182 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



is he who is acute enough, and studious 

 enough, and devoted enough to combine 

 that knowledge, and malve it produce 

 practical results, and is, after that, suffi- 

 ciently enterprising to bring it to the 

 doors of the multitude, and to persist in 

 explaining it until stubbornness itself 

 shall admit its value, therefore entitled to 

 uo credit? 



There is much food for thought in this 

 subject, but time and space forbid its 

 further pursuit at present, but let us in- 

 telligently consider, that we may get 

 into a proper attitude with reference to 

 it. 



Lapeer, Mich. 



Carniolans and other Races. 



L. Stachelhausen. 



I have known the Carniolan bees since 

 about 1868 and saw them in the apiaries 

 of my friends and have bad a few colonies 

 myself. The first Carniolaa queen im- 

 ported into Germany had no sign of yel- 

 low blood and they were very similar to the 

 brown German bee, only the hairs of the 

 young bees were more gray or white. 

 Since that time Carniola has exported a 

 great many colonies, swarms and queens 

 and some strange races may be imported 

 there and so the Carniolans are more or 

 less mixed. The proper Carniolan bee 

 is certainly nothing else but a variation of 

 the so-called German bee. The difference 

 in the exterior markings is not more 

 plain, than with other variations of the 

 same race, and so it is with the other 

 characteristics. In the north of Germany, 

 in Hanover, we have another variety of 

 the German bee, quite alike in habit to 

 the Carniolans, but more black. They 

 breed well and early in spring, breed 

 drones all the time and swarm as often as 

 anybody can wish, exactly like the Car- 

 niolans. In the middle and south of Ger- 

 many you can find a strain of bees more 

 brown than black, slow in breeding and 

 swarming. A colony with a young queen 

 will not build any drone-comb or swarm 

 out the first year and some colonies and 

 strong ones, too, did not swarm for many 

 years. But now this variety of the Ger- 

 man bee is mixed with all tl>e dift'ereiit 

 imported races and you can hardly find a 

 pure colony. Why is this ditt'erence? The 

 answer is, that the Carniolans and the 

 northern German bees are varieties of 

 culture and to a certain degree fixed by 

 a certain management for more than one 

 hundred years. In both countries the 

 main honey flow is late in the fall. In the 



spring the beekeeper does all he can to 

 get early and many swarms. To get as 

 many colonies as possilile for thecrops, in 

 both countries very small hives are used. 

 In the fall all the surplus colonies are 

 brimstoned, the heaviest and the lightest 

 colonies are killed and in the selection of 

 the stock for the coming year the beekeeper 

 is very careful. He selects colonies with 

 young queens only, mostly afterswarms ; 

 a colony, which cast no swarm at all, is 

 surely brimstoned. It is easy to see, that 

 in this way queens with a swarming im- 

 pulse only are selected and so by the rnn 

 of the years this impulse got more and 

 more fixed. The Carniolan and the Ger- 

 man bees rear too many drones and build 

 too much drone comb, but this character- 

 istic is necessarily in connection with the 

 swarming impulse, and every race pos- 

 sessing this swarming hupulse will do the 

 same. 



In both the so-called races you see a 

 strain of bees bred and fixed by the hand 

 of men by selection and not by crossing. 

 This fact will show us the way by which 

 we can get a race of culture. It can be 

 done by selection of queens to breed from 

 with the desired characteristics; but this 

 selection has to be done, and carefully, 

 too, for many generations before a certain 

 characteristic may be more or less fixed. 



I do not believe we can get a fixed race 

 by crossing two different races, because 

 in a couple of generations the markings 

 of the one race will more or less disap- 

 pear. I believe that the Italian bee is a 

 cross between the Egyptian and the black 

 bee, but it is no fixed race yet. In the 

 time of the late Virgil it is known, that 

 in Italy were black and yellow bees and 

 so it is to-day. The first bees exported 

 from Italy looked quite mixed up, some 

 nice yellow bees, some of them we would 

 call hybrids now.^ Dr. Dzierzon imported 

 the first Italian colony to Germanj' about 

 1854 and bred from this one queen all his 

 queens for many years. For breeding he 

 selected the most yellow queens or better 

 queens with the most yellow daughters 

 and in a few years his Italian bees looked 

 nicer than any of those impoited directly 

 from Italy. Soon a big trade sprang up 

 in Italy for queens and the breeders were 

 more careful to select for color. More 

 than tills, they imported some Cyprian 

 queens to mix with and better the color. 

 This selection and breeding in one direc- 

 tion can be done as easily here in Ger- 

 many and so every dollar spent for an 

 imported queen from Italy is, in my judg- 

 ment, lost. 



The Italian bee is as nice a bee as any, 

 and if we breed not for color only but look 

 for other good qualities too, we can surely 



