No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 707 



Carniolans, enables any one who manipulates them rightly to bring 

 them into any given harvest with a large force of held workers 

 ready to take advantage of that harvest. They are, therefore, to be 

 depended upon, if managed in accordance with their race-pecu. 

 liarities. 



While recommending Carniolans particularly for comb honey, be- 

 cause of the fact that they seal their completed combs in a snowy- 

 white manner, there can be no objection to their employment in the 

 production of extracted hone}' or in apiaries where both comb and 

 extracted honey are produced. There are, however, some strains or 

 types which, as regards absolute quantity of honey, yield more. I 

 refer to those bees containing a greater or less percentage of eastern 

 blood. 



Cyprio-Carniolans for Extracted Honey. — By mating Cyprian 

 queens to Carniolan drones a combination is produced of the pro- 

 lificness, great energy in honey gathering, and general activity of 

 the best of the eastern races, with the most hardy and prolific of the 

 western races. The noted gentleness of the latter is also largely 

 preserved in the cross. The loss in this combination is seen when 

 we examine critically the solid sections of the honey produced by 

 these workers. The somewhat watery appearance common to work 

 of eastern bees is at once detected, and, although the quality of the 

 hone}' itself is quite equal to that gathered by any bees, the appear- 

 ance of the combs for a critical market is somewhat inferior. Except 

 in this respect, and also in that the workers having eastern blood 

 are rather more free in the use of propolis than the bees of Europe, 

 and likewise are not always as easy of manipulation, bees of this 

 cross are to be ranked as decidedly the most valuable and wonder- 

 ful honey producers thus far cultivated. 



Bearing in mind these general hints here presented regarding 

 types, the person proposing to breed the best bees for a given pur- 

 pose will surely be able to make a suitable selection of a race or 

 breed. 



SELECTION OF BREEDING QUEENS. 



The greatest possible care should be observed in the selection of 

 the queen-mother, both as regards the queen herself and also the 

 qualities and race-characteristics of her progeny. 



The Stock. — In deciding whether a given queen is worthy to be 

 the mother of all, or a great part, of the queens which shall head 

 the honey-producing colonies, a critical examination of the stock 

 itself should be made. Since the prime quality must necessarily be 

 the honey-gathering powers, this will receive the first consideration. 

 In estimating this, it is hardly necessary for a man of experience to 

 test with the scales the actual number of pounds of honey produced. 

 He may judge merely by a careful comparison, during a given 

 honey flow, of the activity and relative amount of honey gathered 

 in his apiary by individual colonies. He can also see, by the general 

 activity and energy displayed by the separate colonies, which are 

 doing the most. Having selected those which in this particular 

 meet his approval, he should choose from these a colony which 

 shows the general race-characteristics of the breed to which it be- 

 longs. By this I mean that the colony must possess, in a marked 

 degree, those important and valuable traits which have caused the 



