THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



109 



into which I had inserted a queen last fall, such 

 11 shower of bright golden bees as my eyes had 

 never seen betore. In size and color, I saw at 

 once that Mv. Langslroth's queen could not 

 compete wiih this out!. And what raised my 

 enlliusiasm to ahnost a fever heat was, to see 

 that the drones were as bright-colored as the 

 workers. I immediately commenced breeding 

 from this queen alone, and have not failed in 

 all I have raised this summer, in producing 

 young. ([Ueens as bright .-is the mother. 



And now to the second point, viz: 



Queen f ran br Juid whose queen-'progeny willall 

 he of (i briijJtt yellow, excejyt the two terminal rin;js 

 of the abdomen, which will be of a darker color 

 approarhinc/ to hroion. 



I saw such a Btatcment questioned by many 

 of your correspondents, after it was made by 

 IMrs. Tupper, of this State. My experience, 

 thus far, goes to verily her's. 



And further, almost all writers disagree with 

 me in the following, and I am not certain that 

 I am correct; but at present I look with suspi- 

 cion on any queen as proper to breed from, 

 which dous not produce bright yellow drones 

 as well as workers. The black bee exists in 

 Italy as well as the bright and pure yellow va- 

 riety; and lience all may not be pure that are 

 imported from that countrj'. The experienced 

 apiarian, however, can onlj' determine this 

 point: So to guard against any possible im- 

 purity, let every apiarian remove all stocks 

 from his apiary, which do not produce bright 

 drones as well as workers, and the result can- 

 not but prove satisfactory. 



But as every sermon is supposed to have 

 three heads, so has my sermon on bees. 



I hasten to my third point, viz: 



Pure Kalian bees are extremely amiable in tem- 

 per or disposition. 



I do not know why such is the case, but in 

 corroboration of what all assert who have ex- 

 perimented with them, I know that my Italians 

 are not a tenth part as much inclined to sting 

 as the common bee. 



From the foregoing facts, coming under my 

 own observation, I propose to select such colo- 

 nics alone as have the characteristics of workers 

 of larger size; bright yellow bands, three in 

 number; amiable disposition; whose drones also 

 are bright yellow; and which are strong in num- 

 ber and rich in stores. From the best of these 

 select the queen or queens to breed from, and 

 remove all the others some distance away. 



If this he persistently done, I have no more 

 doubt that the Italian bee will ultimately bo 

 very much improved, than I have of the capa- 

 bility of improving by a similar process, sheep, 

 swine, neat cattle, and horses. 



E. L. Briggs. 



Mt. Pleasakt, Iow.\. 



Mr. Curtis in the London Gardener'' s Chroni- 

 cle, 1841, states that his garden beans suffered 

 greatly in the spring of that year, from the holes 

 which humble bees (Bombus terrestris and luco- 

 rum) made in the blossoms, as they usually do, 

 to get out the honey contained in the nectary; 

 which operation, injuringthc pods in their earliest 

 state, four-fifths of them were destroyed and pro- 

 duced no beans. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Purity of Drones. 



On BoAui) Steameu Amekica, 

 Between New Yotik and Bremen, 

 August 27, 1867. 



Editor op the Bee Journal: On reading 

 the "Bienenfreuud aus Schlesieu," published 

 by Dzicrzon, volume 1, 1854, pages C3 and 64, 

 I observed that he liad really found in a hive 

 with a black queen impregnated hy an Italian 

 drone, some beautiful yellow drones; and that 

 ho thinks further investigation is necessary to 

 solve this question of the purity of drones. 

 Whether he has made any more observations 

 or not, I have not learned; but presume that he 

 has long ago come to the conclusion that drones 

 from impurely impregnated queens are impure 

 too, even if not in the saa)e degree as the work- 

 ers. If there'is the slightest degree of bastardiz- 

 ing perceptible in the drones of such mothers, 

 they must of course be impure; and an Italian 

 queen impregnated by such a drone is bastard- 

 ized, even though it be not to the extent that 

 her progeny show their impurit3^ Perhaps 

 the imperfect three stripes in one of forty of the 

 worker progeny of such queens, which a well- 

 known writer rcmaiked to me were found in 

 all her pure stocks, is a consequence of such an 

 impregnation. I found about such a propor- 

 tion of imperfectly marked workers m5'self in a 

 small number of my hives. But these same 

 colonics have, in most instances this year after 

 swarming, raised queens from their own brood 

 whose worker progeny is perfectly marked. 

 But not only these colonies, but nearly twentj^- 

 live others that had each a number of apparent- 

 ly perfect black workers, have this summer 

 raised queens whose progeny are beautiliil and 

 all perfectly marked. I therefore come to the 

 conclusion that the Italian bees "run in" as 

 fast as they "run out," if in an apiary or neigh- 

 borhood one or the other race is predominant. 

 To raise purely impregnated queens will there- 

 fore be very easy for me hereafter. The pro- 

 portion of bastardized queens raised this sum- 

 mer, whose progeny I saw before my departure 

 from home, was onl}^ fourteen out of about one 

 hundred and lifty. 



It will be interesting to the readers of the 

 Bee .Journal to learn that I have taken two 

 small colonies of Italian bees with me on my 

 journey to Italy, intending to compare them 

 minutely with Prof. Mona's bees in Italj', if I 

 succeed in carrying them there alive.* I will 

 fm-ther make veiy careful observations whether 

 the bees there are all perfe«tly marked with 

 three bands, incprire of Prof. Jlona whether or 

 not 5'oung queens vary in color, and whether 

 it is required that they should be splendid yel- 

 low, leather-colored, black, or brown; and pro- 

 bably got the Professor's answer in writing, fo 

 be sent in the original to the editor of the Bee 

 Journal. 



If it should then appear from my observations 

 and the Professor's reply that the queens in my 

 apiary are bastardized, I will frankly state it, 



*Tliis letter was in type for the last nnmber of the Beb 

 J'TiiyAL, Vuit inUavcrtantly crowded out. 



