1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



257 



This is the only connection that Mr. King had 

 with us in this affair. If Gen. Adair doubts of this, 

 I am ready to communicate to him the contract 

 that was signed by Mrs. Tupper and Savery and 

 myself. 



If Mr. King offered a resolution of thanks to our 

 association, for our efforts .in importing queens on a 

 large scale, without having given me any notice of it, 

 it is probably because he thought that we had tried 

 to render a service to the bee-keeping community, as 

 I believe myself. Why should Gen. Adair seek for 

 another motive ? and what need is there to occupy 

 anew the public with this insignificant motion ? 



Let me now come to a more serious subject. Gen. 

 Adair recognizes that the importation of Italian bees 

 has been beneficial to the people of the United 

 States. But in the enumeration of these benefits, he 

 omits the now uncontested fact, that these bees have 

 qualities not found in other varieties. He even con- 

 tests their existence as a race, because I spoke of bees 

 more or less dark-colored. 



By this difference in color, I mean that, in some 

 parts of Italy, the bees have their yellow rings bor- 

 dered with broad black bands ; and those are what 

 I call darker bees. In other parts, the black bands 

 are narrow ; these are what I call lighter-colored bees. 

 But in all the parts of the peninsula that I have 

 glanced over, I have not found a bee that I could call 

 hybrid ; that is, having but two yellow rings ; or 

 falling off the comb, as do the black or the hybrids ; 

 and, to me, there is not a better test of purity. And 

 when I say yellow, I do not mean orange-colored, but 

 leather-colored. 



My letters from Italy have been written under my 

 first impressions, and drawn from what I saw at first 

 sight, and from reports more or less true or interested, 

 that came to me from all sides. Afterwards, when I 

 drew a conclusion, I was forced to admit that I had 

 not seen any hybrid bees in Italy, and that hybrids 

 do not exist on the other side of the Alps, either ; so 

 that there can be no crosses unless bees should be 

 imported from one country into another. 



Mr. King reports that he found in Hruschka' s 

 apiary, two stocks in two hundred that could be 

 called impure. Hsruchka answered that they might 

 be impure, as he had received them from other par- 

 ties. I had read this before starting. When in 

 Milan, I enquired of some members of the Society of 

 Apiculture about it it. They said: "Our friend 

 Hruschka is always experimenting ; you know that 

 he tried to tame hornets, and that he exhibited a nest 

 of them at the exposition of Nuremberg. He import- 

 ed two or three black stocks in his apiary, for exper- 

 imenting, and it will take several years before this 

 little black blood be absorbed by the Italian races. 

 Mr. King, who does not speak Italian, has probably 

 misunderstood the explanation given him by 

 Hruschka." 



If Gen. Adair had deferred his article, he would 

 have seen that, in the same number, I answered 

 almost all his questions, as to the difference that I 

 had noticed between the bees of the plains and those 

 of the mountains. In his "Annals of Bee-Culture," 

 for 1869, Gen. Adair speaks of five or six different 

 varieties of bees existing in the United States, besides 

 the Italian and Egyptian races. He says: "In 

 other parts of the country I have seen variations as 

 distinct ; within twenty miles from where I write 



there are three distinct varieties, easily distinguish- 

 able by sight." * * * What does that prove, if 

 not that the importations of bees were brought from 

 different parts of Europe? 



In France, only, I know of two or three different 

 varieties of the common bee; some gray, (the com- 

 mon bees are called abeilles grises in France), 

 others black, others with yellow hairs on the 

 thorax. But all these varieties do not form differ- 

 ent races, but sub-groups of the common black bee. 

 In a field of white clover you will find some 

 blossoms almost entirely pink. Does that 

 difference prove that it is not white clover ? 

 Besides, if within twenty miles, in Kentucky, 

 there are three distinct varieties of common 

 bees, is it astonishing that at a distance of 

 fifty miles, bees that are separated by lakes, rocks 

 and mountains show slight differences, the slow 

 crossing that takes place, being annihilated by the 

 influence of the climate, that has first produced 

 these differences. Then if the climate has had the 

 power to modify the color, character and activity of 

 the bees, is it not probable that the best bees will be 

 found in the place where these modifications will be 

 more marked ? 



This is why I am ready to return to Milan, to 

 bring in my apiary bees from Lombardy ; for these 

 bees are superior in beauty to those of Tessin, Tyrol, 

 and Piedmont. 



As to the importation of more bees to the United 

 States, according to Mr. Adair, it is useless, if not 

 injurious. But he would be greatly embarrassed if I 

 asked him why ? 



When Mrs. Tupper came to my place, she said she 

 desired to buy from me fifteen or twenty stocks of 

 bees. Then, after having seen my bees, she asked 

 me to sell her fifty or seventy-five stocks. She had 

 probably been struck by the regular beauty of my 

 bees. This regularity was caused by the great num- 

 ber of my importations. I believe that no American 

 bee-keeper has ever spent as much money as I have 

 in importations. It is true that each of my imported 

 queens probably cost me over $20. But no matter ; 

 I do not regret this outlay, as I have thus obtained 

 more regularity in the color of my bees. 



If we had contented ourselves with the few 

 queens of Mr. Parson's importation, as Gen. Adair 

 suggests, we would certainly be now disgusted with 

 Italian bees, and would call them a failure ; for no 

 race of animals is more averse to in-and-in breeding 

 than the honey bee. Amongst horses, the strongest 

 is always the head of th& herd ; this shows that 

 consanguinity has no bad effects on horses ; oth- 

 erwise nature would have provided for it. In bees 

 it is not so. The queen, having to go out of the 

 hive to meet the drone, it seems that nature 

 demands the crossing; and it is so; for every 

 observing bee-keeper has noticed the inconven- 

 ience of consanguinity. 



Ch. Dadant. 

 Hamilton, III., April 6th, 1873. 



Pastor Ki.eine suggests as a subject worthy of 

 the attention of bee-keepers, an inquiry into the 

 nature and source of the chyme or food material by 

 which the young brood of the bees are nourished. Is 

 it a natural product from the body of the bee, or is it 

 a mere mechanical product of digestion ? 



