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Bee-Culture at Present: Italian

The year 1860 was a memorable one for the hive-bees of the United States, for there came the first consignment of their formidable rival, the Italian honey-bee. So prolific and so industrious is this beautiful golden creature that it has gone far towards supplanting the brown bee in this country.

It is not a case of extermination, however, as is that of the American Red Man, but of amalgamation. The new- Bee-Culture at Present comer has joined forces with the brown bee, and gradually, without bloodshed or cruelty of any sort, taken its place. So common has the Italian strain become that in many parts of the country the wild swarms in the bee-trees show the yellow body-bands of the Italians.

Other bees, since the coming of the Italians, have been brought to this country, as the Cyprian, Syrian, Carniolan, Palestine, or Holy-land, and Egyptian bees, each kind being distinguished by some peculiar excellence.

Moreover, new varieties of bees have been developed by cultivation, and there now exist, by design or accident, swarms of hive-bees with so long tongues that they can obtain at least a portion of the red-clover nectar.

No doubt the bumble-bees, which are our only native honey-makers, and whose structure is very similar to that of the hive-bees, although their habits are widely different, will shortly have to face the problem of how they are to protect their long-time rights in red-clover heads from the arrogant new usurpers.

Although bumble-bees often store up a honey that is relished by boys and bears, they have never been cultivated nor very highly esteemed by man.

They build their nests underground or in inaccessible piles of rubbish, and some at least form no waxen cells, the honey when stored being placed in the cocoons deserted by the brood after it is matured. Naturally such honey is not very abundant nor very valuable; and even where wax cells are built, the yield is far inferior in every way to the store of the hive-bee.

Still, we could not spare the drowsy hum of the furry bumble-bees in our summer fields; and let us not forget in our enthusiasm over the hive-bees, that the "burly, dozing Humble-bee " is the native honey-gatherer of North America, - that is, north of Mexico.

His cheery hum was heard over the vast flowery plains of this favored land before the western continent was dreamed of by the white man, and in his underground nest was stored the only honey made in honey-flowing California for millenniums. "I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid zone!

Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing over shrubs and vines."

The Humble Bee: EMERSON.

Appendix Note THE fine translation of Kálidása's Sakuntala is by Monier Williams, 1856.

Kálidása's Birth of the War God is translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith, Principal of Benares College.