1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



IS-, 



which I reply that I do uot know 

 anything of the kind. The gray bees 

 of the South and Southwest have the 

 same rings, and these bees do uot 

 show even a trace of yellow blood 

 when purely bred. More, they pos- 

 sess many of the desirable traits of 

 the Carniolans, and I am inclined to 

 think that they originally sprung from 

 the same stock. I have seen colonies 

 of these bees in Missouri which were 

 as gentle as the Cai'niolans, and that 

 stuck to their combs as closely as the 

 Italians. The truth of the matter is, 

 I think that any who has the gray 

 bees without any admixture of Italian 

 or the ordinarv black bloods makes a 

 mistake if he does not take pains to 

 keep them pure. 



Mr. Alley further says : " When 

 we breed from imported mothers, the 

 progeny, both queens and workers, 

 runs back to solid block." This has 

 been my experience. They do not do 

 that way with me. In fact, the very 

 opposite, is true. Every generation, 

 if purely bred, becomes more yellow, 

 so that it seems to me that the entire 

 tendency of the progeny of imported 

 Italians, if kept pure, is toward in- 

 creased yellowness. 



Again he says *' There are no all 

 steel-gray colonies of bees to be found 

 in Carniola." While I cannot say 

 from actual observation that this is a 

 mistake, yet I know that I have had a 

 queen in my apiary since I lived in 

 St. Joseph, which came direct from 

 Carniola, the progeny of which did 

 not show even a trace of yellow. How- 

 ever, the fact that there is a tendency 

 in nearly all bees which come from 

 that country to show yellow, does not 

 prove that the original color of these 

 is yellow. Every breeder of Barred 



Plymouth Rock fowls know that they 

 show a tendency to become black, but 

 this does not prove that the natural 

 color of these fowls is black. There 

 is also at the same time a tendency to 

 become white, and from this by the 

 same process of reasoning one might 

 prove their natural color to be white. 

 Both are unwarranted conclusions, 

 and prove nothing as to the original 

 color, or rather, the true color of these 

 fowls. They do prove, however, that 

 the Barred Plymouth Rocks are what 

 may be called a combination breed, 

 that is, made up of mixed blood, and 

 that the color tends to vary according 

 to the pre-potency of the fowl furnish- 

 ing the blood which produces the pre- 

 vailing color. It is claimed I know, 

 that there is a tendency in Nature to 

 variation independent of blending 

 blood, but I doubt this being true. 

 There may be a mixture of blood in 

 most bees found in Carniola at the 

 present time. If so, we would expect 

 all of the progeny of such mixture to 

 show traces of it for a long time. 



The longer fowls are carefully bred 

 and selected as to a special marking 

 or color, the more permanent that 

 marking or color will become, and the 

 less tendency there will be to varia- 

 tion, or to revert back. This is just 

 as true of bees as it is of fowls, but we 

 would expect any mixture of foreign 

 blood th show through several gener- 

 ations. AYith proper care and care- 

 full selection any color can be bred 

 out or iu. You can lake a white hen 

 and breed her to a black cock, and 

 then by judicious selection breed out 

 every tendency of either black or 

 white in the progeny, no difference 

 which color seems to predominate. 

 The predominancy of color, as I said 



