THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW 371 



work in those days — the making or brewing of honey wine, a fav- 

 orite and delicious drink, and the rendering of beeswax. In the 

 cool kitchen would stand a row of brown earthenware pans into 

 which the honey dripped from cheesecloth bags, hung from a raft- 

 er in the low ceiling. 



The whole place would reek deliciously with the honey smell. 

 Ah, there was a joy to beekeeping then, in spite of the difficulties, 

 which were soon forgotten when the draining part was over. 



We love to think of the old bee gardens of the country-side — 

 sunny nooks of blossoms where the hives stood year in and year 

 out amidst such confusion of flowers as can scarce be imagined. 

 But the years come and go, and with them have passed much that 

 was treasured by the old time skeppist; little indeed being left us 

 to keep green the memories of ancient beekeeping in the days 

 gone by. 



Are Italians Hybrids ? 



O. H. TOWNSEND, Otsego, Michigan. 



I was very much interested in the picture of Mr. Howe's home 

 apiary shown in a late issue of the Review, as well as his writings 

 in connection with it. I agree with him that it pays well to look to 

 the improvement of our stock of bees, especially should our queens 

 be reared from the kind that are given to storing honey, instead 

 of those prone to swarming. But where he makes the statement 

 that the "Italians are hybrids to start with" I have to disagree 

 with him. He also says that he "never saw a queen of what we call 

 pure Italian blood, but what would show a variation in her drones 

 and queens." Well I have seen and owned such queens, that is 

 those that did not show such variation, and have also received 

 queens from Italy that were decidedly impure. 



I also received three queens direct from Carniola, Austria, 

 only one of which seemed pure, for two of them showed some yel- 

 low bands, while the other one was the true steel gray color, the 

 bees of this one were very fine, and of much better disposition than 

 were those that showed the yellow bands. 



The three band test for purity in the Italian is a very poor 

 test indeed, as the workers may all show three and some more 

 than three bands, and yet be impure. In fact the bands may be 

 there on all the bees from queens of known impurity, just as Mr. 

 Howe states, but I never saw any such bees of as good disposition 

 as the really pure Italians. The drones from queens of just a dash 



