768 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



which met with no bees. TIk' granaries and store- 

 houses of the natives were constantly ransacked by 

 tliese needy Spaniards, from June, 1539, to July, 

 1543; and Barton pertinently remarks, "Had the 

 honey-bee been a native of the countries which 

 were' the scene of DeSoto's villanics, the valuable 

 products of this insect would have been freqiiently 

 met with, and the bees, in territories preg-nant with 

 a profusion of nectareous plants, would liave been 

 seen very often, and in great numbers. 



In addition to the above I may add that I have 

 carefully consulted the narratives of many early 

 travelers, from Father Hennepin down, and find no 

 mention of honey having been met with on any 

 occasion than as above stated. Had the Indians 

 possessed honey would they not have set it before 

 some of their guests? and would the latter, who 

 mention every thing else they met with, have for- 

 gotten honey ? 



In conclusion, as no one pretends that the honey- 

 bee was found in New England, as Josselyn, who, in 

 1638, must have known the first English settlers, 

 atid been familiar with their doings here, says ex- 

 pressly that they introduced our beloved insect, I 

 think "we may very safely dispense with the Nor- 

 wegian theory of their introduction, and assume 

 that the Apis tnclUfira is a valuable European in- 

 sect for wliose introduction and naturalization here 

 we are indebted (as for many other blessings) to the 

 people of the Mayflower, or their immediate follow- 

 ers. Wm. G. Malin. 



A PLEA FOR FIVE-BANDERS. 



ARE THEY HAVING FAIR PLAY ? 



By A. Norton. 



It seems to me that a great deal of hastily 

 considered comment is being passed upon the 

 five-banded Italians, and that undeserved de- 

 nunciation is being heaped upon them. The 

 fashion having been set, so to speak, by certain 

 plain statements from the Roots, which in 

 themselves are reasonable and moderate, it 

 seems now that the majority are following the 

 example only to outdo it, and that those who 

 like the five-banders do not dare defend them. 

 Let this race have fair play; and let all who find 

 them as good as regular Italians (I don't see 

 why they should be any better) give public tes- 

 timony to thateflfect. 



The claims coming from the Home of the 

 Honey-bee, so far as I have seen them, are sin:.- 

 ply that some strains of five-banded bees origi- 

 nated in Cyprian and Syrian crosses, and are 

 irritable, but that other strains are doubtless 

 pure Italians, and as good as any. That is cer- 

 tainly all right. But now there are letters 

 from certain persons in divers journals, claim- 

 ing that these bees are not hardy; that they do 

 not winter well: that the queens are not prolif- 

 ic; that they are not good honey-producers. 



It may be safely stated, and depended upon, 

 that you can not breed any points or character- 

 istics into a race if ynu do not find a tendency 

 that way to begin with; and you can not well 

 breed a characteristic out unless there is origi- 

 nally a tendency to lack that characteristic to 

 begin with. If the few years' breeding of this 

 particular strain of Italians has already made 

 them so inferior in so many ways, it only proves 

 that the original three-banded parent race is so 

 widely variable and unreliable in its character- 

 istics that one can not depend upon them uni- 



formly to be desirable bees. Even if a breeder 

 should set out systematically to breed three- 

 banded Italians down to inferiority as to hon- 

 ey-gathering, prolificness, and wintering, by 

 purposely selecting the poorest in those lines, if 

 the race is as uniform as we are led to suppose 

 it to be, he should make slow progress because 

 of not easily finding any very inferior stock to 

 begin with. But in breeding five-banded stock 

 the worst that can be said is. not that breeders 

 purposely breed out good qualities, but merely 

 that they think of nothing but color, and all 

 other points pass unnoticed. But the mere fact 

 that a certain queen's workers show more yel- 

 low than those of other queens, does not imply 

 that they are cither better or poorer in useful 

 qualities than other Italians. They might in- 

 cidentally be a little better or worse; but the 

 main chances are that they would be about the 

 same. Hence, in breeding from such a queen 

 the stock could not deteriorate. 



Now, taking the percentage of chances in all 

 queen-breeding for five-banded bees, unless the 

 parent three-banded stock is extremely varia- 

 ble and unreliable, I don't see how, in the few 

 years so far past, the strain could have become 

 materially better or worse than the regular 

 stock. Does in-breeding cut a figure now with 

 the large number of five-band breeders? How 

 is it, then, with persons who advertise superior 

 strains of three- banded stock (several such ad- 

 vertise in Gleanings, and hence we must as- 

 sume their advertisements to be honest)? How 

 can they perpetuate their superior strains with- 

 out in breeding? Jf they mix In any of the or- 

 dinary outside stock, they must dilute and lose 

 the superior quality of their own strains. One 

 advertiser in Gleanings has bred Carniolans 

 for yellow color, and yet has made an improved 

 honey-gathering race of them. To change Car- 

 niolans to uniformly two or three banded bees 

 is a greater change than that from three-band- 

 ed to five-banded Italians. In-breeding and 

 other detrimental influences seem, however, to 

 be lacking. 



While so many have dropped into the fashion 

 of denouncing five-banders, I find some who 

 praise them highly. Ira Barber, of New York, 

 in a recent issue of the American Dee Journal, 

 pronounces them, as the result of a few years' 

 experience, superior to any others. (I should 

 hardly expect them to be superior, however.) 

 W. L. Coggshall, of Eastern New York, speaks 

 highly of them. These persons have no queens 

 to sell. I have had a limited knowledge of 

 them; but that limited experience, so far as it 

 goes, shows them to be gentle and industrious, 

 with strong prolific queens. I find them work- 

 ing remarkably well in the scarce period of the 

 California dry summer, late July, August, and 

 September, and the queens keeping 13-frame 

 hives, L. size, full of strong, active, yet gentle 

 bees. 



