270 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



not have tried the best strains of Ital- 

 ians, but suffer me to say that I have 

 no faith in the purity of any strain 

 that does not possess the above trait. 

 There could not be a more fickle 

 standard of purity than that of color. 

 Many years ago I obtained two Ital- 

 ian queens the first I had ever seen. 

 From their first eggs I reared a lot 

 of queens, which were mated before 

 there were any Italian drones in my 

 apiary, and I believe there were none 

 in my neighborhood, as there never 

 had been any indications of Italian 

 blood among my bees until I had in- 

 troduced it as above, yet one-half 

 of this lot of queens produced bees 

 as yellow as any I ever saw, the prog- 

 eny of one of them being very plainly 

 and uniformly marked with four yel- 

 low bands. Let him who is incredu- 

 lous cross a white leghorn cock with 

 dark brahraa hens, and if color be 

 the sole standard, the chicks from 

 this cross will usually be the finest 

 sort of white leghorns. 



Second : my second objection to 

 the Italian is the tenacity of her foot- 

 hold. 



This is some advantage in search- 

 ing for queens and in other manipula- 

 tions when it is not desired to divest 

 the combs of bees, but in all other 

 cases a vexatious, time-consuming 

 drawback. 



Smoke has little effect on your 

 pure bur-footed Italians so far as 

 driving them from the comb is con- 

 cerned. In removing comb honey 

 during the height of the honey flow 

 this can be overcome without much 

 difficulty. But the difficulty increases 

 as the season progresses till at last it 

 becomes almost unendurable. I 

 think I am quite within bounds when 

 I say that (except when the honey 

 flow is not so great that the bees will 

 not cease their work on the flowers 

 to notice honey standing uncovered 

 in the apiary,) the work of removing 

 honey from the hives will progress 

 twice as rapidly with hybrids as with 

 Italians. This is no small item when 



there are several tons to be removed. 



Third : comb honey produced by 

 Italians is never so regular in shape 

 nor otherwise so fine in appearance. 

 They never fail to bulge it or bridge 

 it or fasten it to the separators on 

 the slightest provocation, and such 

 defects not only cause much leak- 

 ing and injure its sale, but cause 

 much more time to be consumed in 

 crating. 



Fourth : Italians gather much larger 

 quantities of propolis and dispose of 

 it so as both to injure the appear- 

 ance of the sections, and to inter- 

 fere with the rapid manipulations of 

 the different parts of the hive. 



Fifth, and finally : in my some- 

 what extensive experience I find that 

 the hybrids can be relied on to pro- 

 duce from twenty-five to forty per 

 cent more comb honey than Italians. 

 The hybrids are always the ones 

 from which I get my largest yields 

 and all through the season they ex- 

 hibit the more push, courage and en- 

 terprise. 



And in iny opinion, there is but 

 one point in which the hybrids suf- 

 fer in comparison with the Italians 

 and that is the irascibility of their 

 temper. By the amateur and the be- 

 ginner, this trait is greatly magnified 

 and for such no doubt the Italian is 

 the preferable bee. But for the ex- 

 perienced apiarist who has lost all 

 concern about stings, I am forced to 

 the conclusion, thougli formerly 

 greatly prejudiced in favor of the Ital- 

 ians, that the hybrid is very much to 

 be preferred. 



Lapeer, Mich. 



For the American Apiculturist. 



INVERTING vs. CROWDING 

 BROOD COMBS. 



Jajies Heddox. 



Mr. Editor : 



It seems that Mr. J. E. Pond, jr., 

 of your state, has now decided 



