rni'. tiEE-KJUJEFEHS REVIEW. 



329 



eliiiin its legal aud just riglits. Will Mr. 

 McKtiight do the late aud lamented Mr. 

 Triiigle the injustice to insinuate that he ( Mr. 

 Friugle ) was in accord with him in op- 

 posing the Pure Honey Bill V Mr. Fringle, 

 though he did not take an active part on 

 either side (/((/ not oppoai' the Bill. But at 

 Stratford he advised the meeting to go on 

 and secure the Act. 



In closing this too long letter I will say. 

 it is pleasing to note the many kind words 

 that have been spoken concerning the late 

 Mr. Fringle. 



F. S. I had decided to withdraw from 

 the (J. B. K. A., but I have been so stirred 

 up in the Review that I shall double my 

 efforts to make the Association all it should 

 be. The practice indulged in by one party 

 only, of dragging into our meetings personal 

 grievances, works mischief every time : let 

 us have peace and harmony at onr next 

 meeting. 



Belmont, Ont., Can. Oct. 2, IWIC. 



Notes From Foreign Bee Journals. 



F. Ij. THOMPSON. 



WHY did Cheshire say it is in the very 

 nature Of things impossible to hybrid- 

 iz3 our hive bees with Apis Dorsata f If 

 he meant to imply that hybrids are not 

 fruitful, that is a rule with exceptions — very 

 many in the plant world, and some among 

 animals, and even among the higher ani- 

 mals. Haeckel, in his History of Creation, 

 mentions the hare-rabbit, many generations 

 of which have been bred in France since 

 1S")0 for gastronomic purposes. They ap- 

 pear to propagate themselves through many 

 generations by being bred with one another, 

 just as well as any genuine species. Hybrids 

 of sheep and goats are also fruitful 

 ( providing the sire is a goat and the dam a 

 sheep ), though these two species belong to 

 different genera. They have long been 

 bred in Chili for industrial purposes. 



Haeckel also says : " In the year 141l», a 

 few rabbits, born on board ship of a tame 

 Spanish rabbit, were put on the island of 

 Forto Santo, near Madeira. ... In the 

 course of four hundred and fifty years they 

 have developed into a (juite peculiar variety 

 — 3r if you will have it, into a 'good 

 species'— which is distinguished l)y a pecu- 

 liar color, a rat-like shape, small size, noc- 



turnal life, and extraordinary wildness. 

 The most important fact, however, is that 

 this new species, which I call Lfpus lluxleyi, 

 no longer pairs with its European parent 

 rab'?it. " A parallel case, except in the last 

 characteristic, is furnished by the bee of 

 Madagascar {Apis iinivolnr ), if we make 

 the assumption, whicli is a very probable 

 one, that it originally came from the main- 

 land of Africa. But the special bearing of 

 this, for us, is on the undoubted ditterences 

 which exist between the black bees of this 

 country and of Europe. I first saw a sug- 

 gestion of this from the pen of M. Bertrand, 

 in his comments on Mr. Benton's assertion 

 of the superiority of the Italian bee : and 

 since then have repeatedly noticed, in foreign 

 journals, that competent bee-keepers con- 

 sider the black bee to be fully the equal of 

 the Italian, in the north of Europe. Very 

 few in this country venture to make the 

 same claim for our black bee. lu addition, 

 I am assured by an experienced (jerman 

 bee-keeper that the black bees here have 

 distinctly different traits from the German 

 bees in Germany, particularly in the matter 

 of gentleness (excepting the heath bees, 

 which are cross. ) Those interested in es- 

 tablishing a strain of hybrids might find it 

 profitable to import a few German queens. 



The thin feed remedy for May sickness 

 has been tried here by the Rauchfuss Bros, 

 entirely without success. Especially this 

 year, the bees became so disheartened that 

 they paid very little attention to the feeder 

 or to chances to rob. 



CoNDUiTE DU RticHEK.— Vogel has observ- 

 ed that the temper of bees is inherited on 

 the paternal side; so that a black queen 

 fertlized by an Italian drone ought to have a 

 gentler progeny than an Italian queen fer- 

 tilized by a black drone. 



In speaking of this manual of apiculture I 

 have, of course, only selected for mention a 

 few of the points which are most striking on 

 account of their novelty or need for empha- 

 sis. It remains to charaterize it as a whole. 

 It is a book of 288 pages, giving plain instruc- 

 tions for the practical conduct of an apiary, 

 arranged according to months, with special 

 chapters on tools and hives. The difficult 

 task of clearly telling an intelligent begin- 

 ner just as much as he needs to know has 

 been accomplished with remarkable success, 

 and the instructions themselves are 

 thoroughly sound ( making some reserva- 

 tion on the subject of foul brood ). Without 



