITERRANEAN SEA. generally a little over twice as thick as those made of burnt clay, being quite two inches. Of course, they are very heavy, unwieldy things; yet (since there are few trees in Cyprus) these thick clay walls protect the combs from the sun even better than do the thinner burnt-clay ones. In winter, too, they keep the bees warmer. The diameter of these cylinders is greater at the rear end than in front, in order to facilitate the removal t of combs of honey; for from these, as well as from the other kind of hives, the natives take such an amount of honey as they think the bees can spare, by cutting the combs out

A palpable infringement (1) on our friend Merrybanks' pail bee hive.-ED.

Merry banks again, for a wonder.

The house is one of those old rambling adobe and stone structures so characteristic of Cyprus. Its walls are two feet thick, floors of stone, and roofs of beaten clay six or eight inches thick, and supported by great arches of massive masonry. Some idea of its size may be gained from the following facts: The front court is 60 by 100 feet, and is nearly inclosed on three sides by parts of the house, which contains 14 rooms. The front porch is 12 feet wide and 65 feet long. A hall at the right leads through the house 50 feet to the back court, which is about 30 feet by something over 60, and is inclosed by the house on two sides.

When our little "prize queen," who first "piped" Sept. 5th, 1881, can trot from room to room, it will be

a task to hunt her up in this old mansion-our home in Cyprus. FRANK BENTON. Larnaca, Island of Cyprus, Mediterranean Sea. Many, many thanks, friend Benton. I do not know what you could have sent us that would have pleased us more than such a picture. Is it indeed you, away off there among those strange foreign surroundings? There are many here at home who think of you often, and our boy Ernest is planning to take a trip over to Cyprus when he gets through with his college course. You have not even told us a word about that native brother who is climbing that tree. Is he after Apis dorsata? Kiss the little "prize queen" for us all; and may God grant she may some time see her hosts of friends in the fatherland, away off here in America!

OUR BEE-HIVE,

WITH A PICTURE OF THE GENTLEMAN HIMSELF.

ELOW please find draft of hive, and inclosed, a

photo of hive and of your humble servant. You see I have the side cushion under my foot, not that I have discarded it, but that it is the foundation of my success. It is made so that it does not come to the bottom by 1⁄2 in.; not raised, as that would let the heat pass under the top cushion

at the ends of the side cushion.

The lower story is 18 x18x10, and the upper one 18x26x10, inside; coffee-sack, filled full of planer shavings, just fills it full, but leaves the corners open so the fresh air can come in at the entrance, and pass under the side cushions, and up at the corners of the top cushions, and out at the holes at the gable ends. By this plan the draft is not direct, and they can not smother, if the entrance should get closed up. I use your L. wide frame for surplus honey, at the side below, but mostly use a long wide frame (holding 8 sections) above, running parallel with brood-frames. The frames below are of a size to hold six 1-lb. sections. I find this is very handy, for I can get at the brood by just raising one wide frame above. The piece at the end of the long wide frame passes below the bottom piece 4 inches, so it will not kill bees in setting it in the hive. I use the standard L. frame. GEO. W. STITES.

Spring Station, Ind., Dec., 1881.

Our friends will observe that this hive is arranged to combine the protection afforded by chaff hives, with the ideas that have been brought out so strongly in regard to he has protection from the frost, he also has thorough upward ventilation; that is, while almost the ventilation afforded by leaving the section boxes on all winter. His plan of having the frames in the upper story a third longer than those below, is the same as has been given with illustrations in some of our former volumes. In some respects this plan is very convenient; but having two sizes of frames in the same hive, or apiary even, seems to be so objectionable that, so far as I can learn, it does not find permanent favor.

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for the household, which we figure below:

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FRIEND STITES' CHAFF HIVE.

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The engravings explain the utensil so fully, I need hardly say a word of explanation. The large figure shows how it is used for a fruitjar, or similar large-mouthed vessel. Well, for a smallmouthed vessel you just slip on the little cone seen below, and if you then wish the honey or other liquid strained, you just slip in the circular piece of perforated tin, and you have a strainer also. The whole is very neatly and strongly made, with a polished enameled handle, and yet the price is but little more than a good-sized tunnel. We can furnish them for 15 cents, or 20 cents, where sent by mail.

THE COMBINED ADJUSTABLE
TUNNEL AND STRAINER.

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IMPROVING OUR BEES BY CAREFUL
SELECTION IN BREEDING.

family of the animal kingdom, must be adopted and rigidly adhered to, if we hope to make any progress, or even maintain the characteristics we now possess."

SOME FACTS FROM EXPERIENCE, BY FRIEND WILTSE. Like the queens referred to by Mr. Doolittle, some

that I have raised, and that have mated with black drones when no Italian drones were in this vicinity, have raised worker bees marked with three yellow bands exclusively; but in every case they were of an irascible disposition, and in all other respects resembled other hybrids: such queens we killed. We bred from the old pure queens, and such others as we inferred were pure, from the writings of those who said the most in the bee journals, killing such queens as had evidently mated with black drones; but, contrary to our own judgment, leaving some of their drones. We purchased pure queens, occasionally, to breed from; but could not, under this system, repress the black bee. We at length moved the hybrids, and some Italians three miles from home. They were allowed to breed inter se, and they grew darker from year to year. Some became entirely black-queens, drones, and workers. Albinos were produced, and several stocks raised worker bees whose abdomens had a shortened and pinched ap pearance. Had not the disease of last winter destroyed them, they would probably have developed into a sub-variety of black bees.

HE experience of Mr. Doolit.le, as given in the Oct. No. of GLEANINGS, is so much at variance with the known principles of breeding, and the results reached by crossing two or more races, that I am inclined to believe he has so expressed himself, for the purpose of drawing others out on this subject. He says: "The first Italian queon I ever saw was introduced some time in July, and did not raise a drone that season; neither was there an Italian drone within 12 miles of her; yet none of her daughters ever produced a black bee. There were hundreds of queens raised from her during three years, yet none of them ever produced a black bee." Previously he tells of 60 queens, duplicates of their mother, that raised no black bees, though thousands of black and hybrid drones were around, and asserts that he raised them the past season. In this case he docs not tell any of the characteristics of these bees, and in the other he does not say who owned them, does not tell any of their characteristics, does not in either case give their color; but gives references to what he has previously written for GLEANINGS. These numbers I did not have. In the Bee-Keepers' Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 7, he writes of "the first Italian queen that ever came into these parts;" he says: "Not a drone was raised from her that season. She was introduced in-ed to their offspring their color; but their characterto one black stock after another, until queens were obtained for the whole apiary. These queens mated with black drones. Not one of these queens ever produced a black bee. When the daughters of these queens came to produce bees, then it was that a part of the bees emerging from the cells were black. According to the rule of the three bands, the bees raised by the queens that mated black drones could not be told from the simon-pure." No owner is mentioned here; none of the characteristics of the bees are given. So much for the first and second grades produced by crossing the black bee with the Italian.

Of the hybrids of the black bee and the Egyptian, he says: "It is said, that a cross of the black bee with the Egyptian, will, in three generations, produce a bee which no man can tell from the best Italian. If this is so, it is probably the starting-point of our Italians; but why such breeding can so thoroughly fix the bands, that a queen mating with a common drone will not show such mating in her working progeny, is more than I can tell, but know such to be the fact." Does he mean that the first cross, and the grades resulting from such mating, are to be mated with the Egyptian bee? To judge from the context, I infer that such a result is reached by the first cross, when allowed to breed among themselves to the third generation. This is opposed in every respect to the testimony of those who have mated the black bee with other races of bees, and to all analogous testimony resulting from crossing other races of animals. Mr. W. F. Clark says, in the B. K. M., "I apprehend bee stock is ruled by the same laws that govern other stock." Martin Metcalf says, in the above-mentioned journal (see Vol. V., No. 11, p. 272:) "Our conclusions are firmly established, that the same principles which are universally applied to the development and perfection of a distinct type of horses, cattle, swine, sheep, or any other

Eight years ago we purchased some Lancashire and some Berkshire pigs - the former a white race, the latter nearly black. They were pedigreed stock. When crossed, the Lancashire in every case impart

istics, and those of the Berkshire, were nearly equal-
ly blended. Increase of size, and vigor, resulted
from the first cross. When this cross was mated
with the Lancashire, the result was endless variety
in form and color; they seemed to be breeding back-
ward. We continued to breed grade after grade
with the pure Lancashire, and not until the sixth or
seventh cross had been made did any thing like uni-
formity result. Resulting from the imperfect blend-
ing of the two races, a pig with its upper lip sepa-
rated from the jaw-bone, several with five phalanges
to the front feet, and one with six, were produced,
and several with aborted mammæ. These cases are
not exactly parallel, pure blood having been always
used with the hogs, and only when it happened so
with the bees; yet from the similiarity of the results,
I think we can safely draw the following conclusion:
That an individual or race, though sufficiently pre-
potent to exert a controlling influence over a first
cross, through the imperfect blending of the races,
subsequently fails to exert the same influence. Pre-
potency failing, the latent tendency to revert back
to the color of the original species that exists in the
Italian, and is aroused into activity by crossing the
races, augmented by inventation and fœtal circula-
tion, produces the speedy obliteration of the yellow
bands.
JEROME WILTSE.

P. S. Having photographs of two of those hogs'
feet, of which I wrote in the inclosed article, I send
them to you as evidence of the results produced by
mingling the blood of two races.
J. W.
Rulo, Neb., Dec., 1881.

The photographs inclosed show very plainly a queer deformity of the feet, and indicate something wrong, without question. If I correctly understand friend W., he claims that the crossing of two races gives fresh vigor to the cross for only a few generations, and that to reap the best results from

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