Social Insects. 61 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE 1. The principal Races of Apis mellifica. 



The common form of this species, known as the Brown, the Black 

 or the German bee, is the best-known. It is found throughout northern 

 Europe, and as far south as central Austria, central Switzerland, and 

 southern France to the Italian frontier. It also occurs in Portugal and Spain, 

 and extends into Siberia, and, during later centuries, has been introduced 

 into North and South America, many of the Paciiic islands, and into Aus 

 tralia. 



Its chief merits are that it has a moderate swarming propensity and is an 

 excellent comb- builder and honey gatherer, and accommodates itself to tne 

 greatest extremes of climate. Its disadvantages, as compared with some 

 other varieties, are a disposition to rob, to attack persons who approach the 

 hive and to be somewhat less industrious. The general color is a dull brown, 

 lighter on the thorax, the queens nearly black. 



The Heath and Brabant bees, sub- varieties, occuring in the heath districts 

 of northern Germany, are much given to swarming, a habit which has be 

 come fixed by the stimulative feeding in spring practised by the bee-keepers 

 there for at least two hundred years. 



The Italian or Ligurian bee, originally confined to Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, 

 the southern Tyrol, and southern Switzerland, has now been introduced into 

 most countries where the common black bee occurs. It is gentler in dispo 

 sition, but not so good a comb-builder arid, with a more tender constitution, 

 does not thrive in extreme northern climates. 



The color of the Italians is in general much brighter, and the first three seg 

 ments of the abdomen are golden-yellow on their dorsal surfaces. Its qual 

 ities and its color have become fairly well fixed by artificial selection which 

 there is every reason to believe has been practised in Italy for some two 

 thousand years. Both Virgil and Columella evidently refer to it, the former 

 (Georgics IV, 98) speaking of two kinds of bees, the better of which he de 

 scribes as having shining bodies, variegated like drops of gold. The tend 

 ency to vary under domestication at the present time would indicate that the 

 the race is a composite one, and Mr. Frank Benton informs me that by cross 

 ing the Egyptian, the Palestine or the Syrian with the common brown Ger 

 man race, workers are produced in a few generations that can scarcely be dis 

 tinguished from Italians ; a fact which as regards the Egyptains, was ascer 

 tained by the Berlin Acclimatization Society which, some 30 years ago, 

 experimented with the honey bees native to Egypt, and which Mr. Benton 

 has since confirmed by tests with the other two races (Palestine and 

 Syrian). He finds also, that the Syrian tpye leads, when crossed with the 

 common brown race, most commonly to the Italian type, a fact which is 

 significant when we remember that the Phoenicians ancient inhabitants of 

 Syria established colonies in southern Italy at a very early date. We can 

 hardly realize to-day the importance that was attached to the production of 

 honey and wax in Egypt and the surrounding countries in those days, until 

 we remember the uses to which these articles were put in connection with 

 the religious rites of the people, and especially the embalming of the dead, 

 as w r ell as the relative importance of honey in those early days in the absence 

 of the many other sweets which we possess. In the United States the Ital 

 ian race, by selection since its introduction a third of a century ago,* has 

 undergone more rapid modification than any of the other races, though 



*See a paper by the author on "What the Department 9f Agriculture has done for 

 Apiculture." Proc. North American Bee Keepers' Association, 1893. 



