10 



THE AAIERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



[July, 



ment, should be given without fear or favor, 

 reLCiiidless of whose personal interests may be 

 allected by it. 



Thaddeus Smith. 



relee Island, Ontario, Feb. 4, 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Purity of Iialian Quetn Bies. 



Tlie pririty of Italian queen bees has been, 

 and still is. the question in which every queen 

 breeder and the majority of those keeping bees 

 are interested. The country is full of wliat are 

 called pure Italian queens, and queen breeders 

 are advertising queens warranted pure, prolific, 

 &c. ; and, right in the face of all these queen 

 raisers, Mr. Langstroth, who has heretofore ad- 

 vertised the same, snys : "There is every reason 

 to believe that the Italian bee is itself a hybrid." 

 How is this? and what does such a warrant 

 amount to? What are we to understand by this 

 purity, if all Iialian bees are hybrids? A mu- 

 latto is not pure African, neither is he pure 

 white. So with the Italian queen, if she is a 

 hybrid. We must give up and call all Italians 

 mongrels, or else we must call them pure. I am 

 for calling them pure. 



I have had considerable experience with Italian 

 bees, and have raised lots of queens. I have 

 also had queens from different breeders, and 

 some were the simon pure ; but the majority of 

 them were hybrids, and some not as good as 

 that. A good many writers will tell you tliat if 

 a pure Italian queen mates with a black drone, 

 some of her workers will show the Italian blood, 

 and some will be entirely black. This I do not 

 find to be so. It may be, as Quinby says, that 

 my bees are contrary. I never yet had a pure 

 queen fertilized by a black drone, that ever pro- 

 duced a worker bee with less than two yellow 

 bands. If I had a queen that had mated with a 

 black drone, and she should produce any black 

 bees, I .should be inclined to doubt the purity of 

 her mother. In the American Bee Journal, vol. 

 v., page 83, Querist asks : "The present stand- 

 ard of purity of Italian bees is the three yellow 

 stripes on the worker ; but is that a proper test ?" 

 I answer, No. I have had queens from a hybrid 

 mother, which were nearly black, which mated 

 with a pure Italian drone, and produced workers 

 which no man could tell from the simon pure. 

 A queen to be pure must pioduce workers with 

 three yellow bands ; yet she may produce such, 

 and not be pure. Therefore we want an ad- 

 ditional test, and that is this : 'The queen, beside-i 

 jirodncing workern tcitli three yelloio bands, must 

 duplicate hers if; in other words, her queen 'pro- 

 geny must be exactly like herself, allowing a little 

 for the season. 



One of the best queens I ever saw, and as good 

 a one as I ever had, produced queens exactly 

 like herself, and neaily half of her workers 

 showed four yellow bands, as they stood on the 

 comb. You could scarcely be aware of their 

 tamper, they were so peaceable. There are a 

 grea:. many queens sent out as pure, that are not 

 lit to breed from ; though the inexperienced will 



be satisfied with them, as they do not know the 

 difference, and part Italian is better than none. 

 I received four queens from a certain breeder 

 last summer, which were certainly impure, for 

 nearly one-half of the queens raised from them 

 were black. Yet he advertised his queens as 

 pure. If a queen has the .slightest dash of black 

 blood in her, it will show in her queen progeny, 

 although hei- workers may look well. Black bees^ 

 are not Italians, and coal is not chalk ; but hum- 

 bugs are plentiful in some localities, and so with 

 impure Italians. In some places pure Italians 

 can be found ; in others, Italians can be found 

 to be bogus mongrels, and the bogus are the 

 most numerous. 



One word to those who wish to purchase 

 queens. I would say, get a queen that produces 

 all three-banded workers, uniform in color. The 

 drones should also be uniform in color, and the 

 queens from all duplicates of herself. Then you 

 will get a queen worth having; and anything, 

 short of this will be dashed with black blood. 

 Such a queen cannot be raised short of eight or 

 ten dollars. Therefore, if you purchase a cheap 

 queen, you must expect a cheap article. We do 

 not raise coarse wool sheep from fine, if both 

 mother and sire are pure Merino ; but if there 

 should happen to be a dash of Southdown blood 

 in them, it will occasionally show itself by brown 

 spots on the face and legs. So with Italian bees. 

 If there is any black blood in them, it will show 

 itself in the way of occasionally a queen being 

 dark, oi-, perhaps, some of the workers will not 

 show more than two yellow bands. Then comes 

 in the humbug cry, "She has met two different 

 drones, one black and one Italian, and is pro- 

 ducing bees after both drones. Queens that 

 I^roduce bees after two drones are as scarce as 

 white crows. 



In conclusion, I would say, with Rev. E. L. 

 Briggs, in the August number of the Journal : 

 "Then let the price be kept up at paying fig- 

 ures ; but send out no queens for breeding pur- 

 Ijoses but such as are fully up to the standard of 

 excellence ; and those who delight in handling 

 this wonderful insect, may not only have the 

 most beautiful, but the gentlest, the largest, the 

 most fertile, and the most industrious honey 

 bees known to the world. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Borodino, N. Y, April 8, 1871. 



[For the Americau Bee Journal.] 



Introducing Queens. 



Mr. Editor :— On page 233 of the Journal, 

 vol. VI., you give a process for introducing 

 queens, without removing the old quecn.s, &c., 

 and request those experimenting to report. 



In 1869, I was very unfortunate in introducing 

 queens in almost every way. I tried all the 

 modes I had read of, and lost at least two-thirds. 

 After losing five out of seven imported queens, 

 that cost me a round price, too, I set to work to 

 devi.se a plan to procure some brood from the 

 remaining two, in case they should be killed, 

 and invented the same trap you describe, or 

 Queen'' s Castle, as you term it, excepting that I 



