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Wisconsin Bulletin 264 



There are two varieties of Italian bees^leather colored 

 and five banded or Golden Italians. Of late years the former 

 are more generally preferred as honey gatherers and because 

 they possess greater resistance to European foul-brood. 1 he 

 Carniolan bees are gray, whereas the Italian bees are yellow 

 very hardy, working in the field longer than other races of 

 bees are gentle, resist wax moths well and the queens are 

 extremely prohfic. They are noted for abundance of swarm- 

 ing. The Caucasian bees are dark colored, but not as black 

 as the common black or German bee. They are noted for 

 glueing up hive and frames with beeglue or propolis and sec- 



FIG. 4. — THE HONEY BEE FAMILY 



Every normal colony of honey bees is made of three classes- (a) workers; (b) the 

 ciueeli; and (c) drones. 



tions of comb honey require much cleaning so that at present 

 compared with the Italians they seem an undesirable race 

 of bees. 



The Different Members of a Colony 



A normal colony of bees during the summer is composed of 

 one queen, many thousand workers, and several hundred 

 drones. The queen bee is the only perfectly developed female 

 bee, she being practically an egg laying machine capable of 

 laying from a few daily, in the spring and fall, to over 2,000 

 daily during the height of the brood rearing season. She 

 has little if anything to do with the government of the colony, 

 but is the most essential individual for its existence, and it 

 has been truthfully stated that about the queen hinges all 



