Races of Bees 201 



bility that there are two varieties of German bees found in 

 the United States, as is so often claimed, and that these 

 have arisen from these two natural varieties. 



The German or black bees found in the United States 

 seem to combine many of the undesirable qualities of all 

 other bees. They are less prolific than Italians, they (and 

 especially crosses with Italians) are cross but respond to 

 smoke, they build more queen cells than Italians and develop 

 fertile workers more readily (less in these last respects than 

 the eastern races), they do not clean the hive well or resist 

 moths completely, they run badly on the combs and fall 

 off from the corners of the combs during manipulation and 

 they swarm more than Italians. Their greatest fault is 

 that they succumb so rapidly to European foul brood that 

 it is most difficult to rid a colony of black bees of this disease. 

 They cap comb-honey white and winter fairly well, but 

 their nervousness is against them in this respect. While 

 these bees are condemned by the best American beekeepers, 

 some of the leading beekeepers of Europe (especially in 

 Switzerland) claim them to be superior to Italians. Since 

 no effort has been made to improve these bees in America, 

 this may account for this difference of opinion. 



The German or black bees were introduced into New 

 England (probably from England) in 1638. In 1644, John 

 Eales was brought to Newburg from a neighboring town to 

 instruct the people in beekeeping, indicating an early in- 

 terest in the industry, but he later became a town charge. 

 Black bees reached West Florida not later than 1763, Ken- 

 tucky in 1780, New York in 1793, west of the Mississippi 

 River in 1797, Cuba in 1764, San Domingo in 1781, New 

 South Wales in 1822, Tasmania in 1831, New Zealand in 1839, 

 Brazil in 1845 (or earlier), Chile about 1848, California in 

 1853, Columbia about 1855 and Argentine in 1857. Har- 

 bison took 116 colonies (with a loss of only six) from Penn- 

 sylvania to California via Panama in 1857. The same year 

 (August 20th) the first bees were shipped from San Jos6, 

 California, to Hawaii. 



