26 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 



black, cross and poor winterers. South of these is a belt of gray, 

 gentle bees, the Carniolans, Dalmatians, Banaters, and Caucasians. 

 Farther south all of these races are increasingly yellow and have 

 their gentle temperaments somewhat modified. South of this belt 

 is a yellow belt, closely typified by the Italians and the Cyprians. 

 East and to the south again are found cross, propolis gathering, and 

 very excitable bees, the extreme types being the Egyptians and the 

 Tunisians. 



There remains yet to be discussed a very successful bee pro- 

 duced by crossing and known as the Cyprio-Carniolan bees. This 

 cross is made by mating daughters of pure Cyprian queens to drones 

 of Carniolan blood. It has been found that the male bee carries the 

 temperament and the queen bee the honey gathering and the pro- 

 lific characteristics. This cross unites the desirable qualities of the 

 Carniolans with the great prolific and honey gatherng powers of 

 the Cyprians, and thus produces a strain most valuable from a com- 

 mercial standpoint. A practical difficulty in growing these bees is 

 that the type has not been established, and breeding from the 

 second generation and the third generation results disastrously, in 

 that the progeny revert to the original characters and do not breed 

 true. This necessitates continuous breeding from pure stock. 



BEES AND FLOWERS HONEY PRODUCING PLANTS 



One of the most fascinating. things in nature is the study of 

 the inter-dependence of flowers and insects, more especially the 

 bees. How many of us in our daily rounds stop to think why all 

 the unfolding of beauty displayed by the little flower at our feet? 

 Why these bright variegated colors and all this fragrance and these 

 stores of sweets? Is it a startling statement to say that these things 

 displayed by the flower, that this banquet spread, are for the insects, 

 for the humming bees that pass by unheeded or shunned by the 

 majority of us all? How we may well envy the little busy fellows as 

 they musically ply their way, flying from place to place on the 

 bright spring days, in among these gorgeous flowers ! 



Ecology, the science of the relation of insects to their environ- 

 ment, and botany tell us that the flowers through a long process 

 of natural selection, have developed these bright colors for the pur- 

 pose of attracting insect visitors which, in turn, render the flower 

 a valuable service as will be seen later. Many flowers in addition 



