388 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Noii-Progresslve Bee-Keeper. 



MItS. A. M. SANDERS. 



1 a'poPB all these progrcBsive folks 



With their pulent hives and lotions, 

 Call me a stiff old fogy, 



X'ause I don't adopt their notions : 

 I've kept liees niu'h on forty years. 



And yet these Yankee nobbies 

 Think tliey can teach me something new. 



With their new-fangled hobbies. 



They say they've got some kind of thing— 



I guess they call extractor— 

 That slings the honey from the combs : 



And, then, it is a fact, sir. 

 They'll drain the honey from the cells 



Then let the bees reflll it. 

 And almost every day or two 



They'll go and rob and steal it. 



I give my bees the first best chance 



To niiikf their nwn frei- living, 

 Then take whatever tliey have left, 



And ttitmk them for the giving ; 

 And then they've got a patent stove 



That, when they choose to make it. 

 Will pour a mess of stifling smoke 



Into the bees-" plague take it." 



I have been told they melt up wax. 



And call it comb foundation ; 

 And qnilts, and clamps, and other sorts 



Of fools' congionierations. 

 They've got to swindle honest folks. 



And get their hard-earned money, 

 With striped bees and hives that hold 



Two liundred pounds of honey. 



When yon have lived as many years 



As I. I think you'll see 

 That patent hives are not the things 



That tiiey're cracked-up to be : 

 Those monstrous yields of honey 



l^'rom one hive they receive- 

 Well, I want to see it 'fore 



I say that I believe. 



I stick to my old hemlock gums. 



Without chaff or any fixtures : 

 And I don't have to feed my bees 



With flour and glucose mixtures. 

 But 1 suppose the world will move 



On in the siime old way. 

 For swindlers ttiey will advertise 



And make their business pay. 

 Sheridan, Mich. 



Bienenzeituna (German). 



My Opinion of Cypri<aii Bees. 



JOHANN STAHALA. 



Altliougli requested by several par- 

 ties to publish my opinion of Cyprian 

 bees in the columns of the Bienenzeit- 

 ung, I did not like to do so, until I had 

 well tried this race of bees in my 

 apiary. But now I feel myself in duty 

 bound to make my opinion public. 

 Count Kolowrat, to whose kindness I 

 am indebted for having my entire 

 apiary alive with genuine Cyprian 

 bees in their most perfect purity and 

 beauty, wrote to me in the spring of 

 1877 as follows : 



"To you, right reverend sir, having 

 grown in our love and esteem as the 

 author of many sterling articles on 

 apiculture, I recommend my golden 

 child, with the ardent desire that you 

 will judge of it without prejudice, 

 and that when the time comes you 

 will inform me of your experience 

 with it, be it good, or the opposite 

 from it." 



If any bee-keeper who possesses 

 scarcely one genuine or hybrid colony 

 of Cyprians, may permit himself to 

 judge thereby of the entire Cyprian 

 race, then I think it will be admissa- 



ble for me to do so, as I have had, 

 during the last two years, a great 

 many Cyprian colonies in my apiarv. 

 For in the previous year I had 71 

 Cyprian-hybrid colonies, with one 

 genuine, and in the present year 1 

 had in the summer 87 strong Cyprian 

 colonies in my bee-garden, and after 

 removing the hybiitl colonies, I have 

 ready for wintering 73 colonies of pure 

 Cyprians ; and as several bee-keepers 

 in my neighborhood brought last sum- 

 mer a number of small colonies into 

 my bee-yard, to have Cyprian queen 

 cells placed in them, and the young 

 queens fertilized by my Cyprian 

 drones, tlie number of Cyprian queens 

 tliat were altogether reared tliis year 

 in my bee-garden reached up to 108. 

 From tills it may be seen that oppor- 

 tunities enough were offered me to 

 test tlie qualities of the Cyprian-hy- 

 brid bees, as well as those of the pure 

 Cyprians. As certain as I was hist 

 year, that all of the colonies in my 

 garden, with the exception of one, 

 were Cyprian-hybrids, just as certain 

 am I now, that my Cyprian queens of 

 this year, with very few exceptions, 

 have been fertilized purely Cyprian. 



Count Kolowrat, when even the 

 purity of his Cyprian bees was ques- 

 tioned and the assertion was made, 

 that his apiary, too, was lilled 

 throughout with hybrids, sent last 

 summer for a fresh colony of Cyp- 

 rians, and, through the kindness of 

 that gentleman, was it made possible 

 for me to rear my (jueens of this year 

 from the brood of the recently-arrived 

 original queen, and, as my apiary 

 stands quite isolated, for, in tlie town 

 I live, and in the surrounding vil- 

 lages no bees are kept, my queens of 

 the present year, with few exceptions, 

 were purely fertilized. 



Following this introduction, I will 

 now describe the bees tliemselves. 

 The Cyprian bees are similar to the 

 Italians, but have many distinctive 

 marks, iiy which they plainly d-ffer 

 from the Italian bees, and those are : 



1. The true characteristic or essen- 

 tial mark of distinction, by which, ac- 

 cording to my experience, a pure 

 Cyprian colony can be distinguished 

 from an Italian is this, that all pure 

 Cyprians, without any exceptions, are 

 more or less yellow on the lower part 

 of their liind bodies, changing into 

 black at the point of the body, while 

 the Italians— even the handsomest— 

 are entirely black upon the lower 

 part of their body. Some of the pure 

 Cyprian colonies have such beautiful 

 yellow workers, that only the extreme 

 point of the body appears black, and 

 the yellow part underneath their bod- 

 ies looks as glossy as if covered with 

 a coat of varnish, and for this reason 

 one can recognize tliem immediately 

 as Cyprians, when noticing any of 

 them crawling over the glass near the 

 entrance, even when several paces 

 away from them. But if bees are 

 found among a colony that are coal 

 black upon the lower part of the body, 

 then it is a Cyprian-hybrid colony, 

 even when the remainder of the 

 workers have the marks of the Cyp- 

 rians, and are perhaps more beauti- 

 ful yet, than the workers of a pure 

 Cyprian colony. For a few of my 



hybrid queens from last year had such 

 beautiful workers, that a layman 

 would have pronounced them as gen- 

 uine ; but they could not be genuine, 

 for neither myself nor anybody else 

 in my neighborhood owned any Cyp- 

 rian drones. I^ast year, a larger or 

 smaller part of my workers in all the 

 hives were black ; this year I cannot 

 find a single black bee among my 

 Cyprians. 



2. Pure Cyprian workers are some- 

 what smaller, slender, like a wasp, 

 tlieir bodies ending in a sharp point. 



,S. Tlie hair-growth of the genuine 

 Cyprian bee, especially upon the 

 breast, is a light yellow, and of a 

 lighter shade tLan that of the Italian. 



4. The first 2 rings of the hind body 

 are orange-colored, and these rings 

 are yellow the entire width, while 

 among the Italians, many workers 

 are found that have only two narrow 

 yellow stripes, and sometimes only 

 one. 



5. The last white rings of the hind 

 part of the Cyprian workers are 

 broader than those of the Italian, be- 

 cause the small, white hairs forming 

 these rings are longer. 



6. Tlie Cyprian bees have between 

 the wings, "in the center of the little 

 bacl^ilate, a yellow spot, which I have 

 never found to be of such a liglit yel- 

 low on the Italians ; but the color of 

 this spot is not of the same shade on 

 all the bees, on some it is a little 

 darker. 



7. The genuine Cyprian bees seal 

 the combs, especially tliose of an older 

 date, strikingly ash-grey, while the 

 Italians seal brown. 



8. The increase of the Cyprian 

 workers, the pure as well as the hy- 

 brids, is multitudinous in the spring. 

 I have never noticed such an increase, 

 neither among the domestic nor 

 among the Italian bees, which latter 

 are by all means superior to the do- 

 mestic in increasing. All that visited 

 my apiary expressed their surprise 

 over the gigantic colonies which I 

 was able to show to them last spring. 

 I, for this reason, was compelled to 

 divide many colonies, and had to form 

 nuclei, and from those undivided I 

 had to take several sealed brood 

 combs, so as to create space. But I 

 furnished to my bees neither flour, 

 nor milk, nor eggs, as artificial food. 

 Among my Cyprian colonies I noticed 

 not as much inclination to swarm as 

 is the case with Carniolan bees. Only 

 3 natural swarms did I receive this 

 summer, while other bee-keepers in 

 this locality had a great many natural 

 swarms. It is possible and even 

 probable that, if I had not divided the 

 strongest colonies, and had not taken 

 away from the otiiers so many brood 

 combs, I would have had more natural 

 swarms. 



The natural consequence of this ex- 

 traordinary strong increase of the 

 workers in the spring, is, that the 

 Cyprian bees gatlier more honey in 

 the suniiuer than any other bee I know 

 of ; for where there are many work- 

 ers, much can be accomplished. 



This superiority of the Cyprian 

 workers, so highly important to the 

 practice, did not escape the keen 

 sense of observation of Count Kolo- 



