Identifier: gleaningsinbeecu44medi (find matches)
Title: Gleanings in bee culture
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors:
Subjects: Bees Bee culture
Publisher: (Medina, Ohio, A. I. Root Co.)
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: UMass Amherst Libraries

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the blacks (or, i-ather, ourblacks) it must not be lost sight of thatthey are probably a good deal degenerated.For years—nay, even for centuries—it hasbeen the custom of our beekeepers everyyear to sulphur their heaviest colonies—inother words, their best honey-gatherers;and it can hardly be doubted that this prac-tice must have had a very deteriorating ef-fect upon the race. I remember once havingseen a very large skep in which a firstswarm had been put in the month of June,filled to the very brim with beautifully builtcomb or worker-cells only. Except on theedges of the combs, no drone-c^lls were tobe seen; and all the cells, except those inthe two or three lowest rows of the combs,were beautifully sealed. It was in the latterpart of September when I found this skep,and I would willingly have given a hundredguilders for this colony if the stupid bee-keeper had not already sulphured it and itsparent colony, also a very good one. as Avell.Such practices, continued for centuries,
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MAY 15, 1916 iuust have biouglit down llie slaiularcl ofour blacks. But judicious selection and breeding may,lerhaps, be able to give us a strain of beesunsurpassed for the conditions of our bee-flora and our changeable climate. The principal objection raised to blacksin the United States seems to be that theyare not immune to European foul brood.But this objection does not carry any weightwith us, as this disease is, fortunately, butseldom met in this country—at least I havenever heard of any eases in which apiarieswere ruined by it, or nearly so, and I my-self have never seen a colony affected by it. What I have against the blacks is theirhabit of sacrificing honey-gathering tobrood-rearing during the latter part of thesummer flow. If, for the thoro ripening ofthe honey, supers are left over a colony oiblacks, they will entirely empty them torear brood, when a sudden stoppage in thehoney-flow occurs at this time. Consideringthat their main winter stores must comefrom the heather (

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