GETTING THE BEES. 
CHAPTER V. 
There is no phase of beekeeping that the beginner regards with more 
apprehension than the difficulties and problems in securing his first bees. 
What Kind to Get. 
In choosing a strain of bees, select the Italians, always recognizable by 
at least three yellow bands on the forward segments of the abdomen. There 
may be five such bands on the strain known as “goldens.” The other strains 
(not quite so handsome) are called “leather-colored.” Race and heredity 
are all in favor of the Italians. They are the easiest of all bees to work 
with, being prolific, gentle, very active, very industrious, handsomest of 
all bees, most resistant to disease and enemies, and have the longest tongues 
for gathering honey. We shall not consider the German or black bees (the 
original stock brought to America), Carniolans, Cyprians, Caucasians, ete. 
However, the beginner is likely to have some experience with hybrid bees, 
which are usually a cross between the black and the Italian bees. A hybrid 
colony may, during the summer, be changed in less than three months to 
pure Italian by giving the half-breed colony a purely mated Italian queen. 
(See Requeening,” page 96.) 
The Easiest and Safest Way to Buy Bees. 
In getting his first bees the beginner will find it most satisfactory and 
easiest to buy a good full colony in a standard movable-frame hive. Al- 
though this way of getting the first bees is the most expensive method, yet 
there is good authority for saying that it will prove cheapest in the end. 
They will cost less in the middle and late summer. A local beekeeper: will 
perhaps sell a beginner such a colony; or the full colonies (or packages of 
bees) can be secured from dealers in bees and queens or from beekeepers’ 
supply houses. They will cost most if bought from a distant dealer. 
When the full colony has been received by the beginner, all he has to 
do is to remove from the hive any screens that may have been used in 
moving the bees and place the hive on its permanent location, open the 
entrance, and let the bees go to work. Jt is assumed that the colony has a 
good laying queen, and that in the brood-frames (the frames in the brood- 
chamber) are some stores of honey and some brood in all stages of devel- 
opment, as well as worker bees covering practically all the comb surface 
of the ten frames. (If honey stores are lacking, and the bees chance to be 
received when the weather is cold and wet, or when the bees can find no 
nectar in their flights, artificial feeding must be resorted to. See “Method 
of Feeding,” page 100.) The bees should have sufficient food to last en 
until they begin gathering nectar. 
2s 
