and Us Economic Management. 45 



Some writers have given their experience as being very 

 unfavourable with Cyprians, considering them vindictive and 

 difficult to winter. They have faults, of course, such as beings 

 prone to develop fertile .workers, and using much propolis^f 

 but all the stocks I have had could be handled at any time 

 without jptimidation ; and as to wintering, the fault appears^ 

 to be rather in the bee-keeper than the bees themselves. If the 

 queen is not inserted into a colony too late in the season, and 

 the stores are given at the proper time, these bees will winter 

 not worse, but-better than many others. When I say that I 

 have had Cyprians hatched in August and September, con- 

 tinue in good health until the following June, it will be 

 admitted that there is not much wrong with them f and- this 

 happened in the most protracted winter we have experienced, 

 for many years. 



SYRIANS. 



These are, in appearance, much like the foregoing, though, 

 of a darker shade, and sometimes are not so well marked as 

 .Ligurians, though always yellow on the underside of the. 

 abdomen. Instead of having cream-coloured bands of hair 

 like Cyprians, these have corresponding bars of a bluish white 

 colour, much like the Albinos bred from an. oif-shoot of the. 

 Ligurian variety. While some condemn these as utterly 

 unmanageable, others claim that they have many valuable, 

 qualities. 



I have found among them queens producing workers 

 almost unmanageable, while a larger number gave bees that 

 could be handled like flies. How misleading, then, is it for 

 persons who possessing only one — or perhaps two — queens,, 

 which upon throwing irritable workers, are induced to cpn- 

 demn the entire race, and thus prevent many from obtaining 

 what would prove a really valuable acquisition. The whole 

 matter resolves itself simply into this — select those of gentle 

 disposition and breed only from such, destroying any queen 

 which throws disagreeable bees. 



