22 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Yellow and Leather-Colored Bees. 



CHAS. DADANT. 



Ill the Bee Journal tor Nov. 23, 

 Mr. Demaree is yet arguing liis favor- 

 ite plea in favor of tlie yellow bee. 



The lirst Italian queen that I intro- 

 duced in my apiary was yellow to the 

 tip of her abdomen. Her workers 

 were as yellow as could be desired. 

 This queen was the daugliter of a 

 queen imported from the apiary of the 

 celebrated German, Dzierzon, who.se 

 strain of bees will never be excelled as 

 to color; Dr. Dzierzon, for more than 

 20 years previous, having bred in view 

 of improvement in color. 



The progeny of tliis queen produced 

 workers wliich had, most of them, the 

 three yellow bands perfectly visible ; 

 most of their colonies had not a single 

 black bee. Yet these workers were 

 but half Italian, tor, at that time, 

 there was not another Italian queen 

 within fifty miles of Hamilton, and, 

 as I had worried my colony by rearing 

 queens, I had not a single drone, and 

 my young queens had all mated with 

 black drones. 



The following year I received three 

 queens from Italy. Of course, I was 

 lixr from being satisfied with these 

 queens. They were dark, and their 

 progeny was also darker even than the 

 ill-mated queens. 



Then I began to think that the color 

 was not a sure test of purity, and, af- 

 ter a careful study, I proclaimed that 

 the quietness of the bees on the combs, 

 when they are taken out of the hives, 

 is the surest test ; this quietness being 

 in direct ratio with the puiity of the 

 Italian bees. 



Several bee-keepers pretend that 

 the Italian bee is not a pure race ; oth- 

 ers, that it is the result of a mixture 

 of Cyprian and black bees. If such 

 be the case, let me ask, how is it that 

 such an union has produced, in the 

 offspring, a behavior so different from 

 that of both the parents V 



The Cyprian queens, when you open 

 their hives, flee out of sight; their 

 workers are disturbed and run every- 

 where, ready to fight. The black 

 queens and bees act about the same, 

 with the exception that the workers 

 gather under the combs, and fall to 

 the ground. The Italian queens, on 

 the contrary, remain quiet, and every 

 worker sticks to the combs undis- 

 turbed. 



In writing of me, and of my bees, 

 Mr. Demaree says that "some iieople" 

 may suspect that the wonderful power 

 of sellishness can move the best of 

 men. Several times I have argued for 

 the leather-colored Italian bee. My 

 preference was based on facts, ob- 

 served by myself and by perhaps ]00 

 or more customers, who had made, as 

 I did, the comparison between both 

 races, and who prefer, as I do, the 

 leatlier to the light-colored bee. After 



reading the article of Mr. Demaree, 

 James Heddon sent me tlie letter given 

 hereafter. Mr. Heddeii cannot be ac- 

 cused of being moved by selfishness : 



" Dowagiac, Mich., Nov. 23, 1881. 

 "FiirENU Dadant: I have just 

 read the ably written article of Mr. 

 Demaree, and while I admire his out- 

 spoken, earnest manner, I must say 

 that all my experience with different 

 races and strains of bees convince me 

 that he is wrong. I bought many 

 queens (over 70 in all) of Grimm, 

 Alley, W. J. Davis, and others, of the 

 " pure" golden, three-banded bees, 

 and yet I wrote " the Italian bees are 

 not superior to the Germans" of my 

 apiary, all things considered. Finally, 

 Mr. (jatnian asked me if I had ever 

 tried the leather-colored Italians. He 

 evidently thought them a distinct 

 strain, and said they would change 

 my views upon the subject. I thought 

 then, as I do now, that Mr. O., having 

 been an extensive breeder, held opin- 

 ions of worth, and I, then starting a 

 second apiary, purchased 25 colonies 

 and some queens from him, and put 

 them in my new apiary, with some 

 colonies of bright golden Italians. 

 Their marked superiority over any 

 bees I had ever seen induced me to 

 supersede all my bright queens with 

 those reared from the long leather- 

 colored ones. I found no trouble in 

 discovering traces of blood from the 

 bright Italians, both by looks and ac- 

 tions, for the next 2 or 3 years. That 

 fact convinced me that they were, to 

 say the least, a separate strain. I 

 wrote to Mr. Davis (who stood then as 

 now high in my estimation), telling 

 him all about the superiority of these 

 Oatman bees over those purchased of 

 him and others. I have reason to be- 

 lieve that this letter found him in a 

 position to welcome something differ- 

 ent in the line of blood, and though 

 he had at that time one of the purest 

 apiaries in America, I think that he 

 superseded it with something tie con- 

 siders, after years of use, much bet- 

 ter. I should not be much surprised 

 if that is not the leather-colored Ital- 

 ians, or them and some other blood 

 carefully handled. I hope to hear 

 from Mr. Davis upon the subject. I 

 write you because I am quite positive 

 that Mr. Oatman told me that he ob- 

 tained his leather-colored strain of 

 bees from you, out of one of your im- 

 portations. That I have so handled 

 this strain of bees that they are better, 

 rather than poorer, than when I ob- 

 tained them, I have no doubt. That 

 you, Mr. W. J. Davis, and numerous 

 others are doing the same thing I have 

 also no doubt. My opinion is, if we 

 breed for color, we shall move back- 

 ward ; if for traits, forward ; if for 

 both at the same time, our movements 

 will be slow in any direction." 



Mr. Demaree, who says that he takes 

 a broader view of the subject than I 

 can comprehend, makes sport of my 

 remark that, as he never bouglit a 

 queen from me, he cannot know how 

 our bees are. If I made such a re- 

 mark, it is because Mr. D., in the JJee 

 Journal for Sept. 14th, wrote about 

 my "gentle dark Italians," saying that 

 if he wanted to breed a game race of 



bees, he would commence by crossing 

 the Cyprian with " Mr. Dadant's dark 

 Italians," the robust Cyprian mixed 

 with " these ferocious dark hybrids," 

 etc. Now, unable to sustain his posi- 

 tion about the ferocious temper of the 

 leather-colored bees, Mr. Demaree 

 says that in writing this article his in- 

 tention was to joke and worry me. If 

 so, the joking power of Mr. Demaree 

 is not very varied, for, on several oc- 

 casions, he made thrusts against the 

 dark Italians, accusing them of being 

 full of vindictiveness, and always 

 ready to fight. Such accusations only 

 show that he never has seen the worker 

 progeny of a queen imported from 

 Italy. 



With Mr. Heddon, I think that it 

 will be very difficult to produce an 

 uniform type of bees, with all the best 

 qualities, and worthy of the name of 

 the " American bee." There are sev- 

 eral sides to this question, the colorof 

 the bees being only one of them, and 

 not, to my mind, the most important. 



Hamilton, 111. 



For tlie American Bee JcHirnalL 



The Coming Bee, again. 



H. L. JEFFREY. 



The above heading seems to have 

 been talked of at every convenient 

 gathering of apiarists. It has b«en 

 used for the subject of articles from 

 the ablest apicultural writers of the 

 day, and how much nearer the goal 

 are we, either in the attainment of our 

 wished-for bee, or in the elucidation 

 of the modus operandi for obtaining 

 her V One gives one method, another, 

 or I might say all the rest, differ with 

 the first and each other in the majority 

 of points of working to attain the de- 

 sired results, and yet all agree on the 

 point tliat we must breed from our 

 best queens, or in other words, from 

 the queens of the colonies giving us 

 the best results. Then follows what 

 we may expect to get by working in 

 such a channel, or perhaps the modus 

 operandi of work or management ac- 

 cording to A, B, C or D's ideas, and 

 we follow it up, but we must not in- 

 breed at all, and still we must keep 

 getting queens from our most success- 

 ful honey producing apiarists, and 

 next, or first, we must have only pure 

 drones, or must raise drones from our 

 best stock, then comes a diverge. 

 " There is the uncontrollable drone " 

 to mate with. 



Now, and first, if we are to get our 

 drones from our best queens, or if we 

 are to raise our queens from our best 

 queen, it makes but little difference 

 which way (on paper without trial), 

 but one thing is sure, our breeding 

 colonies have got to be the best to be 

 obtained, either at home or abroad, if 

 success is ever expected in the shape 

 of perfection of the bee of ttie future. 

 But when A, 15, C or D clatni it is to 

 come from this or that hybrid stock, 

 they are talking a great deal luny ; it 

 may be a commingling of races, but 

 it will be a thoiouglibred bee and can- 

 not be a chance liybrid. It has been 

 proved by hundreds of thousands of 

 experiments that hybridism is a sure 



