493 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1. 



back, " What's the matter with you ? Our bees 

 are swarming down here." 



Now LOOK HERE. Doii't get clear discourag- 

 ed. I've known seasons a good deal worse than 

 this— at least, worse than I think this will be. 

 Spring opened up in good shape— plenty bees, 

 plenty flowers, but not a pound per colony 

 stored. On the other hand, I recall one spring 

 like the present (but not so bad, I must say), 

 when, after discouraging losses, I took 13 colo- 

 nies to an out-apiary, and, with the aid of emp- 

 ty combs, increased to 81. and took 1200 pounds 

 extracted. 



PUNIC BEES AT MEDINA. 



WHAT THE REV. L. L. LANGSTROTH HAS TO SAY 

 OF THEM. 



Having had, for the flrst time, an opportunity 

 of seeing the so-called Punic bee, in the apiary 

 of Mr. A. I. Root, I will give my impressions of 

 It, formed from what information I could pro- 

 cure from the apiarist. Mr. Spafford, who has 

 the care of Mr. Root's bees. 



The single colony in the apiary was far from 

 being strong when put into winter quarters. 

 At the present time, June 4, they are much 

 stronger in bees and bi-ood than any other 

 colony that last season was of about equal 

 strength. 



I expected to find them quite dark— much 

 darker, indeed, than the common so-called 

 German brown bee. Nothing, however, in 

 their color would have suggested to me the 

 idea that they were not ordinary black bees.* 

 nor did they seem much if any difl'erent in size 

 from that bee. Of course, there were some bees 

 in the colony with Italian markings; but these 

 were evidently strangers which had intruded 

 themselves upon the Funics, as all the young 

 bees appeared to have the same markings. 



When opened the first time, and carefully 

 looked over, the queen was not found. The 

 bees were much agitated, and acted almost pre- 

 cisely like ordinary black bees— racing back- 

 ward and forward on the bottom- board, and 

 over the sides of the hive. A second search for 

 the queen was equally unsuccessful. This 

 morning, June 6, the weather being as favor- 

 able as it could be, bright, warm, and calm, 

 with the help of Mr. Spafford, and without any 

 assistance from Ernest Root, wlio wished me to 

 give my own impressions, without any sugges- 

 tions from him. I carefully examined them 

 again. I gave them sufficient time to fill them- 

 selves with honey before the combs were lifted 

 out. The same agitation which I noticed on 

 Saturday. I noticed again— the bees running 

 from one side of the bottom-board to the other, 

 and evidently acting, as nearly as I could judge, 

 much like black bees. We took out the frames 

 and examined them at least three times before 

 we could find the queen. Four years ago, in 

 the apiary of Mr. James Heddon, of Dowagiac, 

 Mich., I saw more than a dozen hives opened, 

 and the queens were found, I should say, in 

 half the time that we spent in finding this one 

 queen. She was noticed near the bottom of a 

 frame, evidently frightened, running around 

 the corners, and seeking in every way to hide 

 herself. In this respect she seemed to me to 

 act like an ordinary black queen. As to the 

 bees, they were not as scary as I have frequent- 

 ly noticed the blacks to be. When a comb was 

 lifted out they did not string out from the bot- 

 tom of it and drop upon the grass, ready to 

 crawl up my pants, as is so common with the 

 black race. 



* I should have been much better pleased if Mr. 

 Rot)t had had a single colony of pure black bees. 



Now as to the color of the queen. She was 

 not nearly as dark as I expected her to be. I 

 know that I have seen many imported Italian 

 queens darker than she was. On a mere super- 

 ficial observation one might have declared that 

 we had here nothing but common black bees; 

 but a more thorough examination suggested 

 that they might be a cross of, say, the black 

 with some other race. The color of the queen 

 might again suggest that the Funics were a 

 cross between the black and the Italian races, 

 as the so-called hybrid Swedish clover resem- 

 bles in many respects the red and white clover, 

 seeding in the first crop like the white, and 

 sending up many stalks of blossoms, like the 

 red, the size and color of the bloom being a 

 beautiful compromise between the two kinds. 

 Now, it is quite supposable that the Funic, so- 

 called, may be a cross between the black and 

 some of the yellow races, and may have been, 

 like the Morgan horse, the starting of a race of 

 bees possessed of uncommon and. valuable 

 peculiarities. We know that that Morgan sire 

 so impressed himself upon his progeny that 

 even now, after many generations, there can 

 easily be seen in Morgan horses the type of their 

 great ancestor. The question then arises. How 

 can we decide that this bee is worthy of propa- 

 gation? It evidently has some of the bad qual- 

 ities of the black bees, such as its scary nature, 

 and the difficulty of finding the queen. I could 

 not. on so short an observation, decide whether 

 it had the cowardly nature of the black bee: 

 whether in nuclei made of this race we should 

 find them so easily discouraged as to "skedad- 

 dle '' on the first appearance of adverse circum- 

 stances. And, again, it is impossible, from so 

 slight an observation, to know whether, like 

 the black bee, it is a natural-born robber, caus- 

 ing often the most trying difficulties in the 

 management of an apiary. Nor could I tell 

 whether, when an attempt should be made by 

 other bees to rob it, how brave a defense it 

 would make. We all know that the black bee 

 is by nature such a coward that often, when 

 attacked by great forces of its own or other 

 races, like the dog that drops its tail in the 

 fight, and is soon a beaten dog, or the cock that 

 runs, after a few exchanges of blows, it will 

 give up the battle and suffer itself to be robbed 

 of every thing; or even, like the black race, 

 join forces with the robbers, and rob their own 

 hive. If I had only a single warm day which I 

 could spend in observations, I could easily, in 

 ways which I have not time to suggest, decide 

 these points. 



Now. as to the conclusion of the whole mat- 

 ter. I would not advise any one to attempt at 

 once to supplant the good races of bees which 

 are in his apiary, with this race; nor would I 

 so condemn it as to say that nearly every enter- 

 prising bee-keeper ought not at least give it a 

 fair trial. In a single season, if the season is a 

 favorable one for honey, I believe all the dis- 

 puted points will be settled, and no one would 

 rejoice more than myself if it should prove, like 

 the Morgan horse, the progeny of an improved 

 and improving race of bees. 



My readers will bear in mind that these ob- 

 servations were made upon only a single colony 

 — that this colony might not have been entirely 

 pure, and that I had not any blacks with which 

 to compare it. L. L. Langstroth. 



Dayton, O. 



[Among the things in our apiary that Mr. 

 Langstroth desired particularly to see was that 

 new race of bees, the Funics; and, as he has al- 

 ready stated, we desired him to form his own 

 opinions and conclusions in regard to them so 

 far as he might be able, during the short time 

 he was to be in Medina, independently of any 



