AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.. 



701 



Topics o! Interest. 



Qnalities of tlie Punic, or African, Bee, 



'A HALLAMSHIRE BEE-KEEPER. 



So much has been said pro and con 

 about the "Coming bee," to be called 

 Apis Americano, the qualities it is to 

 possess, etc., that many will be surprised 

 to learn that a bee has been found, that 

 excels anything ever predicted in the 

 coming American wonder. 



The name of this bee is the Punic bee 

 — Apis Niger. It is ebony black in color, 

 and is a smaller bee than our native 

 blacks, or the Italians ; there are no 

 bands or marks of any kind on it ; young 

 bees are the color of green ebony, shad- 

 ing off to true raw ebony when begin- 

 ning to field, and finishing off to polished 

 black ebony when old, and all hairs are 

 worn off them. Their qualities are : 



1. They are the tamest bees so far 

 known, the only time when it is pos- 

 sible to get them to sting, being when 

 they have the swarming fever. 



2. In crossing with other races, this 

 docile quality is very marked, not even 

 Cyprian blood being able to make them 

 bad tempered. 



3. They are the hardiest bees known, 

 being able to fly from and return to their 

 hives with safety with snow on the 

 ground, and mercury 30^^ above zero. 



4. They do not fly into the.snow like 

 other bees. 



5. They begin work at the "peep of 

 day," and before the sun rises they are 

 working in full force, and have the 

 ground picked over before other kinds 

 are on the move. Probably this is the 

 chief reason why they get more honey 

 than any others. 



6. If the day is rather dull, or cool, 

 they will be working in full force, 

 though no other kind of bees will be 

 flying. 



7. The queens are very prolific. 



8. In a fair season the smallest nucleus 

 will build up, without feeding, into a 

 grand colony for Winter. So much is 

 this " building up " quality present in 

 them, that a good, strong colony can be 

 divided into 20 at the end of May, and 

 each will build up in a good season, with- 

 out feeding, into a 10-frame colony w^ell 

 stored for Winter, and yield one or two 

 20-pound supers of honey from the 

 heather. 



9. They beat every other kind of bees 

 in their working energies. 



10. They live longer than any others. 



11. They fill and seal sections fuller, 

 and cap them whiter than any other 

 race. 



12. For extracted-honey, they have 

 no equal. 



13. They can eat the hardest and 

 dryest sugar ; in fact, they will carry 

 away the hardest and dryest sugar loaf 

 (when no honey is to.be had) put under 

 a shed and kept as dry as possible ; thus 

 reducing the trouble of Summer, Spring 

 or Winter feeding to a lower point than 

 has ever been considered possible. 



14. Although they search out sweets 

 and carry them off anywhere, they are 

 not inclined to rob other hives — honesty, 

 being with them, a ruling guide or 

 principle. 



15. They swarm earlier than any 

 others. 



16. They fill cracks or chinks with an 

 enormous quantity of propolis, and if 

 natural supplies fail, nothing " sticky" 

 comes amiss, e. g., bird-lime, coal tar, 

 etc. Some may deny that this a desir- 

 able quality, but with it they keep their 

 combs clean, and thus make anything do 

 for hives— even baskets. 



17. They cluster well on their combs, 

 spread evenly over them, and shake off 

 readily. 



18. They build little drone-comb, but 

 plenty of worker, as white as snow. 



To sum up, they are docile bee's, hard- 

 working, prolific, non-robbing; easy to 

 handle, and best for nice, white, well- 

 filled sections. 



They have very many more good 

 points that are more in favor of the 

 queen-breeder, horticulturists, etc., than 

 the honey producers ; these being the 

 parties to appreciate the bee that does 

 not sting, and will build up from 1 to 

 20, and possibly yield 1,000 pounds of 

 surplus honey. 



They also have the following charac- 

 teristics : If a pure-blooded-queen mates 

 with a drone of any other race, her bees 

 are a Mend of the two races, and though 

 better than the race mated to, are not 

 so good as pure. This seems an invari- 

 able rule, as in no instance have I had 

 them as good as the pure race — crossing 

 every other race, in my experience, re- 

 sults in a better bee, taken all around. 



If a pure Punic drone mates with a 

 queen of any other race, the resulting 

 bees almost equal pure Punics for honey 

 gathering, and in other respects the 

 cross is very marked — Carniolans, for 

 instance, using propolis as much as pure 

 Punics. 



So that, taking them all around, I fail 

 to see how mixing any of the blood of 



