. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 1881. THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 403. Michigan State Convention. The 16th annual meeting of the Michigan state Bee-Keepers1 Society, was held at Battle Creek, Mich., on Dec B,9,1881. L'res. Prof. A. J. Cook in the chair. The Secretary not hav- ing arrived, Mr. II. 1). Cutting was appointed Secretary protem., who read the following on How to Maintain the Pnrity of Italian Bees. The superiority of the Italian bee over our native black or German bee is so well established, and so well known, that it would be superfluous for me to speak of any of their goo
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 1881. THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 403. Michigan State Convention. The 16th annual meeting of the Michigan state Bee-Keepers1 Society, was held at Battle Creek, Mich., on Dec B,9,1881. L'res. Prof. A. J. Cook in the chair. The Secretary not hav- ing arrived, Mr. II. 1). Cutting was appointed Secretary protem., who read the following on How to Maintain the Pnrity of Italian Bees. The superiority of the Italian bee over our native black or German bee is so well established, and so well known, that it would be superfluous for me to speak of any of their good qualities. The introduction of the Cyprian and Syrian bees has also proven that the Italians are the best bee known to the American apiarist, and we doubt that they have any superiors in the world, or any equal to them. All we have to do is to maintain their purity and im- prove their good qualities to the high- est standard of excellence. How shall we accomplish this? It is generally admitted that Italians are not a fixed race. This is well es- tablished by the irregular markings of the queens and drones, and I have no doubt there are different grades of purity among them, as I have had Italians breed uniform queens and workers, but very irregular in the markings of their drones. I have had other colonies of Italians that gave no uniformity in any of their progeny, the workershaving3to5yellow bands. These are the most prolific breeders and the greatest swarmers. As to the breeding of Italians to the standard of purity—three or more yel- low stripes, is quite easily managed where only blacks and Italians and their hybrids abound, as we can con- tinually supersede all queens thatpro- duce workers with less than three yel- low stripes. In the parts of our country where the Cyprian and Syrian bees have been introduced, Italians cannot be bred pure with my degree of certainty, as those races of bees are said to be about the color of ordinary Italians, or per- haps yellower. If
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
