like anterior legs, and its sharp, strong, 

 sword-like beak. 



Mr. Keeney says he caught the one he sent 

 on golden rod. This plant, from its very 

 color, tends to conceal the bug, and from tlie 

 very character of the plant—being attract- 

 ive as a honey-plant to bees— the slow bug 

 is enabled to catch the spry and active 

 honey-bee. 



VERDICT. 



As Prof. Uhler well says of the "stinging 

 bug :" " It is very useful in destroying cater- 



Eillarsand other vegetable-feeding insects, 

 ut is not very discriminating in its tastes, 

 and would as soon seize the useful honey- 

 bee as the pernicious saw-fly." And lie 

 might have added that it is equally inditfer- 

 ent to the virtues of our friendly insects like 

 the parasitic and predaceous species. 



We note, then, that this bug is not wholly 

 evil, and as its destruction would be well- 

 nigh impossible, for it is as widely scattered 

 as are the flowers in wiiich it lurks, we may 

 well rest its case, at least until its destruct- 

 iveness becomes more serious tiian at 

 present. A. J. Cook. 



Agr'l College, Lansing, Sept. 14, '78. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Standard of Purity. 



The question of a standard of purity for 

 the Italians is one which interests me much, 

 for my own ideas on that subject differ from 

 those of most apiarists. I fear it will be 

 very hard to decide conclusively what is the 

 original type of tiie Italian in its state of 

 perfect purity. But. let us see what is the 

 evidence as we now find it : In all peculiar 

 and distinct varieties, whether of animal, 

 fowl or insect, tliere is some set typical 

 mark of form, color or character ; in quad- 

 rupeds it is generally seen in the form ; in 

 fowls, in color and form, giving preference 

 to color ; wiiile in our bees (insects), there 

 is scarcely difference enough in the form to 

 make it a distinguishing mark ; so we must 

 fall back entirely on color and character for 

 the typical mark. I wish Darwin, with his 

 facilities for research, had given us his 

 opinion on the subject, but I can find no- 

 where in his " Origin of Species," anything 

 throwing light upon this matter. Going 

 back to the ancient writers, Pliny, Virgil, 

 Columella an;! others, we still find nothing 

 sufticiently clear to l)e of much service. 



There are two opinions at present among 

 apiarists as to their origin— one, that they 

 are a climatic variety, which has assumed 

 this type by being reproduced for many cen- 

 turies in certain districts. The other, that 

 it is a cross upon the Egyptian bee. We can 

 glean nothing on this point, either, from 

 ancient writers. So let us look up the 

 modern evidence as we find it. 



Granting them to be a climatic variety, we 

 notice that the bees of Milan and Lombardy, 

 where no black bees are found, are a much 

 lighter yellow than those of Piedmont, the 

 Grisons and Lower Italy, where there are 

 blacks. Also, that the bees from the former 

 districts are more gentle and peaceable than 

 those from the latter, where they seem to 

 partake more of the disposition of the 



blacks. These things, we should think, 

 would go to prove that the type of the pure 

 Italian was yellow— and the yellower the 

 purer as to color— and a mild, peaceable dis- 

 position in point of character, and where 

 they are not found of this uniform pure 

 yellow (without dark annulations, spots or 

 tips), it shows a slight admixture ot black 

 blood, for surely, what is to prevent this ? 

 We And the two races in Italy in immediately 

 adjoining districts, without natural barriers 

 of any kind to prevent their union. 



Any variety of animal or fowl, when per- 

 fectly pure, should reproduce in its offspring 

 the typical marks by which it is dis- 

 tinguished, almost exactly ; and, as a 

 general rule, we will find that the yellower 

 the c[ueen, the more apt is she to do this, 

 provided she be purely mated. Her daugh- 

 ters should be exact copies of lierself. In 

 regard to the workers, she should produce 

 every one marked exactly alike— do not call 

 them pure when so'me of them will show 

 the third band plainly only when distended 

 with honey, while others show at all times 

 the three plain, broad, golden bands. No, 

 there is something wrong even if none can 

 be found which cannot be made to show the 

 third bands. They must all be marked 

 exactly alike. But some will say we have 

 many dark queens that produce every 

 worker alike, and perhaps duplicate them- 

 selves in their daughters. Very well, this 

 is very easily explained, and very reason- 

 ably, too ; for when there has been a cross 

 of any two varieties, if this cross is then 

 bred in upon itself, it will in time become a 

 fixed type of its own. This accounts for 

 our having light and dark-colored Italians, 

 both queens and bees. 



There is one tiling, though, which puzzles 

 me no little, that is, the statement of some 

 ot our most reliable men, that they liave 

 queens of a shining black which produce 

 very light pretty workers. I have never 

 seen or raised such. Will those who have, 

 please let us know whether they were raised 

 from tlie very light, or dark queens ? The 

 blackness of these queens I can only account 

 for, by thinking that there must at some 

 anterior time have been an admixture 

 of black blood in the colony from which she 

 came, and all naturalists recognize the law, 

 that the progney of a cross will often show 

 the pure markings of either side in certain 

 individuals as well as the varying degree of 

 resemblance to both found in others. And 

 these peculiarities will often crop out many 

 generations afterwards. How many of us 

 have noticed the striped markings of the 

 wild ass of the eastern deserts cropping out 

 in the mule, his remote descendent, and a 

 cross at that, showing for how long the 

 traces of the blood will show itself in the 

 descendents of any variety. On this 

 account all crosses are liable to many vari- 

 ations of color. 



If we take a queen of the light yellow 

 variety and cross her with a hybrid drone 

 very few, if any, of the bees will be entirely 

 without the third band, only more irregu- 

 larly marked and darker than if she had 

 mated purely. But, if the queen be of the 

 dark variety, many of the woikers will show 

 only two and some one band ; at least, such 

 has been my experience. This shows how 



