Races of Bees 
203 
to be present in the United States. A separate race of black 
bees is described from Madagascar and other islands and 
still another from Togoland. It is well known that honey¬ 
bees are abundant in parts of Africa and careful explorations 
would doubtless reveal many interesting facts concerning 
these bees. Onions 1 claims that in the South African race 
the unmated workers lay eggs which develop into female 
bees. As the continent of Africa becomes more settled by 
white men and as apiculture advances, we may expect some 
interesting additions to our knowledge of the African races 
of bees. 
Asiatic races. 
v. Buttel-Reepen (Apistica) places A. indica as a variety 
of A. mellifica. It is a smaller bee, which is said to bite 
rather than sting. It crosses with previously described 
races. Several sub-varieties are indicated. 
C hinese-Japanese. 
These bees are placed by v. Buttel-Reepen as sub-varieties 
of indica. The Chinese bee has a heavy coat of long dirty 
gray hair; the Japanese bee lacks this. 
BEST RACE OF BEES 
To answer the question as to which race of bees is best 
is difficult. For comb-honey production, the German, 
Carniolan and Caucasian races have the advantage of capping 
the honey white but the German bees are especially subject 
to European foul brood, Carniolans swarm excessively 
(especially in comb-honey production) and Caucasians 
propolize badly. Without going further into the merits 
and demerits of the various races, it may be as well to give 
the almost unanimous verdict of American beekeepers, 
1 Onions, G. W., 1912. South African "fertile worker-bees.” Agricul¬ 
tural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope, May. See also Van Warmelo 
in the same journal, 1913. 
