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[Imogen Petrusky]

SirI have the honor to transmit herewith for republication a manualentitled, The Honey Bee: A Manual of Instruction in Apiculture, byMr. Frank Benton, who has been in charge of the apiarian work of thisDivision for several years. The constant demand for information concerningbee culture for a long time indicated a need for such a publicmanual, and the work was begun and nearly completed under the directionof my predecessor, Dr. G. V. Riley. The manuscript was submittedSeptember 20, 1895, and the edition of 1,000 copies was soonexhausted. In April, 1896, Congress ordered a reprint of 20,000 copies,in which some corrections and additions were made by the author. Hehas also taken advantage of the reprint of another (the third) editionto make some slight additional changes.

The apiarian industry in the United States is practically a developmentof the last forty years, although isolated individuals were engagedin this work long prior to that time. The importance of the industryat the present day is not generally realized, and the following figureswill probably be surprising to many well-informed individuals:

As supplementary to these figures it may be stated that in additionto the 15 steam-power factories there is a very largo number of smallerfactories, using mainly hand and horse power, which are engaged in theproduction of supplies, such as hives, smokers, honey extractors, sections,comb foundation, and other apiarian apparatus. It is estimatedby Mr. Benton that the present existing flora of the United Statescould undoubtedly support, with the same average profit, ten times the- 4 -number of colonies of bees it now supports. This branch of agriculturalindustry does not impoverish the soil in the least, but, on thecontrary, results in better seed and fruit crops. The total money gainto the country from the prosecution of this industry would undoubtedlybe placed at several times the amount given in the table abovewere we only able to estimate in dollars and cents the result of thework of bees in cross fertilizing the blossoms of fruit crops. In supportof this it is only necessary to refer to the fact that recent investigationsby another division of this Department have shown thatcertain varieties of pear are nearly or quite sterile unless bees bringpollen from other distinct varieties for their complete cross fertilization.I respectfully recommend the publication of this manual as No. 1 ofthe new series of bulletins of this Division.

Many of the illustrations were specially prepared for this bulletin.Some have been taken from publications of the Department of Agriculture.These include some of the smaller illustrations of honey-producingplants and also Plates III to X, which are from reports ofthe Botanist of the Department. Plates II and XI, and figures 5, 6,8, 44, 50, 51, and 76 are copied from Cheshire; figs. 08 and 69 fromSimmins. The Department is also under obligations to the A. I. RootCompany, to Chas. Dadant & Son, T. F. Bingham, Hayek Bros., TanAllen & Williams, and Dr. T. L. Tinker, for electrotypes.

A knowledge of the structural peculiarities and the life history ofbees will aid anyone who essays to manage them for profit in determiningmore accurately what conditions are necessary to their greatestwelfare. It is not to be understood that such knowledge will take theplace of an acquaintance with those conditions under which actualpractice has shown that bees thrive, but that it forms a good basis foran understanding of whatever practice has found best in the managementof these industrious and profitable insects. It will also assist inpointing out in what way practice can be improved.

In a small treatise like the present one, the object of which is to givein plain language the information needed by one who engages in beekeeping primarily for profit, it is not possible to do more than presenta mere outline of classification and a few general facts regarding structure.The reader who finds them interesting and valuable in his workis reminded that the treatment of these matters in more extendedvolumes, such as Langstroth's, Cheshire's, etc., will be found far more so.

Singling out from the order Hymenoptera, or membranous-wingedinsects, the family Apid, or bee family, several marked types calledgenera are seen to compose it, such as Apis (the hive bee), Bombus (thebumble bee), Xylocopa (the carpenter bee), Megachile (the leaf-cutter),Melipona (the stingless honey bee of the American tropics), etc. Allof these are very interesting to study, and each fulfills a purpose inthe economy of nature; but the plan of these pages can only be to considerthe first genus, Apis, or the hive bee. Incidentally it may bementioned that the plan of introducing the stingless bees (Melipona)from tropical America has frequently been brought up with the expectationof realizing important practical results from it. These beesmight possibly be kept in the warmer portions of our country, but theirhoney yield is small, not well ripened, and not easily harvested in goodshape, since the honey cells are of dark wax, like that made by ourbumble bees, and they are not arranged in regular order, but in irregularclumps like those of bumble bees. The writer had a colony under observationlast year, and experiments have been made with them in theirnative lands as well as in European countries. Of the genus Apis theonly representative in this country is mellifera, although several othersare natives of Asia and Africa.

The common bee of southern Asia is kept in very limited numbersand with a small degree of profit in earthen jars and sections of hollowtrees in portions of the British and Dutch East Indies. They arealso found wild, and build when in this state in hollow trees and inrock clefts. Their combs, composed of hexagonal wax cells, are rangedparallel to each other like those of A. mellifera, but the worker broodcells are smaller than those of our ordinary bees, showing 36 to thesquare inch of surface instead of 29, while the comb where workerbrood is reared, instead of having, like that of A. mellifera, a thicknessof seven-eighths inch, is but five-eighths inch thick.(Fig. 1.)

Manipulations with colonies of these bees are easy to perform if smokebe used, and though they are more excitable than our common hive bees,this peculiarity does not lead them to sting more, but seems ratherto proceed from fear. The sting is also less severe.

Under the rude methods thus far employed in the management ofthis bee no great yields of honey are obtained, some 10 or 12 poundshaving been the most reported from a single hive. It is quite probablethat if imported into this country it would do more. These bees wouldno doubt visit many small flowers not frequented by the hive bees wenow have, and whose nectar is therefore wasted, but very likely theymight not withstand the severe winters of the North unless furnishedwith such extra protection as would be afforded by quite warm cellarsor special repositories.

This bee, also a native of East India, is the smallest known speciesof the genus. It builds in the open air, attaching a single comb to atwig of a shrub or small tree. This comb is only about the size of a man'shand and is exceedingly delicate, there being oneach side 100 worker cells to the square inch ofsurface (figs. 2 and 3). The workers, more slenderthan house flies, though longer bodied, areblue-black in color, with the anterior third ofthe abdomen bright orange. Colonies of thesebees accumulate so little surplus honey as to giveno hope that their cultivation would be profitable.

These large bees would doubtless be able to get honey from flowerswhose nectaries are located out of reach of ordinary bees, notably thoseof the red clover, now visited chiefly by bumble bees and which itis thought the East Indianbees might pollinateand cause to produce seedmore abundantly. Evenif no further utilizable,they might prove an importantfactor in the productionin the SouthernStates of large quantitiesof excellent beeswax, nowsuch an expensive article.Should these bees andthe common East Indianbee (Apis indica), previouslyreferred to, visitin the main only suchflowers as are not adaptedto our hive bees, their introduction,wherever itcould be made successful,would, without decreasingthe yield from ourhive bees, add materially to the honey and wax production of the country.Theoretical conclusions as to the results of such an introductioncan not be of much account unless based upon an intimate acquaintancewith the nature and habits of the bees to be introduced. Enough isknown of the small bee to remove all doubt regarding the possibilityof its successful introduction, and it is also probable that the large onewould prove valuable. In neither case does there appear any possibilitythat evil results might follow their introduction. There are alsonumerous other varieties or species of bees in Africa and Asia aboutwhich no more or even less is known, but to investigate them fully willrequire much time and considerable expense. It is a subject, however,that should receive careful consideration because of the possible benefitsto apiculture and the wider beneficial effects on agriculture.

Italian workers nearly equal Garniolans in size, and show across theabdomen when the latter is distended with honey not less than threeyellow bands, which approach more or less a reddish or dark leatherycolor. By selection in some instances, and in others by the introductionof Cyprian blood, Italians and Italian hybrids have recently beenbred which show four or five yellow bands or which are even yellow tothe tip of the abdomen. They are certainly pleasing to the eye, andin case due heed has been given to the vigor and working qualities ofthe stock selected when establishing the strain, no valid objection canbe brought against them except the tendency they have to revert tothe original type of Italians. This is due to the comparatively shorttime they have been bred, and with each season's selection will ofcourse grow less.

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