MANUAL OF APICULTURE. 
CHAPTER I. 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE HONEY BEE 
THE DIFFERENT SPECIES AND RACES. 
A knowledge of the structural peculiarities and the life history of 
bees will aid anyone who essays to manage them for profit in deter- 
mining more accurately what conditions are necessary to their greatest 
welfare. It is not to be understood that such knowledge will take the 
place of an acquaintance with those conditions under which actual 
practice has shown that bees thrive, but that it forms a good basis for 
an understanding of whatever practice has found best in the manage- 
ment of these industrious and profitable insects. It will also assist in 
pointing out in what wa}^ practice can be improved. 
In a small treatise like the present one, the object of which is to give 
in plain language the information needed by one who engages in bee 
keeping primarily for profit, it is not possible to do more than present 
a mere outline of classification and a few general facts regarding struc- 
ture. The reader who finds them interesting and valuable in his work 
is reminded that the treatment of these matters in more extended 
volumes, such as Langstroth's, Cheshire's, etc., will be found far more so. 
Singling out from the order Hymenoptera, or membranous-winged 
insects, the family Apida?, or bee family, several marked types called 
genera are seen to compose it, such as Apis (the hive bee), Bombus (the 
bumble bee), Xylocopa (the carpenter bee), Megachile (the leaf-cutter), 
Melipona (the stingless honey bee of the American tropics), etc. All 
of these are very interesting to study, and each fulfills a purpose in 
the economy of nature; but the plan of these pages can only be to con- 
sider the first genus, Apis, or the hive bee. Incidentally it may be 
mentioned that the plan of introducing the stingless bees {Melipona) 
from tropical America has frequently been brought up with the expec- 
tation of realizing important practical results from it. These bees 
might possibly be kept in the warmer portions of our country, but their 
honey yield is small, not well ripened, and not easily harvested in good 
shape, since the honey cells are of dark wax. like that made by our 
bumble bees, and they are not arranged in regular order, but in irregular 
clumps like those of bumble bees. The writer had a colony under obser- 
vation last year, and experiments have been made with them in their 
native lands as well as in European countries. Of the genus Apis the 
only representative in this country is melli/era, although several others 
are natives of Asia and Africa. 
11 
