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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 10, 1906 



reasons and grounds for my knowing that the house-mouse, 

 rats, chipmucks and red squirrels all eat honey, and unless 

 you have some positive proof that they do not do so in your 

 locality (?), your confidence need not be shaken in the mat- 

 ter that "Doolittle is usually accurate." Borodino, N. Y. 



Purity of Yellow-Banded Bees 



BY HENRY ALLEY. 



JUST what constitutes purity in the yellow races of bees 

 but few bee-keepers seem to know. When the late S. B. 

 Parsons, of New York, imported the first yellow-banded 

 bees from Italy, the inexperienced bee-keeper supposed that 

 the bees were very yellow, and that all queens and bees bred 

 from imported queens would be handsomely marked. But 

 we were all disappointed, and queen-breeders were not alone 

 in discovering that the so-called Italian bees were hybrids, and 

 only a race of black and yellow bees crossed or in some way 

 mixed in blood, and it was found impossible to rear clear- 

 yellow queens, or uniformly marked worker-bees from any 

 queen imported from Italy. This fact alone was enough to 

 condemn them as hybrids. The young queens were marked 

 from a solid black to striped and a rich leather color. 



Very few bee-keepers of the present dav know to what 

 extent we poor queen-breeders were abused by our customers, 

 and yet we were doing the best we could with the stock we 

 had. When a customer had received a queen, all went well 

 until the time arrived for the yellow bees to appear, and then 

 the trouble commenced. The voung bees were found to be 

 marked with anywhere from 1 to 3 bands. We were accused 

 of having our queens mated to black drones, etc. The fact 

 was, all our young queens were mated by drones from the 

 same mother the young queens were reared from The 

 drones were black enough, I assure you. Not even this in- 

 breeding process improved the color or markings of the bees 

 American queen-breeders were not long in "catching on" to 

 a way to improve the uniform markings and color of both 

 Italian queens and bees, and it was the American queen- 

 breeder who fixed the standard of purity of the Italian bee 



_ American queen-breeders soon commenced to select the 

 brightest queens and drones for breeders. In the course of a 

 few years thereafter the Italian bees were more uniform in 

 markings, and thus was the standard of purity fixed, and much 

 yellower queens and bees were produced. American bee- 

 keepers are not indebted to the bee-keepers of Italy for the 

 beautiful yellow bees we have. It is a fact that the bee- 

 keepers of Italy continue in the same old rut. and will not or 

 wl fi°M if a ?\ an / thin ,g from the American queen-breeders. 

 We find that to-day the imported queens from Sunny Italy 

 are no improvement on those sent to America 45 years ago 



It does seem to me that the Italian bee-keeper, who some 

 is years ago copied and printed my entire book of 180 oases 



br\i? 1 Ue a e V ean n g a " d S0ld jt as - the P^ucHon of his own 

 ram, and really forgot to mention in connection therewith 

 my name, ought to have found some points in the work That 

 would have led him to produce better queens and bees than 

 those that are sent from Italy to America 



We got the 5-banded bees by inbreeding, but that orocess 



been c V a e r d ried e Z^T °' ^ beeS ' J h f S " ba " ded ^sinLs h 

 thefr sorrow Th/% r \ aS ^ many be , e - kee P"s have found to 

 tier sorrow The 5-banders are beautiful to look at and 

 ™ f / w atUre com P ris « their only good quality I have 

 contended for many years that the yellow bees of Italy are 

 not native of that country.- Like the gypsy and bro vnHil 

 moths now spreading out over New England, ad which -ire 

 reaching out each year farther and covering more territory 

 all the time, so did the yellow races of bees of other countries 

 reach out and take n the countrv of Ttalv ti,„ , countries 

 mixed with the black andXHs thfwe JetVnlvTbrid 

 queens and bees from Italy. Here is a poin I Vought 

 into this country the hrst Carniolan queens. I commenced 

 at once to rear queens from this stock. I noticed that manv 

 of the young queens had a decided coppery color, parn'cXry 

 on the under side of the body. Many of the beef fro, the 

 young queens were marked by one or two yellow bands I 



Xw tha - t . the tf ? de " Cy of the color of these "bee was to 

 vellow, with each successive generation. Every batch of 

 young queens were more yellow than the previous ones 



thev did /of S °H, e H T 1 S °' m ' Xe , d with the Ita,ia "'' No, 

 they did not. Had any one queen been mismated and met an 



Italian drone, one-half at least of the bees so crossed would 



have been marked by yellow bands. I am sure none of the 



Bo h cff rL" 17 yard Wer< i Cr0SS ^ d ^ the Carniolan drones 

 Both of these races were kept a long distance apart. 



I continued to select the yellow queens from the imported 

 mother, and have them fertilized by the lightest colored 

 drones, and soon I had a fine race, or strain, of yellow Car- 

 niolan bees. 



In Carniola there are two strains of bees — the steel gray, 

 and the yellow bees. The latter are considered much superior 

 to the gray strain, and are called Adels, which means 

 superior. This is how I got my present strain of Adel bees, 

 only I bred them up from the dark Carniolan queens in the 

 first place. 



Mr. Frank Benton, who spent many months in Carniola. 

 says he never saw a colony of bees in that country that did 

 not have more or less yellow-banded bees. Now, considering 

 that the tendency of the Adel strain of yellow bees is to a 

 brighter color instead of to a darker, as the Italians will 

 surely tend if left to themselves, haven't I some foundation 

 for my opinion as to the origin of the Italian bee? 



E. R. Root says in September 1, 1905, Gleanings, that if 

 the Italian bees are left to themselves they will run back to a 

 black bee in color. The Cyprian and Holy Land bees are the 

 only true and pure yellow-banded bees. All other yellow bees 

 came down from them. Only by careful breeding can the 

 standard in markings of yellow bees be kept up. 



Most bee-keepers will have the yellow bees. If all the 

 desirabe points go with the color, then let us have the yellow 

 bees. Color without inbreeding is what is wanted. Only by 

 selection can the color be kept to the highest point. 



I have experimented for nearly 45 years in trying to 

 produce a beautiful yellow bee that combined all the desirable 

 points. What I have tried to do is not only to improve the 

 color, or purity, but to breed up a strain of bees that are 

 hustlers for honey, non-swarming, non-stinging, and that will 

 winter in any climate. My present strain comes pretty near 

 covering the above points. 



I was at a meeting of bee-keepers in Boston, in March, 

 1905, and heard one of the speakers advise those present not 

 to buy and introduce yellow races, as they would store no 

 honey in the sections, but when they got strong enough to 

 work in the sections they would swarm out. Now, isn't it a 

 fact, that of the millions of pounds of honey produced in 

 America nearly all of it is gathered and stored by the yellow 

 races of bees? Where can a colony of pure black bees be 

 found in America? 



The same person who gave the above advice, for the first 

 time in his life commenced to rear and sell yellow queens the 

 past year. To be consistent, he should have reared and sold 

 black queens. 



I have had my present strain of yellow-banded bees the 

 past 20 years, and never have had a swarm issue from them. 



Then there are some strains of bees that surely swarm 

 too much. Of course, such bees will store no honey, not even 

 enough for their own use. Then there are strains of Italians 

 that swarm very little, but they store the honey and are the 

 bees for profit and pleasure. 



In my experience with bees I found a man who had 12 

 colonies of beautiful bees in his yard. He did not want them 

 and sent for me to buy them. "How much for the lot?" said 

 I. "Take them out of the yard — no matter about the price. 

 They are worthless and never have made any honey." As I 

 could use them in nuclei. I took them home. 

 So much for the Italians. 



The Cyprians came to us next. We all tried them. They 

 would breed to color and not run back, but what were these 

 bees good for? As honey-gatherers they were worthless, and 

 I was not long in ridding my yard of them. 



Then came the Holy Land bees. They proved about as 

 valuable as the Cyprian, and much like them, but were no 

 better. I can't say that in disposition the Cyprians and Holy 

 Land bees were worse than the Italians generally. 



Then came the Punic bees — a bee as black as coal; in 

 fact, nothing could be blacker in color. They were about the 

 same honey-gatherers as the last two spoken of. In disposi- 

 tion and activity they were fairly good. I see that one lonely 

 bee-keeper keeps his advertisement of the Punics in one of 

 the papers. 



And now we have the Caucasian bees. What of them? 

 The United States Government had these bees to give away. 

 The people at Washington, who have these bees for free 

 distribution, say they are good honey-gatherers and possess 

 all the good points that bees should possess : that they do not 

 sting, etc. What is the object of the Government speaking so 

 highly of these bees unless it is as they state? It can't be to 

 increase the sale of them, as there are none for sale. The 

 people who condemn them, most likely do not have Caucasian 

 bees in their purity, while at Washington they have the bee 

 in all its purity, and we can take what they say of it as being 

 true. My advice to those who want these bees is to try them 



