iHE South African Honey-Bbe. 



35r> 



Adansoni is by far tlie, commonest type of bee found in apiaries 

 in this country, but often unicolor and adansoni varieties will be 

 found side by side in the same hive, the progeny of one and the same 

 queen. In such cases as these the queens must obviously be of hybrid 

 origin, and hybrid workers marked as shown in figure 2 are frequently 

 to be found among their progeny. The drones are black with narrow, 

 yellowish brown bands on the hind borders of the four middle 

 segments of the abdomen (figure 4), but some of the drones from 

 hybrid queens are wholly black, as are also the drones of the unicolor 

 variety. Queens vary considerably in colour, but they usually have 

 leathery brown abdomens, deepening towards the hind end to deep 

 brown or black (figure 5). 



Thus we have at least two distinct races of bees in this country, 

 and also hybrids between these two races. As is to be expected under 

 such circumstances, the characteristics of colonies vary greatly. Some 

 colonies are gentle, good honey gatherers, defend their hives well, 

 and so on, whilst other colonies are vicious, prone to swarming, 

 excessive users of propolis, in fact, are guiltj^ of most of the faults of 



S.HS 



Fig. 4. — Abdomen of adansoni drone. 

 Fig. 5. — Abdomen of adansoni queen. 



beedom. Usually the character of a colony falls somewhere between 

 these two extremes, various combinations of the virtues and vices 

 being found in the different hives. Interest in scientific beekeeping 

 is rapidly increasing in South Africa, and we shall find, sooner or 

 later, some commercial beekeepers going in for queen-rearing on a 

 large scale. When this is done, opportunities will arise for fixing 

 the desirable qualities and getting rid of the vices. There is little 

 doubt but that in the adansoni race there are many latent qualities 

 which, if developed and fixed by intelligent selection and breeding, 

 would eventually evolve a race that could vie with the much-vaunted 

 Italian bees, and which would probably be superior to them under 

 South African conditions. 



The main point of interest to us at present is, however, the 

 question as to the relationship of the South African races of honey- 

 bees and European foul-brood. American authorities recommend 



