Fig. 3.—Comb of tiny East Indian honey bee (Apis florea) one-third natural sized. (Original.)
These large bees would doubtless be able to get honey from flowers whose nectaries are located out of reach of ordinary bees, notably those of the red clover, now visited chiefly by bumble bees and which it is thought the East Indian bees might pollinate and cause to produce seed more abundantly. Even if no further utilizable, they might prove an important factor in the production in the Southern States of large quantities of excellent beeswax, now such an expensive article. Should these bees and the common East Indian bee (Apis indica), previously referred to, visit in the main only such flowers as are not adapted to our hive bees, their introduction, wherever it could be made successful, would, without decreasing the yield from our hive bees, add materially to the honey and wax production of the country. Theoretical conclusions as to the results of such an introduction can not be of much account unless based upon an intimate acquaintance with the nature and habits of the bees to be introduced. Enough is known of the small bee to remove all doubt regarding the possibility of its successful introduction, and it is also probable that the large one would prove valuable. In neither case does there appear any possibility that evil results might follow their introduction. There are also numerous other varieties or species of bees in Africa and Asia about which no more or even less is known, but to investigate them fully will require much time and considerable expense. It is a subject, however, that should receive careful consideration because of the possible benefits to apiculture and the wider beneficial effects on agriculture.
THE COMMON HIVE OR HONEY BEE.
(Apis mellifera Linn.)
Besides the common brown or German bee imported from Europe to this country some time in the seventeenth century and now widely spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, several other races have been brought here—the Italian in 1860, and later the Egyptian, the Cyprian, the Syrian, the Palestine, the Carniolan ([Plate I, figs. 1, 4, and 5]), and the Tunisian. Of these the brown or German, the Italian, and, in a few apiaries, the Carniolan bees are probably the only races existing pure in the United States, the others having become more or less hybridized with the brown race or among themselves or their cultivation having been discontinued. It should also be remarked that so few have kept their Carniolans pure that purchasers who wish this race should use caution in their selection or else import their own breeding queens. There are many breeders of Italians from whom good stock can be obtained. Egyptian bees were tried some thirty years ago, but only to a very limited extent, and, as has been the case with Syrians and Palestines imported in 1880, and whose test was more prolonged and general, they were condemned as inferior in temper and wintering qualities to the races of bees already here, it not being thought that these points of inferiority were sufficiently balanced by their greater prolificness and their greater energy in honey collecting.
Fig. 4.—Worker cells of common honey bee (Apis mellifera); natural size. (Original.)
The Tunisians, for similar reasons and also because they are great collectors of propolis, never became popular, although a persistent attempt was made a few years since to create sale for them under the new name of "Punic bees," the undesirable qualities of the race having previously been made known, under the original name, by the author, who had tested them carefully for several years—a part of the time in Tunis.
Cyprians.—Bees of the race native to the Island of Cyprus have produced the largest yield of honey on record from a single colony in this country, 1,000 pounds in one season. Everyone who has fairly tested them admits their wonderful honey-gathering powers and their persevering courage in their labors even when the flowers are secreting honey but scantily. They winter well and defend their hives against robber bees and other enemies with greater energy than any other known race. When storing honey Cyprians till the cells quite fall before sealing, and thus the capping rests against the honey, presenting a semitransparent or "watery" appearance, which is undesirable. They are extremely sensitive, hence easily angered by rough or bungling manipulators, and when once thoroughly aroused are very energetic in the use of their stings. These faults have caused a very general rejection of Cyprians, especially by those who produce comb honey. Even the producers of extracted honey do not seem to have learned how to manipulate Cyprians easily and without the use of much smoke, nor how much more rapidly they could free their extracting combs from Cyprian bees than from Italians. Nor have they seemed to count as of much importance the fact that Cyprians, unlike Italians and German or common bees, do not volunteer an attack when undisturbed; that they will, in fact, let one pass and repass their hives quite unmolested and even under such circumstances as would call forth a vigorous and very disagreeable protest from the other races just mentioned. It is to be regretted that there has been such a widespread rejection of a race having such important and well-established excellent qualities. It would be easier by selection in breeding to reduce the faults of this race than to bring any other cultivated race to their equal in the other desirable points.