THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



165 



must tell my tale, as well as those other fortu- 

 nate possessors of Apis fasciata — but how dif- 

 ferent mj^ experience I I have manipulated 

 them as freely as upon any other hives; neither 

 myself nor any of my friends have yet ex- 

 perienced any manifestations of their anger. 

 This is so adverse to the accounts given by 

 others, that some extenuating cause must be 

 found to account for it. In the first place, lam 

 S'ugularly fortunate amongst my bees, my con- 

 stant presence may have rendered them peace- 

 able and tame, and coolness and quiet in my 

 operations amongst them have their influence 

 in subduing anger. 



Surely there must be something wrong when 

 our friend, Mr. Woodbury, so used as he is to 

 the repeated examination of his hives, should 

 have been so troubled by them. Just now, 

 whilst jotting down these remarks, I have tried 

 their temper by stepping into my garden and 

 removing the crown-board of their hive, passing 

 my hands over the frames amidst a dense mass 

 of bees covering the bars. I experienced no 

 inconvenience from this operation. Whether 

 it may be different by-and-by I do not know; 

 but at present, and since I have been the pos- 

 sessor of this stock of Egyptians, I cannot en- 

 dorse the character given them of extreme 

 irascibility and impatience of manipulation. — 

 Geokge Fox, Kingsbridge. 



^m 9 <i III' • 



For the American Bee Journal and Gazette. 



Questions for Consideration. 



No. 1. 



Will it pay to cultivate any plant expressly 

 for honey '? If so, which plant is best ? How 

 many acres would keep one hundred colonies 

 busy while in bloom ? How many days in 

 average seasons, and how long each day, does 

 it yield honey ? What soils are best adapted to 

 its growth ? Is it an annual or a perennial ? 



No. 2. 



How can specimens of dead bees be preserved 

 without losing color or shape ? 



No. 3. 



What i? the cause of honey creating colic in 

 some persons, and not in others ? 



No. 4. 



What is artificial honey -comb made of, and 

 does it work well ? 



No. 5. 



How large a quantity of sugar or feed could 

 be fed to one stock of bees and their artificial 

 increase from the first of April until the last of 

 September, or in six months ? 



No. 6. 



Can a stock of bees troubled with dysentery 

 void their excrements in a wire basket attached 

 to the hive, and the hive placed in a warm 

 room ? And will the bees return to the hive V 



M. 



F'lr the American Bee Journal. 



The Egyptian Bee— Apis Fasciata. 



Mr. Editor : Having been the first to import 

 this variety into the New World, I desire 

 through your columns to answer some of the 

 numerous inquiides addressed to me respecting 

 them. 



As these bees were received late last fall, the 

 most that I can say of them from exijerience is 

 that the workers excel in beauty the Italians, 

 having rich yellow, black, and whitish 

 bands. 



The first mention that I find made of the Apis 

 Fasciata is in 1804 by the celebrated French 

 naturalist Latreille, ("Ann. Du Museum Hist. 

 Nat. Tom. V,") who gives the following de- 

 scription of the worker : " Blackish brown, the 

 down on the top of the head; the corselet and 

 the base of the abdomen, yellowish grey, the 

 shield, the first two rings of the abdomen and 

 the base of the third, reddish; the third and fol- 

 lowing rings of an ashy grey; the posterior 

 border of all of them of a deep brown." 



In those I have examined, the first ihree rings 

 are of a reddish or rich orange color, and the 

 base of the fourth. A single droue which sur- 

 vived the journey was very beautifully colored. 

 The queens have the last two rings of the ab- 

 domen dark-brown or black, and the others a 

 rich orange, bordered with dark-brown or black 

 bands. Latreille gives the measurement of the 

 Egyptian worker as 11 French millimetres, and 

 that of the black worker as 12, showing the 

 Egyptian to be considerably smaller than our 

 common bee. 



Herr Vogel is of opinion that the Italian bee 

 is a hybrid from the black and the Egytian bee. 

 When we consider howextensive was the inter- 

 course between Greece and Egypt in the time 

 of Herodotus, nothing seems more likely than 

 that the Egyptian variety was introduced into 

 Europe, thousands of years ago. Spinola, who 

 first described scientifically in 1808 the Italian 

 bee, giving it the name of Apis Ligustica, says: 

 "Aristotle and all the later ancient writers 

 agree in describing the variegated or colored 

 bee as of a smaller size." Now, as it is well 

 known that the Italian bee is not smaller than 

 the black bee, it would appear that those writers 

 were describing, not the Italian, but the Egyp- 

 tian species. 



AsAjjis Fasciata is evidently a fixed or stereo- 

 type race, it will probably be much easier to 

 keep it pure than the Italian variety; and if it 

 should in other respects prove equal to the 

 Italian, it will, of course, have the preference 

 among our bee-keepers. 



Ha\4ug furnished to the Bee Journal, the 

 London Journal of HortirAdture., which gives 

 such an unfavorable account of the temper of 

 the Egyptians, I shall venture the assertion that 

 Mr. Woodbury's experience in the moist and 

 cool climate of England, the exact opposite to 

 that of Egypt, can hardly be accepted as a proof 

 of the bad temperof the "children of the Nile." 

 All Mr. Woodbury's stocks also, with one ex- 

 ception, had hybrid queens, and our experience 

 with hybrid Italians has been such as to prepare 



