>Here are a couple famous predictions you might want to check out Joe. Thanks Bob. >Should keep Joe busy for awhile. yea, keeps me out of trouble. ;) Alley made a prediction,,,, "…I tell you frankly that sooner or later, sooner most likely, your apiaries will be depopulated and ruined…" -(Henry Alley 1892) The reason Henry Alley says "in-breeding". Narrow gene pool, perhaps a contributor to the problems we are facing today? The Homestead November 25, 1892 Des Moines, Iowa. =====Start Article===== A Warning. (Henry Alley, American Apiculturist.) Do the bee keepers of this country, who are introducing those five-banded bees and queens, yellow clear to the tip, realize what they are doing? Have they forgotten the story of the fearful loss of bees all through the West and northwest In the winter and spring of 1892? Can not they learn anything from such costly and dearly bought experience? It seems not. The call still continues by many who order queens for those five-banded bees. Now, friends, I tell you frankly that sooner or later, sooner most likely, your apiaries will be depopulated and ruined, and you will be ready to retire thoroughly disgusted from the bee business; your complaints that "bees are doing nothing" will be heard as long as you persist in Introducing such a strain of bees as you are pleased to call five-banded Italians. Throw such worthless bees to the dogs, and you will soon have reason to say, "My bees wintered well and have stored lots of honey." Did you ever get an imported queen whose worker bees were marked with five yellow bands and whose daughters were yellow clear to the tip? Of course you have not. Every queen that ever reached this country from Italy produced three banded bees. Five-banded bees are produced by in-breeding. Every experienced bee-keeper knows the deteriorating effects of such a method of propagation. In-breeding destroys the constitution, vigor and all that goes to make up the life of a well bred, hardy and vigorous animal. I know of nothing in the animal or Insect kingdom that more thoroughly illustrates the debilitating effects of inbreeding as a colony of those five-banded Italian bees. They are too lazy to sting or to resent an insult of any kind; they will not oven keep out of each other's way. True, these bees are handsome and beautiful to look at. I want something beside beauty to fill the bill for me so far as getting profit from an apiary. Give me beauty if it is not at the expense of other qualities. Do our large honey producers boast of having their hives stocked with five-banded bees? Did you over hear one of thorn say he could show the handsomest bees to be found In the world ? Does Mr. A. E. Manum, of Vermont, one of the largest honey producers in the world, advertise queens that will produce five-banded bees? I think his advertisement reads thus: "Leather-colored queens for sale" Don't you know one of those leather colored queens are worth one hundred of those yellow-clear-to-the-tip sort. They surely are. What a novel sight it would be to see a crate of fine honey made by those five-banded bees! Did any one ever see anything of the kind? Most of those follows who keep such beautiful bees report bad weather and bees doing nothing. is this not correct? Why don't our larger honey producers introduce five-banded bees into their apiaries? Well, why don't they? Why can not our younger and smaller apiarists profit by the experience of the prominent and larger bee-keepers? In my experience in rearing Italian queens I have found that "breeding" queens whose daughters were more or less black at the tip, striped and leather colored produced the most reliable and hardy, as well as the most superior honey-gathering bees. The fact is, that such markings as black at tip, striped and leather-colored indicates hardiness and vigor; while the pale yellow which reaches clear to the tip, means a delicate, puny constitution, and short existence. I hope I have said enough here to satisfy the readers that it is not to their interest to rear or to introduce queens that produce five-banded bees. As surely as you do it, your apiaries will be ruined, and you will soon give up keeping bees in disgust. Purchase queens of those dealers who rear the common, or in fact, I might say the typical and real Italian bees. Pure, profitable and the best strain of Italian bees are not five-banded. The queens vary in color from quite dark to golden yellow. Do not complain to the dealer of whom you purchase the queen that she is a hybrid. If the bees are good workers, the queens prolific, you certainly have a queen worth all you paid the dealer for her. On the other hand, if the queen is unprolific and fails to fill the hive with bees, or those that are poor honey-gatherers, you have good reasons for complaint and for demanding other queens to replace all Inferior ones. =====End Article===== Best Wishes, Joe Waggle *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm