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tained another colony. My two sons 

 were at home, but if they looked to- 

 wards the bees, they would dodge. 

 One advised me to sell them, and get 

 some hone}' ; the other said that I had 

 better keep hornets, as they were good 

 stingers ; but I kept on " in the even 

 tenor," saying, '• I will show them." 



I often was terriblj- stung, and 

 learned that hot water applied at once 

 was the best thing I could do for it. 



After the first year I had plenty of 

 honey for family use, and some to 

 spare. The bees have paid their own 

 e.xpenses ever since, and much more. 



For the first two years, my famil}- 

 called them "mother's bees," but since 

 then they call them " our bees," and 

 now, as the boys are married and 

 gone, and my husband has passed over 

 to a " better land," I am alone to care 

 for the bees. I employ a man to assist 

 in swarming-time. 



I put 28 colonies into the cellar last 

 fall, and all came out alive this spring. 

 They give me a good support, and 

 something to do in my lonely life. My 

 friends call them my •' play-things." I 

 would rather hear the sound of their 

 swarming, than a piano, any time. I 

 always get the premium on my honey 

 at fairs, when I take it, and I then sell 

 the samples for a good price. 



I make my own sections, using the 

 one-piece kind. I can unpack.darapen, 

 put together, and pack away, 60 in an 

 hour, and not hurry. I never hurry 

 with my bees. 



There is plenty of pin money in bees, 

 for any woman if she has the nerve 

 and patience to attend to them. 



Hastings, Minu., May 26, 1890. 



RACES OF BEES. 



Tlieir Historic Origin and Indi- 

 vidual Superiority. 



Written fur thf, American Bee Journal 



BY C. J. ROBINSON. 



Which, if either, of the several dift'er- 

 ently-named domesticated bees possess 

 merits that render tliem superior, in- 

 trinsically, especially in northern cold 

 climates. 



This long and much-mooted question 

 will ever continue in the order of af- 

 fairs, a disputed problem. Extrava- 

 gant claims have been, and vigorously 

 continue to be, heralded by bee-fanci- 

 ers who, like mothers, are blinded by 

 partial love of their baby that they 

 nurse and pet. 



It should be borne in mind that all 

 hive-bees are true lineal descendants of 

 one original family — a restricted spe- 

 cies. We can only speculate as to date 

 and place of origin, presuming that 

 they may have existed in the Garden 



when Adam in his glory basked in his 

 Eden home, and, that Noah shipped 

 colonies on board the ark to preserve 

 and perpetuate the race ; however, in 

 that case, the shipping of " two of a 

 kind" could not have been a compli- 

 ance with the spirit of the Lord's man- 

 date, for it required "three of a kind" 

 to multiply and save the race from be- 

 coming extinct. Worker-bees are in- 

 evitably one factor jointly with male 

 and female in the reproducing of the 

 kind. The seeming error of putting 

 only "two of a kind" — male and fe- 

 male — on board the ark, must have 

 l)een the fault of the recorder, Moses, 

 for the Author does all correct. For 

 ought we know, the creation of bees 

 occurred subsequent to the Deluge, pro- 

 viding there occurred no error in the 

 account given of the Flood. 



The notion entertained by many that 

 bees, as well as plants, are indigenous 

 in dill'erent parts of the world when- 

 ever a peculiar tj'pe is found — a tj'pe 

 peculiar to some country or parts of 

 the world, is most fallacious — void of 

 reason. 



It would be well to learn, if we 

 could, the natural traits of the antique 

 bee — its nativity and its attributes 

 while in its primitive state, to the end 

 that we might have a correct idea of 

 its sphere or circuit of action assigned 

 it by the Creator. 



Like other creatures, bees show 

 more or less difl'erence as between 

 specimens of the natives of different 

 countries, but there is no radical or 

 constitutional difl'erence — no funda- 

 mental attribute of nature in one of 

 the different types or bi-eeds, that is not 

 inherent in each and all domesticated 

 bees. The differences observed is not 

 that of inborn nature — only a diverge- 

 ment limited within certain fixed 

 bounds ordained by Nature. Hence, 

 breeding with a purpose to produce a 

 new breed or strain specially superior, 

 cannot be successful beyond the par 

 excellence ot the species — the "coming 

 bee " is a myth. 



Here arises a problem — the question 

 being whether or not each of the dif- 

 ferenth' named types of domestic bees 

 are alike susceptible of being bred up 

 to an equally high plane one with the 

 other. 



Since the importation of the so- 

 called Italian and other-named yellow- 

 ish bees, dating back to 1859, the 

 native American bees have been gen- 

 erally accused of being very much 

 inferior, compared with the imported 

 yellow types ; jet the accusations have 

 not, nor cannot be, demonsti'ated. The 

 difference claimed in favor of the pop- 

 ular transatlantic types, is based more 

 on mere fancy than on fact. A popu- 

 lar error over-rides truth every time, 

 and prejudice is the one great error. 



It was James Heddon who nobly 

 championed the merits of our native 

 bees; he wrote: "The coming bee will 

 have native blood in it," or language 

 to that import. None who are half as 

 competent as is Mr. Heddon, dare, or 

 will, attempt to gainsay his asserted 

 prophec}'. 



Referring to the date of the earliest 

 existence of bees, we can only mention 

 that such date is anterior to prehistoric 

 time's ending. No indications of the 

 existence of bees have been found in 

 the rocks of the cretaceous period, nor 

 have the fossil remains of bees been 

 discovered in rock or earth deposits of 

 any period. 



Concerning the antiquitj' of domesti- 

 cating bees, we are only able to trace 

 the use of bee-hives through historical 

 ages to ancient Egypt. The natives 

 of primitive Egj'pt knew nothing of 

 language, but in their crude dialect 

 the picture of a honej'-bee was one of 

 the characters called "hieroglyphics," 

 and represented Lower Egypt, re- 

 stricted to an island in the river Nile 

 at its confluence with the Mediterra- 

 nean Sea, and called by the Greeks the 

 Delta. This symbolizing of the hive- 

 bee affords us the remotest data of its 

 existence, and points to the where- 

 abouts of their origin or first appear- 

 ance on this globe. 



With the ancient Egyptians the pict- 

 ure of a queen-bee was the emblem of 

 royalty, and is evidence that the realm 

 of lower Egj'pt, the Delta, was the 

 sovereign mother country anterior to 

 all Egypt becoming one kingdom un- 

 der Sisostris. If the cradle of human- 

 ity stood on the Delta, as is claimed by 

 eminent historians, it is conclusive 

 that Egypt was the cradle of the prim- 

 itive Israelites, who were the nucleus 

 of the subsequent mighty nations of 

 Nineveh and Babylon, from whose 

 loins the world are peopled, and we 

 may logically reason that the original 

 nursery of the hive-bee was in the 

 Eden of the Israelites. Probably bee- 

 culture was coeval with the arrivals of 

 Abraham and Joseph, and the exodus 

 of the Israelites. 



Whether the primitive bees were of 

 a yellow type is a querj'. It seems 

 probable that the original nucleus 

 multiplied and spread up along the 

 valley of the Nile, and also eastward 

 over the Isthmus of Suez into Syria. 

 and those were the progenitors of the 

 so-called Syrian bees. Thence they 

 were taken and spread along the east- 

 ern coast of the Sea, and crossed the 

 channel on to the Island Cyprus, and 

 these were the progenitors of the fa- 

 mous Cyprian bees. Thence the pro- 

 geny of the original stock spread into 

 Greece and into Italy. The Holy Land 

 bees are identical with the Syrians — 

 indeed, there is but a fancied differ- 



