336 



greatest honey gatherers, because I did 

 not receive the first queens till in May ; 

 it was the latter part of June before 

 the young bees went out, and the 

 middle of July before they commenced 

 gathering honey, which brought the sea- 

 son too late to determine their quali- 

 ties. They were always busy gathering 

 when there was anything to be ob- 

 tained, and this fact leads me to hope 

 they can be relied upon when there are 

 flowers in the fields. It is not possible 

 to determine their value till next year, 

 after having passed a winter, and been 

 tested during a full season's honey flow. 



Dr. Buttlbrow, of St. Petersburg : 

 For the benefit of those who did read 

 my disertation in the Bienen Zietimg, I 

 will tell how I came to possess the Cau- 

 casian bee. 



Two years ago I traveled to the Cau- 

 casus to spend the season, and there I 

 met the bees and the apiarists, who 

 keep their bees in "Ssapetks." This 

 bee I did not notice particularly by its 

 color, but did so at once by its extraordi- 

 nary amiability, which was observable 

 to me, having always been accustomed 

 to our cross Russian bees, which we 

 could only manage by a plentiful use of 

 smoke. The Caucasian bees, on the con- 

 trary, but rarely require the use of 

 smoke. 



I was much astonished when I once 

 saw the destruction of nearly all the 

 queen cells in a colony (and where they 

 existed in a mass) without using any 

 smoke, and that, too, in the evening, 

 while the field bees were at home in the 

 hive. I had to acknowledge the docility 

 of the Caucasian bees as a phenomenal 

 one. This was a strong feature in their 

 favor, and I at once determined to pay 

 further attention to them. 



I did not think the Caucasian bees 

 more a race than the Italian or others. 

 We do not find any great difference be- 

 tween the black and yellow bees ; but 

 if we look on descent, we must speak 

 about races, and so I think we should 

 also designate the Caucasian bee as a 

 race, if only for the reason that, besides 

 their amiability, they exhibit such an 

 extraordinary propensity for building 

 queen cells and for swarming. In re- 

 gard to their ability as honey gatherers, 

 1 can only say the Caucasian apiarists 

 are very successful ; but this is a ques- 

 tion which we must determine in the 

 future. 



When I became acquainted with the 

 qualities of these bees I purchased 8 

 queens at once, and placed in the care 

 of a bee-keeper at Moscow, in 1877. 

 Two bee-keepers of Moscow state that 

 the progeny of those queens are of the 



same amiable disposition I had ob- 

 served, and in consequence of winch I 

 proposed to the Free Imperial Econom- 

 ical Society the importation of this race 

 into Germany and Russia, and received 

 an order to proceed to Caucasus for the 

 shipment of the bees. In the meantime 

 something unexpected transpired. A 

 Caucasian apiarist, of the most common 

 kind, purchased in the spring a number 

 of colonies in the generally used straw 

 hives, or " Ssapetks ; " as he found 

 many of them very weak he could do 

 no better than unite them, and, after 

 doing so, sent 24 surplus queens to a 

 friend in St. Petersburg to sell, without 

 having previously informed him. From 

 these queens, taken from weak colonies, 

 and perhaps old, I purchased 12 and 

 sent them to Mr. Vogel, who at once 

 sent 4 to Mr. Gunther at Gispersleberg. 



Finally, 1 made the journey to Wladi- 

 kawkas, the very home of the progres- 

 sive Caucasian bee-keeper, and from 

 thence I sent 4 queens to Mr. Vogel and 

 4 to Mr. Gunther. The bee-keepers from 

 whom I obtained those queens used im- 

 proved hives with movable frames, and 

 pay more attention to color, etc. They 

 are also said to prefer the black queens 

 to yellow ones. 



As before stated, I found the gentle- 

 ness of this bee to be "phenomenal." I 

 took the queens with my hands, and 

 lifted the bees into the hives. Among 

 30 colonies from which I had taken 

 away the queens, I only once used some 

 smoke, and then it was really not nec- 

 essary. Twice I saw bees swarming. 

 Once I placed myself in their midst, 

 and made quick and sudden motions, 

 and I was not stung. On another occa- 

 sion a swarm clustered on a tree, get- 

 ting confused ; we shook the tree, and 

 I went among the bees while sweating, 

 but was not stung, although we tried in 

 every way to anger them. 



I was on the other side of the moun- 

 tains, in Alsatia, on the coast of the 

 Black Sea, and there I saw some bees 

 which are blacker than the Caucasian, 

 and less amiable, for I was stung once 

 by them while blowing in the entrance 

 to the hive. They are not so pretty as 

 the Caucasian bees. I hope to be able 

 to give further particulars regarding 

 these bees in a short time. 



Here Gunther, of Gispersleberg : I 

 have to confirm the remarks of Messrs. 

 Vogel and Buttlerow, as my observa- 

 tions and experience were the same. 

 You may gather these bees in your 

 hands, or on the combs, without beings 

 stung. I manipulated and operated 

 with my bees in every manner without 

 the use of smoke, and without being 

 stung or annoyed by them. 



