12 SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 



have yellow bands around their abdomens. The queens of this race are 

 very prolific. They will continue to spread their brood, and keep egg-laying 

 at a high pitch from flow to flow, or the entire season for bees to work, and 

 will store a surplus of honey during summer and fall, and go into winter 

 quarters strong and in good condition. 



The different varieties of Italian bees are about alike as honey-gath- 

 erers ; but they are all hard to get to work in comb-honey supers, while the 

 blacks will easily enter them, and many times will store nearly all their 

 honey in them, so they will have to be fed soon after the honey-flow if the 

 honey is all removed from the supers. The Italians, being very prolific, will 

 swarm before they will enter the supers. Their swarming is hard to con- 

 trol, and will give the extensive comb-honey producer a lot of trouble in this 

 respect. Then, too, most varieties of them are poor comb-builders, and cap 

 the honey flat, or down on it in the cells, which gives it a watery appearance, 

 and''spoils its looks; and they do not attach the comb well to the sections, 

 especially at the bottom, and will pull the honey too far away from the sec- 

 tions, and build it thin at the bottom, and thereby make too many light-weight 

 sections. 



The golden and five-banded Italians are worse in these respects than the 

 other varieties. The three-banded and leather-colored Italians, or the darker 

 strains of them, give better satisfaction in the production of comb honey. 

 The Italian bees are very gentle where they are kept pure, are great honey- 

 gatherers, and large crops of chunk or extracted honey can be secured by 

 them. 



The Italian bees have another failing. In thdr haste to gather and store 

 honey, they cap the poorer grades too soon, and do not evaporate or ripen 

 it enough, or quit it before they have done enough to it; consequently it 

 soon sours, or ferments, in the comb, and is unwholesome; but they will 

 secure or keep good grades of honey as well as any bees. 



Honey will granulate, but will not sour if the bees give it proper care 

 or keep it spread out in the comb until it is thoroughly evaporated. In 

 many sections of the South we have a flow of this honey during summer 

 or fall, which requires more evaporating than other honey. 



Carniolan Bees. 



The queens of this race of bees are very prolific, and their workers are 

 gentle and great honey-gatherers, and they cap their honey beautifully white. 

 They are good comb-builders, and in other respects are about like the Italians. 



Caucasian Bees. 



This is a new variety of bees which of late years has been imported into 

 the United States by the Government. Their queens are very prolific, and 

 their workers are very gentle and great honey-gatherers. They have a 

 very compact brood-nfest, and are still and quiet on the comb while they are 



