Races of Bees 203 



to be present in the United States. A separate race of black 

 bees is described from Madagascar and other islands and 

 still another from Togoland. It is well known that honey- 

 bees are abundant in parts of Africa and careful explorations 

 would doubtless reveal many interesting facts concerning 

 these bees. Onions l claims that in the South African race 

 the unmated workers lay eggs which develop into female 

 bees. As the continent of Africa becomes more settled by 

 white men and as apiculture advances, we may expect some 

 interesting additions to our knowledge of the African races 

 of bees. 



Asiatic races. 



v. Buttel-Reepen (Apistica) places A. indica as a variety 

 of A. mellifica. It is a smaller bee, which is said to bite 

 rather than sting. It crosses with previously described 

 races. Several sub-varieties are indicated. 



Chinese- Japanese. 



These bees are placed by v. Buttel-Reepen as sub-varieties 

 of indica. The Chinese bee has a heavy coat of long dirty 

 gray hair ; the Japanese bee lacks this. 



BEST RACE OF BEES 



To answer the question as to which race of bees is best 

 is difficult. For comb-honey production, the German, 

 Carniolan and Caucasian races have the advantage of capping 

 the honey white but the German bees are especially subject 

 to European foul brood, Carniolans swarm excessively 

 (especially in comb-honey production) and Caucasians 

 propolize badly. Without going further into the merits 

 and demerits of the various races, it may be as well to give 

 the almost unanimous verdict of American beekeepers, 



1 Onions, G. W., 1912. South African "fertile worker-bees." Agricul- 

 tural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope, May. See also Van Warmelo 

 in the same journal, 1913. 



