THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



171 



guished themselves in an equally 

 advantageous manner. This year 

 again, 1881, the Caucasian bee 

 has made itself remarkable above 

 all other races by the enormous 

 population in the hives, and quan- 

 tity of honey gathered. 



The Caucasian bee then proves 

 the justness of an old assertion of 

 mine, which is, that we ought to 

 utilize in some way, as a sort of 

 lever in our breeding, only the 

 power of the individual ; that is to 

 say, the power of certain hives or 

 rather of certain queens. I do not 

 consider as perfect any particular 

 race : I wish by that to convey 

 that the prosperity of apiculture 

 does not reside in race, but that 

 the value of any one race, what- 

 ever it may be, is only an individ- 

 ual value. 



If I do not err, Mr. Hilbert 

 holds other opinipns, for he seems 

 to admit that there are some races 

 of bees, of which all the colonies 

 are of equal value, and are equally 

 good, or equally bad, but that can- 

 not be sustained. Mr. Hilbert ap- 

 pears to have received accidentally 

 some worthless Caucasian queens ; 

 he has told us that the Caucasian 

 bee bred in Germany is fond of 

 stinging. This I do not admit at 

 all. 



A different climate, and other 

 circumstances appertaining to ac- 

 tual honey-gathering, do not act 

 with the rapidity of gunpowder 

 upon the physical qualities of a bee, 

 and do not instantaneously trans- 

 form its character. 



All the pure Caucasian bees 

 raised by myself displayed the same 



gentle characteristics as the original 

 bees. The Caucasian queens, on 

 the contrary, crossed with German 

 drones, and therefore not purely 

 mated, produce, almost without 

 exception, bees of surprising fierce- 

 ness. Here is where the observa- 

 tions of Mr. Hilbert come in with 

 truth. 



The Caucasian bee has always 

 until now wintered perfectly well ; 

 it is in winter as quiet as any other 

 race. It is particularly useful for 

 crossing purposes. Mated with the 

 Italian bee we obtain a bee still 

 more gentle, and of a very beauti- 

 ful color. 



My Caucasian bees, including 

 the originals (two queens of which 

 are alive still ) have for the greater 

 part the same colors as the Ital- 

 ians. The greater part of the 

 worker bees of the Caucasian race 

 have still the little yellow marking, 

 like the Cyprian bee (on the back 

 at the third ring of the thorax). All 

 the bees of Asia Minor present the 

 same external characteristics. 



If we consider (or reflect upon) 

 the geographical distribution of the 

 honey bee, the idea is forced upon 

 us that the Caucasian bee, that of 

 Cyprus and that of Asia Minor, 

 belong to the secondary races, issues 

 of a crossing of our dark German 

 bee with the Egyptian bee. 



Mr. Dathe, of Eystrup, said that 

 his father had also received bees 

 from the Caucasus through Dr. 

 Butlerow, and that after having 

 tested the merits of the race, he in- 

 tended to speak of them at the 

 general assembly of beekeepers at 

 Cologne in 1880, when he died. 



