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 Gcrinaii 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 

 mto North and South America, many of the Pacitic 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 ttie 

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

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

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

 lighter on the thorax, the queens nearly black. 



The Ileidh and JJnihant bees, sub- varieties, occuring in the heath districts 

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

 come tixed by the stimulative leeding in spring practised by the bee-keepers 

 there for at least two hundred years. 



The Italkui or Lujarkm 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 and, with a more tender constitution, 

 does not tlu'ive 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. lis iiiuil- 

 Ities and its color have become fairly well tixed by artiticial selection wii'-h 

 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, U8) speaking of two kinds of bees, the better of which he de- 

 scribes as having shining bodies, variegated like droi)S 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 feet 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 Phcenicians — 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 ])roduction 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 well as the relative importance of honey in those early days in the absence 

 of the many other sweets wliich 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, tliough 



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

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



