THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



179 



drone brood, and to waste honey in 

 rearing these useless fellows. 

 These are, in my opinion, by far 

 the worst features of the fertile 

 worker tendencies, of the new 

 races, and not friend Doolittle's 

 bugbear. 



In his last paragraph Mr. Doo- 

 little gets back to the race of bees 

 with which he originally started, 

 the "Holy Lands." He sa3^s : 

 "However, as in all respects, unless 

 it is in wintering, they are inferior 

 to the Italians, I felt warranted in 

 doing away with them entirel}', 

 and to-day finds my yard without 

 a Holy Land bee in it." Now, if 

 Mr Doolittle really means '■'■Holy 

 Land" bees, that is, bees from Pal- 

 estine proper, and not from Syria, 

 and will throw in the "wintering" 

 and leave out most of the "re- 

 spects," I'll agree that the state- 

 ment is correct. In other words, 

 the bees that come from south of 

 the mountain range that extends 

 from the Sea of Galilee to the Med- 

 iterranean terminating in Mt. Car- 

 mel — the true '■'■Holy Land" or 

 Palestine bees — stand in my list of 

 good hees, Jifth; or, after Cyprian, 

 Syrian, Carniolan and Italian bees. 

 They are inferior to Italians in 

 temper, in not clinging to the 

 combs, in wintering qualities, and 

 in that the}- are more easily pes- 

 tered with fertile workers, and 

 though superior to Italians in 

 beauty, in prolificness, in defend- 

 ing their hives, in strength and 

 rapidity of flight, and in diligence 

 in collecting stores, still, on ac- 

 count of the gi'ave faults just men- 

 tioned, I put them, all in all, after 



Italians. They are the smallest 

 [fees of the species Apis mellifica 

 that I have ever seen. Their 

 pointed abdomens usually show 

 three lemon-yellow bands, but all 

 are not equally well marked, the 

 variation in the same hive often 

 being quite striking. Their bodies 

 show a remarkable elongation 

 when filled, and such workers, if 

 well marked, are very handsome. 

 The thorax, the edge of each ab- 

 dominal ring, and the tip of the 

 abdomen are covered with very 

 dense gray fuzz giving them the 

 appearance of having been dusted 

 with flour. The drones especially 

 have a very thick coat of iron-gray 

 fuzz on both the thorax and abdo- 

 men. The queens have rather 

 elongated-appearing bodies, often 

 a beautiful 3'^ellow in color, though 

 many of them are leather colored. 

 Palestine bees are very liable to 

 fl}'^ into a passion upon slight prov- 

 ocation, and when once aroused 

 are not easily subdued in any way. 

 I have noticed a remarkable vari- 

 ation in the disposition of diff"erent 

 colonies of these bees. This, with 

 their irregular markings, is a proof 

 that the race is not well established, 

 that is, it leans first toward one type, 

 then toward another. In general, 

 these bees are difficult to manage. 

 They crawl from the frames upon 

 one's hands and quite impudently 

 creep under sleeves and cuffs, bit- 

 ing the flesh and then often curving 

 their bodies and stinging. They 

 crawl on the combs and droi) off 

 much like black bees. In a cold 

 climate the}^ die off in winter and 

 spring, somewhat as did the Egyp- 



