AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



811 



Pnnlc anil MinorcaiiBees— Explaiiatioii, 



T. -W. COWAN. 



Dear Me. Newman : — I wrote to you 

 on Nov. 13 in reference to Mr. Pratt's 

 article, headed " Some Facts About 

 Punic Bees," in your issue of Oct. 29. 

 In justice, I should like to correct an 

 error which has inadvertently crept in. 



I said : "Mr. Carr had never had or 

 seen a Punic stock in his life." This is 

 perfectly true. I also said that "not 

 one word has been written in the Record 

 about Punic bees, either editorially or 

 by any of its contributors." Now, I 

 wish to modify this statement, because 

 I find on page 74z of the Record for 

 June, 1890, this query: "What Kind 

 of a Bee is the Punic ?" The reply is : 

 "According to a Hallamshire bee-keeper 

 the Punic bee comes from North Africa. 

 It is dark in color, and from our limited 

 experience of it, is a good worker and a 

 prolific sort. We shall soon know more 

 of this bee, as persons are trying it." 



This correction is immaterial, because 

 the answer is given in general terms, 

 and not from personal experience, as the 

 context will prove to any unprejudiced 

 person. The reply there given is evi- 

 dently on the strength of Mr. Hewitt's 

 own description of these bees in the con- 

 current number of the British Bee Jour- 

 nal. From personal experience Mr. 

 Carr knew nothing, from the fact that 

 he had never had or seen a Punic stock, 

 and of so little importance did he con- 

 sider the subject, that the reference to 

 Punic bees does not even appear in the 

 index, hence the oversight on my part. 



It is not likely if Mr. Carr had been in 

 possession of a Punic stock that I should 

 have been in ignorance about it, or 

 that there would not have been some 

 allusions to this stock in the Record, 

 which is conducted by Mr. Carr. But 

 the fact is that Mr. Hewitt was the only 

 one who wrote about Panic bees, and 

 although an inquiry was made on Oct. 

 29, page 512, of the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, for results of these bees, there was 

 not a reply from any one supposed to 

 have ha(\ them. 



The very fact that there was no one to 

 speak in their favor was sufiQcient justi- 

 fication for Mr. Carr to treat the whole 

 matter as of no importance. I simply 

 make this explanation because I have 

 found the error, and so as not to give 

 others an opportunity of making capital 

 out of an unintentional oversight, al- 

 though I consider it irrelevant to the 

 main point at issue, which is the state- 



ment that Mr. Carr had a Punic stock, 

 and that this was alluded to in the June 

 Record. 



I should now like to make a remark 

 on Mr. Hewitt's article, headed "Punic 

 and Minorcan Bees," on page 660 of the 

 American Bee Journal. There he 

 alludes to an extract from the Revista 

 Apicola, appearing on page 535 of the 

 American Bee Journal. 



This extract was translated by myself, 

 and appeared in the British Bee Journal, 

 on page 445, and I have no doubt by an 

 oversight on your part it was credited to 

 the Revista instead of the British Bee 

 Journal. But what I particularly wish 

 to call attention to is that Mr. Hewitt 

 in that article states, "the editor and 

 writer of that paragraph, F. C. Andreu, 

 has several times written to the British 

 Bee Journal, etc.'' It so happens that 

 F. C. Andreu is not " the editor " nor the 

 " writer" of that article, so that all Mr. 

 "Hewitt's arguments in endeavoring to 

 discredit the writer of that article by 

 allusion to another person altogether 

 must fall to the ground. 



F. C. Andreu, alluded to, was a novice 

 in bee-keeping when he first wrote to 

 the British Bee Journal in 1886. It was 

 quite evident that he had never seen 

 Italian bees up to that time, and that he 

 mistook the light bands of thin chitine 

 between the segments, when the abdo- 

 mens are distended, for the classic 

 bands. He also explains that he 

 had never seen Carniolans, and, conse- 

 quently, when he received a Carniolan 

 queen, accompanied by black bees, he 

 naturally did not know that they were 

 not Carniolans, hence he thought that 

 they resembled Minorcan bees. 



Several years have elapsed since 1886, 

 so that Mr. Andreu, who was a pupil of 

 the British Bee Journal at that time, has 

 had ample time to become thoroughly 

 acquainted with the race of that coun- 

 try, as well as with others. 



Mr. Hewitt says : " It is hardly fair 

 to quote as 'good authority' a writer who 

 can make so many mistakes in the mat- 

 ter." This is misleading, because F. C. 

 Andreu was not quoted as "good 

 authority." The editor of the Revista 

 ^picoirt is quite another person, and is 

 D. Francesco F. Andreu, and he, I pre- 

 sume, is the writer of that article. This 

 gentleman has shown by the way he 

 conducts his paper, and the articles he 

 writes, that he can be considered "good 

 authority," and I would recommend you 

 to read an article of his on the subject, 

 on page 298 of the Revista for Oct. 15, 

 1891. 



Since 1888 I have had greater experi- 



