416 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



D« 



Nice are black and the change from 

 blacks to Italians is gradual from Os- 

 pedaletti to Genoa. North of these 

 mountains the lues are pure Italian, 

 as they arc in the entire peninsula, 

 owing to the sea and the snow-cov- 

 ered mountains which form the fron- 

 tiers of Italy, except in very narrow 

 valleys. 



After 4 years of cultivation of the 

 Italian bees, Dzierzon wrote: "This 

 race of bees is still industrious, as 

 beautiful and as docile, as it was the 

 first season. Nay, in several of my 

 colonies, as the result of careful 

 breeding, it is even handsomer; be- 

 cause all the workers have now pre- 

 cisely the same color and markings. 

 The queens are, for the most part, 

 also brighter colored than the one I 

 procured from Italy, as I invariably 

 use the brood of the handsomest and 

 most fertile queens for multiplying." 

 He was evidently already following 

 the methods of our breeders, who us- 

 ually select the brightest queens for 

 breeders. It is well, provided we do 

 not neglect the other qualities which 

 ought to be the first considered. 



The first Italian bees that reached 

 this continent alive were imported, 

 fr..m Dzierzon's apiary, in Germany, 

 by Mr. Samuel Wagner, himself of 

 German descent, in association with 

 Richard Colvin, of Baltimore, in 1859. 

 In 1860, S. P. Parsons, of Flushing, 

 X. Y., imported the first Italian bees 

 direct from Italy. These were im- 

 ported in full colonies. Wm. G. Rose 

 and Mr. Colvin a little later made ad- 

 ditional importations from Dzier- 

 zon's apiary, and so did Mr. Lang- 

 stroth in 1863 and 1864. 



Adam Grimm, of Wisconsin, was 

 the first man to import largely from 

 Italy direct, or rather from Italian 

 Switzerland. In 1867, he went to his 

 birthplace in Germany, visited Mr. 

 Dathe, an expert in the cultivation 

 of Italian bees, at Eystrup, near 

 Hanover. He had brought with him 

 a couple of nuclei hives of American- 



bred Italians, which when compared 

 with the German-bred Italians were 

 found to be equally beautiful. 



In his letters to the American Bee 

 Journal, published in that year, he 

 narrates how, in traveling from Ger- 

 many, through Switzerland, to Ital- 

 ian Switzerland, he passed through a 

 region in which no bees could live. 

 He wrote : 



"I may remark here that while 

 crossing the St. Bernard, I made con- 

 stant inquiry about bees, and found 

 the last of the black race at Zising. 

 A stage of 4 hours brought us to 

 Splugen, where I was told there were 

 no bees, the climate being too cold 

 and rough for them. After another 

 stage of 4 hours we reached the sum- 

 mit of the road across the Alps at 

 this pass, and saw a peak elevated 

 only about 300 feet higher, covered 

 with perpetual snow. Vegetation was 

 sparse at the foot of the mountain 

 and along the roadsides; and I am 

 well convinced that no swarm of bees 

 ever voluntarily passed across this 

 mountain chain. After a brief de- 

 tention on the highest point, we be- 

 gan to descend, and in S hours 

 reached Bellinzona, situated about ,i 

 miles from Lake Maggiore." 



His purchase of bees was made 

 from Professor Mona, a noted writer 

 on bees and extensive beekeeper, at 

 that time, of Italian Switzerland. 

 Grimm's letters from there confirm 

 the fact already known that the Ital- 

 ian bees in their native country are 

 not so bright in color as the foreign- 

 bred. He wrote : 



"On my remarking that the darker 

 queens would be pronounced impure 

 in Germany, Professor Mona and Mr. 

 Uhle, a German from Hanover, 

 laughed and said the yellow queens 

 were the exception, the darker ones 

 having the normal hue. . . In Ger- 

 many, however, the brighter queens 

 are preferred, though Mona himself 

 was of the impression that these are 

 really not :o hardy or long-lived as 



the darker. When I observed that 

 some German apiarians alleged that 

 the Italian bees are not altogether 

 pure, even in their native land, but 

 that, there, too, black bees were oc- 

 casionally found, he offered to carry 

 me around among the neighboring 

 farmers in a circuit of several 

 leagues, and promised to give me a 

 dozen queens if I succeeded in find- 

 ing a single living black bee in all 

 their stock. I accepted the offer, 

 rather from curiosity than from any 

 expectation of success. Between 9 

 o'clock in the morning and 10 o'clock 

 in the evening we visited a number 

 of apiaries and examined the bees, 

 without detecting the least variation 

 in color or finding a single black 

 bee." 



One hundred Italian queens were 

 brought over at that time, by Grimm. 

 Five years later, Chas. Dadant made 

 a special trip to Italy for the same 

 purpose. He failed in bringing more 

 than 20 queens alive. But he there 

 learned the essentials of transporta- 

 tion. In 1874 he secured some 400 

 queens from Giuseppe Fiorini, of 

 Monselice, near Venice. Thereafter 

 importations were regularly made by 

 himself, A. I. Root and numerous 

 others. 



Honey proved less healthy, as food 

 in transit, than sugar syrup or candy, 

 although the light grades were not 

 injurious. The dark honeys almost 

 always caused diarrhea in the bees 

 in transit. Very young bees did not 

 prove as hardy as the active field 

 bees, though the younger bees among 

 the latter are best. Low tempera- 

 tures, below 60 degrees F., in spring 

 or fall, caused many a package of 

 bees to die from chill. Lack of air is 

 also a stumbling block, when bees 

 are confined for a week in one spot 

 in mail sacks. To import bees safely, 

 there ought to be interoceanic regu- 

 lations directing them to be kept in 

 some special repository, as live ani- 

 mals. 



Water, which some people assert 

 is indispensable to bees in summer, is 

 entirely unnecessary unless they 

 have brood, or unless the food sup- 

 plied is too dry, such as hard candy 

 or dry sugar. Pollen is decidedly 

 injurious, especially if floating in the 

 honey supplied for transit, as it loads 

 their abdomens unnecessarily. 



Although the Italian bee is now 

 very common in the United States, it 

 will be advisable to continue impor- 

 tations, in order to renovate our 

 stock and maintain in our bees the 

 high qualities of the original Italian 

 I ) e c s . 



Colonics in the open of same strength average about one more super than those in the 

 shade. Apiary of Ch .s Macklin, Morrison, 111. 



Another Short-Food Christmas 



Bj Marv G, Philips 



MERRY Christmasl What vis- 

 ion-, and memories that greet- 

 ing immediately brings Up I 

 Different memories for each of US, to 

 be sure, and yet with a golden thread 

 of similarity running through the 

 fabrii of the dream of our past 

 Vmerican Christmases that makes 

 out hearts warm whenever we hear 

 the familiar words, "Merry Christ- 

 mas!" We all have in common, of 

 course, the marvelous Christmas 



