THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



167 



progeny. Did you make a mistake and 

 send me a Carniolan or a Carni-Italian 

 queen? Have you a record of tha,. 

 queen ? I should like to learn about her 

 antecedents. She and her young are 

 beautiful to behold and 1 began to feel 

 quite proud and delighted over her ; 

 but how you have knocked the gilt all 

 off of "pretty bees" in your Oct. Api. 

 It's enough to make the "pretty bees" 

 feel guilty and may be they will when 

 they read your Oct. number. 



I have been wondering ever since I 

 read the Oct. Api how you could send 

 out such beautiful bees and then give 

 them such a "black eye." 



I am looking forward with great ex- 

 pectations to your promised articles on 

 queen-rearing in the near future. 



I should also like very much to see 

 articles in detail on a system oi re-queen- 

 ing to prevent swarming, and with it the 

 details of nuclei management. 



What a "boom" the announcement 

 and discussion of these topics would 

 give the Api the coming year. 



Wm. S. Slocum. 



Newp07-t, R. I. 



[The above queen is of the five band- 

 ed strain Italian. Beauty, I fear is all 

 the good quality she may possess. How- 

 ever, some of the fi\e-banded bees 

 prove to be very fair workers. 



Yes, I gave the beautiful bees a "black 

 eye" and told only the plain truth about 

 them, generally speaking. I am ready 

 to rear queens and sell them to those 

 who demand beautiful bees instead of 

 bees for business ; but I want it under- 

 stood, in the first place, that beauty is 

 the only quality that I can or will guar- 

 antee. 



There are strains of Italians that pos- 

 sess good honey-gathering qualities that 

 are handsome enough to please any 

 one ; in fact, this strain of bees com- 

 bines both beauty and business. 



It is not for any beekeeper's interest 

 to introduce five-banded bees. All who 

 do so will have reason to regret it. I 

 advise all to drop such bees and intro- 

 duce a more hardy and industrious 

 strain of yellow bees. If my advice is 

 heeded, there will be less loss of bees in 

 winter ; more success in summer, and 

 far less beekeepers abandoning the pur- 

 suit. Even in a moderately poor honey 

 season, the right strain of bees will make 

 a good showing in surplus honey.] 



PUNIC BEES. 



On the 30th of June the editors of 

 another journal say they failed to find 

 any Punic bees in Tunis, and in the same 

 article speak of being on the "very spot" 

 in Tunis whence fifty stocks were pur- 

 chased from the Arabs, and the queens 

 sent to Mr. Hewitt, exactly as stated by 

 "A. H. B. K " on August 20th last. Can 

 you explain, Mr. Editor, what they 

 mean ? 



On June i6th they questioned the 

 truth ofthere being a stock of pure Punic 

 bees in the country. Now it is an "im- 

 ported one," and they say "they have 

 yet to see such a stock in this country 

 or to hear of any of their correspond- 

 ents having one." Do they not give 

 themselves away? It clearly shows one 

 of two alternatives — viz., either that 

 your correspondents have more enter- 

 prise in them than others, or else there 

 is an endeavour to keep the public in 

 ignorance that such bees are to be had. 



I have seen somewhere about forty 

 hives of bees in one apiary, every one 

 of which was headed by a pure Punic 

 queen, and in which pure Punic bees 

 were working, and so well do I like them 

 that I intend very shortly to have the 



