122 ITALIAN BEES. 
industrious and so beautiful in color, that one finds 
real pleasure in their care. 
Some of my friends claim that the honey collected by 
the Italian is of better flavor and a nicer quality gen- 
erally, than that collected by the common bees; and 
this may be the case in some localities, where there are 
certain varieties of flowers accessible to the Italians, but 
not accessible to the natives, the latter being smaller; 
yet in my location I see no difference in the quality of 
the honey collected by the two varieties, but a great 
difference in favor of the Italians, in the quantity col- 
lected. 
But I do claim that by my New System of Bee Keep- 
ing, the surplus honey is greatly superior to that obtained 
by the old methods, both by the Italian and common bees, 
for this reason : 
By the ordinary methods of bee keeping, the bees re- 
quire the best part of the honey season to fill up the brood 
combs of their hives, or in other words to store a supply 
for their own use, but on my plan we feed the bees nearly 
all they need for their own use, then we get nearly all 
they collect from natural sources in the boxes. So we 
get the cream of the honey stored in boxes—the very 
best. 
