and tts Economic Management. 53 
There is as much variation in the honey gathering 
qualities of different races of bees as there is in the 
milking characteristics of distinct types of dairy cattle. 
But there is also a vast difference in the output of 
colonies of bees of the same race ; and it is solely by 
selection in breeding from the best, or by purchasing 
from the best known strains, that the highest success 
can be assured. 
CHAPTER IV. 
VARIETIES OF BEES. 
THEIR CHARACTER AND DISPOSITION. 
Sf evs time to time, throughout a lengthened experi- 
ae 
ence, the Author has seen various foreign races of 
bees tried and discarded after a short period of 
popularity. Someone had found “something fresh” that 
somebody else had tried and discarded many years before. 
In this list will be found North African bees, Caucassians 
and Banats of similar derivation, Carniolans, Goldens, 
Cyprians and Syrians; none of which appear to be 
superior to the Ligurian varieties for general purposes. 
In the United States the Italian or Ligurian bee is 
almost universally adopted, and the bee-keepers of that 
vast range of honey producing States nearly always come 
back to this variety as the most reliable, for all purposes of 
profit, and because of their amiable disposition. 
Jn Great Britain opinion is divided about equally over 
the choice of Italians and so-called natives, which latter 
now largely owe their superiority to the constant infusion 
of Italian blood all over the land. 
