182 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



utmost care and selection. By select- 

 ing only the best in all cases can what 

 we call purity be maintained in propa- 

 gating the race of Italian bees. On 

 the other hand, the most careful se- 

 lection in breeding of the Carniolans 

 will not prevent them from sliding 

 back to yellow bees. 



Why is this? Simply for the rea- 

 son that the Carniolan bee is the orig- 

 inal yellow race, while the Italians 

 were crossed in and bred up from the 

 Carniolans. It is conceded by all 

 that the fiure Italian bees are very 

 gentle and docile. The same is said 

 of pure Carniolans. Well, now isn't 

 it reasonable to suppose that the Ital- 

 ians inherit this trait of gentleness 

 from the Carniolan blood? It seems 

 to me they do, though I may be mis- 

 taken. 



Yes, friend R., I do mean to say 

 the Italians will not only degenerate 

 in color, but in all other traits as well. 

 They will run back in a few years to 

 almost pure black bees, and be just as 

 ugly and worthless after awhile as 

 black bees. 



I can take the purest Italians and 

 in a fevv generations work them back 

 to almost pure black liees, and by in- 

 breeding, too. All that need be done 

 to accomplish this is to select tl>e dark- 

 est queens and mate them to the dark- 

 est drones of the same stock. 



Don't you think it can be done, 

 friend R. ? 



Any old breeder of queens will not 

 doubt this statement for a moment. 

 Then, again, I can take this strain of 

 black bees, bred down from pure Ital- 

 ians and in the course of half a dozen 

 generations breed them back again 

 to beautiful golden Italians. 



To the question, '■'•Wh}' could not 

 black bees by selection be bred up in- 

 to Italians or a bee with all the char- 

 acteristics of Italians?" 



That thing is impossible unless there 

 was some yellow blood in the black 

 bees a good many generations back. 

 If black bees have the slightest tinge 

 of yellow blood, it is an easy mat- 



ter to breed them up by selection to 

 Italians. By continually selecting the 

 yellowest queens and drones and mat- 

 ing them the strain would soon return 

 to pure Italians again. Isn't this 

 perfectly plain to you, friend R. ? 



I cannot agree with 3'ou, friend R., 

 when you say that one of the strong 

 traits of Italian blood is to perpetuate 

 its own color. My experience has 

 been exactly opposite. Don't you 

 know, friend R., that the queens sent 

 us from Italy are almost black? Such 

 is the fact. We reared a luimber of 

 young queens last August from im- 

 ported mothers sent us by Bianconcini. 

 Some of the queens were as black as 

 any black queen we ever saw ; yet, 

 when mated to our handsome drones, 

 these young queens produced beautiful 

 bees. Had these queens been mated 

 to dark Italian drones, the worker bees 

 would be about the same in markings 

 a common hybrids. You see it was 

 selection that produced the beautiful 

 yellow-banded workers. 



The disposition of the Italians va- 

 ries greatly. The color or breeding 

 seems to have nothing to do with gen- 

 tleness and docility of bees of any 

 race. Circumstances and treatment 

 have much to do with forming the dis- 

 position of any race of bees. 



I had a colony of pure Italians that 

 I thought the most gentle bees in the 

 world. At the proper season they 

 cast a swarm. While I could handle 

 them without smoke or protection be- 

 fore swarming and get no stings, they 

 required a good deal of smoke to quiet 

 them after swarming. They are pure 

 Italians. How do you account for 

 that, friend R. ? 



I agree with you, friend R., in the 

 statement that '-the Italians will 

 transmit their colors more or less 

 down through the generations of mix- 

 ture with black blood." If you will 

 read our article again which you critjy 

 cise you will notice we said that the 

 3^ellovv markings would not wholly 

 run out ; "there would be a few bees 

 in each colony that would show a 



