RACES OF BEES 
713 
He gave 47 years of constant applica¬ 
tion in honest effort to place beekeeping' on 
a firm business basis. I am somewhat ac¬ 
quainted with the history of the beekeep¬ 
ing of the past, and I feel justified in 
pointing with pride to these 47 years of 
devotion which should warrant the name 
of “Father of practical commercial bee¬ 
keeping in America.” 
RABBITBRUSH ( Chrysothamnus ).— 
Rayless goldenrod. Chico. Shrubby plants 
•with narrow entire leaves, and rayless yel¬ 
low flowers, which bloom in the fall. Rab¬ 
bitbrush yields a surplus of deep yellow 
honey which is thin and poor in quality. 
It granulates quickly, even in the comb; 
and when it is present in a section of al¬ 
falfa or sweet clover honey, it granulates 
before either of these honeys. The intense 
yellow color of the pollen often stains the 
surface of the combs. At Independence, 
Inyo County, Cal., C. nauseosus, a peren¬ 
nial plant, is abundant in waste land. The 
small yellow flowers in terminal clusters, 
on ash-colored or white stems, open in Sep¬ 
tember and October. The honey is dark 
and has so disagreeable an odor and so 
nauseous a taste that even the Indians will 
not eat it. Beekeepers remove their sec¬ 
tions when rabbitbrush begins to bloom. 
There are 18 .species of rabbitbrush in the 
Rocky Mountain Highlands, several of 
which are very common on the dry hills 
and plains of Colorado and Wyoming, as 
G. lanceolatus, C. pumilus, and C. frigidus. 
RACES OF BEES. —This volume deals 
particularly with Italians, the common 
black bees of this country, and the crosses 
between the two, because they are used 
almost exclusively. The crosses are often 
given the name “hybrids;” and as the 
name has been generally adopted, it is re¬ 
tained. For particulars regarding these 
bees the reader is referred to Hybrids. 
The Italians are spoken of specifically 
under the heading of Italians, elsewhere 
in this work. 
BLACK OR GERMAN BEES. 
As the name indicates, they are black. 
One variety in the South is of a brownish 
black; another distinctly black, and if 
anything, a trifle smaller. 
The black bees are more inclined to rob 
than the pure Italians, are not as good 
workers, but are equal when nectar is 
abundant, or when there is dark honey like 
that from buckwheat to be gathered. They 
are much more nervous; and when a hive 
of them is opened they run like a flock of 
sheep from one corner of the hive to an¬ 
other, boiling over in confusion, hanging 
in clusters from one comer of the frame as 
it is held up, and finally falling off; in 
bunches to the ground, where they continue 
a wild scramble in every direction, proba¬ 
bly crawling up one’s trousers-leg, if the 
opportunity offers. Black queens are much 
harder to find, their bees are not so gentle, 
and, worse than all, they have a disagree¬ 
able fashion during robbing time of fol¬ 
lowing the apiarist about from hive to hive 
in a most tantalizing manner. This habit 
of poising on the wing before one’s eye is 
extremely annoying, and some bees will 
keep it up for a day at a time. When an¬ 
gry bees trouble in this way, one should 
work in another part of the apiary or stop 
■work entirely for a time. If the trouble 
continues, he should requeen with queens 
of a more gentle strain. 
Comb honey from the blacks is a little 
whiter, if anything, than that made by 
pure Italians, because the capping is raised 
up, leaving a slight air-gap between it and 
the surface of the honey in the cell. But 
