1S<I-J 



OI.HAXINCS IN lUOK CULTURE. 



83 



vt'ars tln'i"<' is cNciy prospect of ilicir liciiig 

 liirili'ly i:;iini'i-s f<ii- (licir foifsiurlil. A hoiiiily 

 on lioiii'v \vi)ukl piohulily liavc a liUc ctVccI in 

 tlu' ooniso of a very few seasons, as it would 

 lurirt'ly inrroase tii(> supply of extracted, witli- 

 out a coii-esi)oii(lins incfease in the (ieniand, 

 except at a lower price; conseipiently the l)ee- 

 keejiers would he in the same lix as now. only 

 with an increased nnini)er of producers in the 

 field. The trouhle with hee-Ueepers. as I plain- 

 ly sei' it. is. thiit the pnttlications of the craft 

 arc too much interested in fiiMliiifi new i)lood in 

 tiic business instead of well heatitifj tip the 

 jiround that is already occii|iied. They seem to 

 feid it their ilnty to attempt to convince every 

 individual with whom tln'y come in contact 

 that it is the rosiest bnsini'ss in the universe, 

 and that their whole duty will not ho performed 

 until they hecome bee- Keepers. It is the only 

 trade. |)rofession. or business in the uni\'ers(> 

 that makes constant and \itiorous etTorts to in- 

 crease its supply and decrease th«^ demand for 

 the products of its labors. I " am a bee-keeper 

 for pleasure" (and protit): but when I con- 

 stantly tryto jiet others to start in the business, 

 and begin to shout for a little assistance in the 

 way of a bounty for the lioney I produce. I am 

 going to decide there is no fun in the business. 

 and resign. At the same time, if the philan- 

 thropists insist on putting into otir pockets a 

 few extra dollars as they did for the maple- 

 sugar men (which was an outrage). I am not 

 going to make a heavy kick, but it will be a 

 fraud just the same. ('. F. Tiio.mas. 



Dorchester, Neb.. .Ian. 7. 



ITALIANS IN ITALY. 



TH08. B. HI-OW, OF f:XGLAND. WHO HAS TRAV 

 ELED IX ITALY. SAYS THE BEES IN ITALY- 

 ARE NOT t'NIP^OK.M AS TO COLOR OK 

 MARKINGS. 



De(ir Mr. Root: — I have read with interest 

 your note to the letter on Italians in Italy. 

 Now. I know that, of all things, you wish to 

 get at the truth in these matters, and also to 

 show where the advantage or otherwise to the 

 bee-keeper comes in. 



As to color. I think far too much stress has 

 been laid upon tliis. What we should strive 

 after is. rather, working qualities. Bright- 

 colored three-banded Italians are very prcaty, 

 and all that: but what the bee-beeper wants is 

 not beauty altogether, but work — honey-gath- 

 ■ring. There is no question at all but that 

 plenty of bright-colored, three-banded bees do 

 exist in North Italy, and especially arc; they 

 found (by selection, of course) in the large api- 

 aries of the (lueen-raisers.' Tiie bet! of North 

 Italy does vary a good deal in color, and often 

 is very dark. This fact is well known to those 

 who have studied the question on the spot (and, 

 by the way, one of the persons wiiom Mr. Bian- 

 concini mi'iitions in his letter as an eniineiil 

 authority, has, I believe, never been in Italy at 

 all. but has been simply an importer of bees, 

 and is not accepted iiere as an authority in 

 this particular subject). To my own certain 

 knf)W ledge, at one time Cyprians were used in 

 some of the <iueen-iaising a|)iari<!S. with a view 

 to improving the color, though I believe this 

 plan is now abandoned, and rightly too. The 

 bi'St observers in (Jrr'at Britain are. I think, 

 agreed that the Italian lice, as imijorted at the 

 present time from many qiiei-n-raising apiaries. 

 is qinte an inferior article to tho.<e sent over in 

 the early days: and to such an extent has this 

 opinion gained ground that the importation of 

 Italians to this country has, to a great extent, 

 ceased. 



Allot her jioint agiiinst them has been t he siis- 

 jticion (well gi-ounded, I believe) that a very 

 virulent foi'ni of foul i)rood has been intrioduced 

 by them. Of this I think there can be no doubt, 

 as I liave personally seen tlie way that bees 

 were collected in Itahinthe autumn, for the 

 sake of the queens, which were siniplj- taken 

 from th<' colonies (l)ought from the country 

 people), and packed off whoh'sale — young or 

 old. diseased or healthy. At that time I wrote 

 and protested against this system, and I imag- 

 ine that it does not now prevail to sucli an 

 extent, the business being now mainly in the 

 hands of honest (lueen-raisers who take some 

 pride in the (|uality of the article they raise — 

 esjK'cially the color of it. My own (;xperi(Mice 

 —gained by many visits to Italy— is, that it is 

 not from tln^ largest (pnM'ii-raisiiig ai)iaries that 

 we get the very linest Itees; and the locality, 

 too. is important, the bees from the liigher dis- 

 tricts iHung much hardier than those, from the 

 hot plains. I could mention the names of sev- 

 eral people who certainly produce only a limit- 

 ed number of (piecMis; but each one is a queen 

 of the right sort. Tho.mas B. Blow. 



Welwyn. England, Dec. 30. 



[We must admit that there are some dark 

 bees in Italy: and it is possible that there are 

 some dealers who are unscrupulous in the fill- 

 ing of orders: but the stock that we have re- 

 ceived in the last ten or fifteen years from Italy 

 has been from only one or two breeders, and 

 their queens have been of the very best— at 

 least, as a general rule they have excelled our 

 home-bred stock, although there are exceptions 

 to the rule. Whatever may be the bees in Italy, 

 the conditions for rearing queens are better 

 there than in this country — at least, results 

 seem to point that way. We quite agree with 

 you. that it is not the golden-banded or highly- 

 colored queens that usually give the best results 

 in the production of honey. As you may know, 

 we have been trying to educate the general 

 bee-keeping public toward procuring queens 

 that are bred for business rather than for color. 

 The leather-colored ones have generally given 

 us the best results. In Italy they have not got 

 the rage for queens for beauty — as least, not to 

 the same extent that they have in this country.] 



THE ITALIAN BEE IN ITALY. 



IS IT A HYBRID OR SIMPLY' A VARIETY OF A 

 WELL-KNOWN SPECIES? 



Mr. Doolittle propounded the theory at Al- 

 bany, and I have also seen it elsewhere in 

 his writings, that " the Italian bee is a hybrid." 

 The meaning of tlie word "hybrid "is, I be- 

 lieve. " mongrel, or the production of two spe- 

 cies." In natural history, by "species" is 

 understood th(> original type, and the changes 

 piTMhiced in that original type by climate and 

 ditt'erent natural surroundings, are called "va- 

 rieties." 



If by thr; term "hybrid" Mr. Doolittle means 

 that the yellow Italian bee (I use the word 

 " yellow ■" advisedly) is a variety of the black, 

 or (ierman bee, it's possible that he is cot rect, 

 though there are several distinguished natural- 

 ists who hold that the yellow bee is th(! species 

 and the t)lack the variety. But if Mr. Doolittle 

 means that the crossing of the two species is so 

 rr>cent that the type is not suHiciently fixed for 

 the Italians to be called even a variety. I con- 

 tend that he is w-rong: for in its natiH'al locality 

 it has a fixed type thai has not changed since 

 Virgil first wrote of the yellow-banded be<% as 

 can be shown by comparing the descriptions 

 of Spinola. who, in 18().>. called them Ligurians; 



