MANUAL OF APICULTURE.CHAPTER I.CLASSIFICATION OF THE HONEY BEE
A knowledge of the structural peculiarities and the life history of bees will aid anyone who essays to manage them for profit in determining more accurately what conditions are necessary to their greatest welfare. It is not to be understood that such knowledge will take the place of an acquaintance with those conditions under which actual practice has shown that bees thrive, but that it forms a good basis for an understanding of whatever practice has found best in the management of these industrious and profitable insects. It will also assist in pointing out in what way practice can be improved.
In a small treatise like the present one, the object of which is to give in plain language the information needed by one who engages in bee keeping primarily for profit, it is not possible to do more than present a mere outline of classification and a few general facts regarding structure. The reader who finds them interesting and valuable in his work is reminded that the treatment of these matters in more extended volumes, such as Langstroth's, Cheshire's, etc., will be found far more so.
Singling out from the order Hymenoptera, or membranous-winged insects, the family Apidæ, or bee family, several marked types called genera are seen to compose it, such asApis(the hive bee),Bombus(the bumble bee),Xylocopa(the carpenter bee),Megachile(the leaf-cutter),Melipona(the stingless honey bee of the American tropics), etc. All of these are very interesting to study, and each fulfills a purpose in the economy of nature; but the plan of these pages can only be to consider the first genus,Apis, or the hive bee. Incidentally it may be mentioned that the plan of introducing the stingless bees (Melipona) from tropical America has frequently been brought up with the expectation of realizing important practical results from it. These bees might possibly be kept in the warmer portions of our country, but their honey yield is small, not well ripened, and not easily harvested in good shape, since the honey cells are of dark wax, like that made by our bumble bees, and they are not arranged in regular order, but in irregular clumps like those of bumble bees. The writer had a colony under observation last year, and experiments have been made with them in their native lands as well as in European countries. Of the genusApisthe only representative in this country ismellifera, although several others are natives of Asia and Africa.
The common bee of southern Asia is kept in very limited numbers and with a small degree of profit in earthen jars and sections of hollow trees in portions of the British and Dutch East Indies. They are also found wild, and build when in this state in hollow trees and in rock clefts. Their combs, composed of hexagonal wax cells, are ranged parallel to each other like those ofA. mellifera, but the worker brood cells are smaller than those of our ordinary bees, showing 36 to the square inch of surface instead of 29, while the comb where worker brood is reared, instead of having, like that ofA. mellifera, a thickness of seven-eighths inch, is but five-eighths inch thick. (Fig. 1.)
Fig. 1.—Worker cells of common East Indian honey bee (Apis indica); natural size. (Original.)
Fig. 1.—Worker cells of common East Indian honey bee (Apis indica); natural size. (Original.)
The workers.—The bodies of these, three-eighths inch long when empty, measure about one-half inch when dilated with honey. The thorax is covered with brownish hair and the shield or crescent between the wings is large and yellow. The abdomen is yellow underneath. Above it presents a ringed appearance, the anterior part of each segment being orange yellow, while the posterior part shows bands of brown of greater or less width and covered with whitish-brown hairs; tip black. They are nimble on foot and on the wing, and active gatherers.
The queens.—The queens are large in proportion to their workers and are quite prolific; color, leather or dark coppery.
The drones.—These are only slightly larger than the workers; color, jet-like blue black, with no yellow, their strong wings showing changing hues like those of wasps.
Manipulations with colonies of these bees are easy to perform if smoke be used, and though they are more excitable than our common hive bees, this peculiarity does not lead them to sting more, but seems rather to proceed from fear. The sting is also less severe.
Under the rude methods thus far employed in the management of this bee no great yields of honey are obtained, some 10 or 12 pounds having been the most reported from a single hive. It is quite probable that if imported into this country it would do more. These bees would no doubt visit many small flowers not frequented by the hive bees we now have, and whose nectar is therefore wasted, but very likely they might not withstand the severe winters of the North unless furnished with such extra protection as would be afforded by quite warm cellars or special repositories.
This bee, also a native of East India, is the smallest known species of the genus. It builds in the open air, attaching a single comb to a twig of a shrub or small tree. This comb is only about the size of a man's hand and is exceedingly delicate, there being on each side 100 worker cells to the square inch of surface (figs. 2 and 3). The workers, more slender than house flies, though longer bodied, are blue-black in color, with the anterior third of the abdomen bright orange. Colonies of these bees accumulate so little surplus honey as to give no hope that their cultivation would be profitable.
Fig 2.—Worker cells of tiny East Indian honey bee (Apis florea); natural size. (Original).
Fig 2.—Worker cells of tiny East Indian honey bee (Apis florea); natural size. (Original).
This large bee (Plate I, figs. 2 and 3), which might not be inappropriately styled the Giant East Indian bee, has its home also in the far East—both on the continent of Asia and the adjacent islands. There are probably several varieties, more or less marked, of this species, and very likelyApis zonataGuér. of the Philippine Islands, reported to be even larger thanA. dorsata, will prove on further investigation to be only a variety of the latter. All the varieties of these bees build huge combs of very pure wax—often 5 to 6 feet in length and 3 to 4 feet in width, which they attach to overhanging ledges of rocks or to large limbs of lofty trees in the primitive forests or jungles. When attached to limbs of trees they are built singly and present much the same appearance as those of the tiny East Indian bee, shown in the accompanying figure (fig. 3). The Giant bee, however, quite in contradistinction to the other species of Apis mentioned here, does not construct larger cells in which to rear drones, these and the workers being produced in cells of the same size. Of these bees—long a sort of a myth to the bee keepers of America and Europe—strange stories have been told. It has been stated that they build their combs horizontally, after the manner of paper-making wasps; that they are so given to wandering as to make it impossible to keep them in hives, and that their ferocity renders them objects greatly to be dreaded. The first real information regarding these points was given by the author, lb 4 visited India in 1880-81 for the purpose of obtaining colonies ofApis dorsata. These were procured in the jungles, cutting the combs from their originalattachments, and it was thus ascertained that (as might have been expected in the case of any species of Apis), their combs are always built perpendicularly; also that the colonies placed in frame hives and permitted to fly freely did not desert these habitations and that, far from being ferocious, these colonies were easily handled by proper precautions, without even the use of smoke. It was also proved by the quantity of honey and wax present that they are good gatherers. The execution at that time of the plan of bringing these bees to the United States was prevented only by severe illness contracted in India.
Fig. 3.—Comb of tiny East Indian honey bee (Apis florea) one-third natural sized. (Original.)
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.
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.)
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, presentinga 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.
Cyprians are smaller-bodied and more slender than bees of European races. The abdomen is also more pointed and shows, when the bees are purely bred, three light orange bands on the three segments nearest the thorax. The underside of the abdomen is even lighter orange colored nearly or quite to the tip. The postscutellum—the small lunule-like prominence on the thorax between the bases of the wings—is likewise orange colored instead of dull, as in European races. The rest of the thorax is covered with a russet-brown pubescence. Cyprians are the yellowest of the original races, and their bright colors and symmetrical forms render them attractive objects.
Italians.—Through the agency of the United States Department of Agriculture bees of this race were introduced direct from Italy in 1860. There had previously been repeated individual efforts to secure Italians bred in Germany, where the race had been introduced some years earlier, and a small number of queens had been landed here alive in the autumn of 1859, but most of these died the following winter and the few remaining alive seem not to have been multiplied as rapidly as those obtained in Italy by a purchasing agent of the Department of Agriculture and landed here early in 1860. Their good qualities were soon appreciated, and they had become well established and widely spread long before the Cyprians, imported twenty years later. For this reason, together with the fact that they cap their surplus combs whiter than some other races and because less skill is required in subduing and handling Italians, they have retained their popularity over bees which, though better honey gatherers, are more nervous under manipulation. Their golden-yellow color has also proved so attractive to many that the good qualities of more somber-hued races—gentler, better winterers, and better comb builders—have not received due consideration. Italians are, however, certainly preferable to the common brown or black bees, for they show greater energy in gathering honey and in the defense of their hives against moth larvæ and robber bees, while at the same time they are gentler under manipulation than the blacks, though they do not winter as well in severe climates.
Honey Bees.
Italian workers nearly equal Garniolans in size, and show across the abdomen when the latter is distended with honey not less than three yellow bands, which approach more or less a reddish or dark leathery color. By selection in some instances, and in others by the introduction of Cyprian blood, Italians and Italian hybrids have recently been bred which show four or five yellow bands or which are even yellow to the tip of the abdomen. They are certainly pleasing to the eye, and in case due heed has been given to the vigor and working qualities of the stock selected when establishing the strain, no valid objection can be brought against them except the tendency they have to revert to the original type of Italians. This is due to the comparatively short time they have been bred, and with each season's selection will of course grow less.
Carniolans.—These, the gray bees from the elevated Alpine province of Carniola, Austria, are the gentlest of all races, and as, besides their other good qualities, they winter the best of any, it is not surprising to see that they have steadily grown in favor. Their sealed combs are exceedingly white, as they do not fill the cells so full that the honey touches the capping, and they gather little propolis, qualities highly appreciated by the producer of comb honey. They are quite prolific, and if kept in small hives, such as have been popularized of late in the United States, are somewhat more inclined to swarm than the other races introduced here. This tendency becomes more pronounced when they are taken into a country whose summers are hot, like ours, and their hives are not well shaded, as they have been bred for centuries, with only slight introduction of outside blood, in a climate where the summers are short and cool. Moreover, the practice in Carniola is to place the long, shallow hives used almost exclusively there, in beehouses and side by side, one above the other, with intervening air spaces, so that at most only the front ends are exposed to the sun. This management long continued has doubtless tended to develop and fix more or less permanently in this race certain characteristics which should be taken into account in their management elsewhere. With these precautions they do well in all parts of the United States. (SeePlate I, figs. 1, 4, and 5.)
The Carniolan worker is readily recognized by its large form, less pointed abdomen, and general ashy gray coat, the abdominal segments especially presenting a ringed appearance on account of silvery white hairs which cover the posterior half of each of these segments. By crossing Carniolans with Italians or with Cyprians a yellow type withsilvery rings is produced, and by continued selection in breeding the gentle disposition of the Carniolans can be secured with the greater honey-gathering powers of Cyprians should these be employed in forming the new strain.
German, common black, or brown bees.—These bees are found commonly throughout our country from ocean to ocean, both wild and domesticated. Exactly when they were introduced from Europe is not known, but considerable evidence exists which shows that there were no hive bees (Apis mellifera) in this country for some time after the first colonies were established; also, it was not until near the close of the last century that they reached the Mississippi, and less than half a century has passed since the first were successfully landed on the Pacific Coast.
Many bee keepers, having more attractively colored and frequently better bees, are inclined to consider this race as possessing hardly any redeeming qualities, or at least to underrate these because accompanied by undesirable traits. While it is true that they have some serious faults, the latter are not so great as those of some other races. They have become thoroughly acclimated since their first importation, over two centuries ago, and besides possessing good wintering and comb-building qualities, they will, when the flow of honey is quite abundant, generally equal Italians in gathering. But the disposition which bees of this race have of flying toward one who approaches the apiary and stinging him, even though the hives have not been molested, their way of running excitedly over the combs and dropping in bunches when they are handled, besides stinging the backs of the operator's hands, unless the whole colony has first been thoroughly subdued and the bees induced to gorge themselves with honey, or are constantly deluged with smoke, are very annoying to the novice who undertakes to perform necessary manipulations with them, and may even so discourage and daunt him as to cause the neglect of work of great importance to the welfare of the colony. The easy discouragement of bees of this race when a sudden check in the flow of honey occurs is also a peculiarity which does not commend them. These things, tending to reduce profits, often dampen the beginner's enthusiasm before he has acquired the knowledge and skill necessary to make the work genuinely successful. He had therefore better choose either Italians or Carniolans, and use as breeders only queens that are known to have mated purely.
The common race shows considerable variation in its markings and qualities. The workers have a dull, rusty brown color, especially about the thorax. Some strains are however much darker than others and in general the drones are darker than the workers. In size workers, drones, and queens of this race are intermediate between the other European races and those from the Orient. The same care and skill applied in the selection of breeding stock would result in as great improvement in this as in any of the more attractive yellow races.