A Letter from Cuba

There is no use of trying to keep the pure black bee here for they will
starve in summer, and the pure Italian will live through the summer all
right, and when it comes Fall the queens stop breeding, the workers fill
up the brood chambers with honey, and you are but little better off with
one race pure than with another, so we are obliged to give our
preference to the hybrids, for they will "rustle" in the summer and winter alike.

These hair-splitting points about bands, the yellow or the black Italians
and the nice spacing of the combs are of no use to us here. We must
adopt the bees and the methods to give us the best results, and
facilitate rapid manipulation. When we have tons of honey in the apiary
waiting to be extracted so the bees can fill the combs again, we can not
wait to be so very nice in spacing the combs in the top boxes. We get
seven of them in the upper story the best we can without wasting time,
and when we come around again in six or seven days they are full. That
is the kind of spacing we do and that is the kind that pays the beekeeper here the best.

If I had but one colony of bees I think I would be very particular with
them in spacing their combs, I would bring them to such a state of
perfection in breeding that each worker should have at least seven
stripes, then I would talk about them and fill the bee journals full of my
experience as a bee-keeper, never forgetting to tell the reader that I
started in the spring with one colony, took nine pounds of honey and
increased to — nothing ; and I never will forget to tell the dear reader
how I managed those bees in order to get that amount of honey from
them. Twaddle ! nonsense ! yet how much of this we see in the bee papers.

A. W. OSBORN. Punta Brava, Cuba, W. I., Dec. 4. 1891

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