74 
ITALIAN BEES. 
Having now had an experience of several years with Italian 
bees, spending much of our time in the apiary, rearing queens, 
we find them to possess the following points of superiority over 
the common black bee : 
Their individual strength being greater, they fly with less 
fatigue and are more active and successful in defending their 
stores against both the moth-miller and robber bees. They gather 
honey — especially when other sources fail — from iron weed, this- 
tle and other flowers which are seldom visited by the black bees, 
working quite freely upon the seed crop of red clover, when 
other late forage is cut short by drought. They also work more 
steadily during the season, even when there is but little honey to 
be gathered from any source, and it being a well known fact that 
breeding keeps pace with honey gathering, the result is, strong 
stocks, which secure a large product of honey, and are proof 
against the moth-worm and poor seasons. Hence the import- 
ance of the above peculiarities cannot easily be over estimated, 
and they account in part for the following characteristic differ- 
ences between the two races of bees: 
1st. The Italian queens are called “prolific breeders,” a3 the 
stocks breed earlier in the season and continue later, casting 
larger swarms and swarming on an average about two weeks 
earlier than tho black bee, thereby gaining that much time iu 
the best of the gathering season, and usually swarming in sea- 
sons when common bees do not. 
2d. They gather much larger stores of honey than the black 
bees, as proven by the united testimony of eminent apiarians 
both in Europe and America. 
