THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



91 



that we could generally determine 

 our hybrids from others when finding 

 them at work on blossoms, and two 

 successful bee-tree hunters tell me 

 that they can tell them at a glance, 

 every time. 



In my apiary, I can usually distin- 

 guish them from common hybrids 

 (we sometimes buy and bring in a 

 few colonies) both by their motions 

 and appearance. 



ANSWERS BY C. C. MILLER. 



I don't know whether you can get 

 enough "facts" to cover the case, and 

 "theories" conflict. You will do a 

 large amount of reading to get all 

 that has been said about it. Many 

 insist that the race is pure. Others 

 point to the fact that in its purest 

 state, in its native region, appearances 

 of a dash of black blood maybe found. 

 You may or you may not accept, 

 as a reply to this, that variations may 

 occur in the purest races. For in- 

 stance, take the wild turkey, and 

 suppose you have a pair whose 

 ancestors, traced back to the creation, 

 have always maintained the same 

 characteristics and markings. If now, 

 as a sport, or as a result of domes- 

 tication, a light color results, you 

 may say that just so far there is not 

 a perfectly fixed type ; but as there 

 has been no mixing with other races 

 can you call the race other than pure ? 

 For all practical purposes, as business 

 beekeepers, I cannot be far out of the 

 way in considering the race pure. 

 When you come to very nice dis- 

 tinctions I am not posted. 



ANSAVERS BY DR. TINKER. 



Italian bees may not be properly 

 termed hybrids altiiough they do 

 not breed to a uniform type. A 

 trace of black blood runs all thi-ough 

 the race, and a very black bee can 

 be reared from the best strains in 

 the space of three or four years. 

 These are the facts and they can 

 be demonstrated. 



ANSWERS BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



The Italian bee is not a hybrid in 

 the common meaning of that term 

 among American beekeepers. The 

 Italian is a "thoroughbred ;" not a 

 mere cross between just two races or 

 varieties of bees, as is the common 

 hybrid. The Italians are not a pure 

 race m the sense of unmixed blood, 

 but they are pure in the sense in 

 which the word is used when applied 

 to "thoroughbred stock." The Ital- 

 ians are a type of bees, the result of 

 a cross of quite a number of types or 

 races of bees, and for this reason I 

 value them most highly, because it 

 makes it possible to breed them by 

 selection, in great variety. 



The querist wants facts, not theory, 

 and I shall give him facts. Some 

 years ago I purchased a flock of ewes 

 to rear some lambs. They were all 

 pure white sheep as to appearance 

 and I put a pure white buck with 

 them. Well, when the lambs ^came, 

 there was one jet black lamb among 

 them. When I say that my flock of 

 ewes had a taint of black blood, do I 

 speak mere theory? You say no ; 

 because the black lamb was an out- 

 cropping from a taint of black blood 

 in the veins of its motlier, and we 

 have a fact. 



Now if we breed from imported 

 Itahan queens and discover outcrop- 

 ping in their progeny of three or four 

 distinct types of bees, do not we have 

 the proof— the facts — not theory 

 — that tliere is amalgamation of 

 blood in the parent bees to corre- 

 spond with the outcropping speci- 

 mens. Here we get facts by deduc- 

 tion as reliable as if laid down in 

 history. 



It should be borne in mind that 

 the process by which the Italian bee 

 has been made what it is, has been 

 going on for perhaps, a thousand 

 years. In my 1 brary, I have an old 

 work written some two hundred 

 years ago, in which there is a des- 



