1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



545 



nia to set a remedy for all the diseases bees are 

 heirs to in this section. 



MISTAKES. 



AVHY ITAI.I.VXS IN nAI-Y AKE NOT HY15IUDS; 



THK AM'S A rEKFEf-r BAUKIEK TO THE 



KLACK KACE. 



Dt) W. C. Frazicr. 



We all make them. Some of iis make greater 

 and far more reaching mistakes than others. 

 All of us are, or should be, willing to have our 

 mistakes corrected. Some things in bee-keep- 

 ing literature seem to me to be incorrect, and to 

 which I should be pleased to call the attention 

 of bee- keepers. One of these is concerning 

 Italian bees. Some two or three years since, 

 when the subject of Italian bees was being dis- 

 cussed in the bee-papers, an article appeared in 

 Gleanings on this subject. It was one of 

 those convincing articles that create no dispute 

 and require no reply. The logic seemed to be 

 that there were black bees beyond the Alps. 

 The Alps were no Chinese wall, therefore there 

 were black bees in Italy ; and, further, that 

 the black blood in the Italian bee accounted 

 for its "sporting." This article quoted Her- 

 mann as proof, and quoted him incorrectly, 

 which changed his whole meaning. 



While there may be black bees in Italy, and I 

 know of no reason why there should not be, if 

 some one there wished to have them sent to 

 him. yet, at the time Hermann wrote his book, 

 queens were not to any extent trafficked in. 

 The proposition was, therefore, a mistake so 

 far as black bees getting into Italy over the 

 Alps was concerned, and the writer will have 

 to look farther for the reason why the bees 

 ■"sport," if, indeed, they do when bred in their 

 purity. I quote the passage referred to from 

 Hermann: 



"What is not a pure Italian is not Italian at 

 all. If she is Italian she can produce only 

 Italians. That which is not genuine, is and re- 

 mains spurious. 



" Where the home of the Italian bee is, by far 

 the greatest number of queens are dark, almost 

 chestnut brown; and for all that, there is no 

 difference in the color of the working bees, 

 whether they are produced by a light or a dark 

 colored queen. This circumstance speaks for 

 itself that the yellow Alp bees have been 

 through the glaciers* insurmountably separated 

 from the black bees on this side of the Alps, 

 and could preserve their race in original purity. 

 Their seat is the extreme north of Italy ; there 

 they have preserved their purity. The proofs 

 of an argument must not be fetched from the 

 moon." 



*"The assertion of many German bee-cultivators, 

 that tlie Italian bee has German blood, as not even 

 the Alps, like a Chinese wall, would prevent them 

 from rni.xin^ with German bees, may sound very 

 ■well and comprehensible on paper." 



But the matter would be quite changed if 

 such a biographer would take the trouble to 

 make, on the spot, inquiries which would pre- 

 sent a scientific basis. The last German place 

 from the .Julier Pass is called Stella, between 

 which place and Poschiavo (a distance of fifty 

 miles) there are no bees. 



In May, and sometimes to the end of the 

 month, the road leads from Stella by the Julier 

 Pass (nine miles), often through snow; then 

 Oberengadien is passed (where not a single bee 

 exists), and then through the Bernina Pass, 

 which demands a march in the snow of about 

 fifteen miles, and passes are the lowest points 

 of passage. 



Now, I should like to see that swarm of bees 

 that could take its wedding-flight from Stella 

 to Poschiavo, over two mountains covered 

 with snow (for the snow does not melt in June, 

 and even in July and August the temperature is 

 so low that every bee would perish), for the 

 purpose of mating with the nearest borderers 

 in Poschiavo. The same may be said of the 

 entire chain of passes. On the Bernhardin, 

 Gothard, Splugen, Lukmanier, nowhere for 

 thirty miles round, is a bee to be found, for they 

 can not exist where, on account of the neigh- 

 hood of the glaciers, the air is so cold. 



There is an end to the insect-world, and we 

 may be sure that it has not entered into the 

 mind of an Italian to import a hive from Ger- 

 man Switzerland, by which German blood may 

 be brought into Italy. 



You see the Chinese-wall business was en- 

 tirely misquoted, to imply there was no such 

 barrier, though undoubtedly not intention- 

 ally. 



The article from Mrs. Atchley, in June 1st 

 Gleanings, concerning queens which are pure 

 Italians, at one time, and again mating, is 

 correct and to the point, though good men 

 have asserted that they knew to the contrary. 

 I have heard them assert they had purchased 

 imported queens which gave bees ranging from 

 pure black to pure yellow; and while they 

 were no doubt honest in their opinion, yet this 

 could not be. Possibly the mistake may have 

 been in the importer. Where an importer re- 

 ceives a lot of queens together, and is breeding 

 queens in the same yard, it is not impossible, 

 nor an infrequent occurrence, for a queen from 

 her mating-flight to enter the hive where one 

 is being introduced, and be accepted, and, of 

 course, supersede the queen being introduced. 

 I, at least, have never had a queen that was 

 once fertilized that was ever mated again. 

 Breeders are making a serious mistake by try- 

 ing to carry water on both shoulders by trying 

 to keep both imported and five-banded bees in 

 the same yard. Their cross is no good; that is, 

 they are not as good as either if kept pure. 

 The cross is a violent one (as breeders say), 

 and does not give good results in any way. As 

 gatherers of honey they are not equal to either; 



