have said, is not relevant to the point 

 at issue, as most authors are agreed, I 

 believe, that it is the torrid zone ; but 

 the domestic and political history of 

 the different nations and countries, 

 where the German and Italian bees 

 have been domesticated and made an 

 object of attention and care from a 

 very remote poriod in history, have a 

 very important bearing in determining 

 the probabilities in favor of a locality 

 where it may have existed in its great- 

 est purity. The present existence of 

 the many varieties of the honey bee, 

 mentioned by Mr. Frank Benton in a 

 former number of the Bee Journal, 

 as inhabiting the countries of Southern 

 Europe and the Levant, testifies to the 

 intricacy of the subject, and leads us to 

 the conclusion that if such numerous 

 varieties of the honey bee exist in such 

 close proximity at present, that in 

 former times it would have been ex- 

 ceedingly difficult, considering their 

 habits both in the domestic and wild 

 state, to preserve any. one kind or va- 

 riety pure. 



Aristotle mentions three kinds, and 

 Virgil two, but as the one described by 

 each as in common use in their respec- 

 tive countries, answers to the descrip- 

 tion of the present Italian (of bright 

 golden color) or Ligurian, we may con- 

 clude that the ancient boundaries of 

 the countries, whose inhabitants spoke 

 the Greek and Latin idioms, consti- 

 tuted the true inhabitat of the Italian 

 or Ligurian bee, not only during the 

 dominance of the Pelasgic races, but 

 subsequently, for the following reasons: 



So long as the Pelasgic or Helenic 

 race preserved its integrity and political 

 domination, its domestic and social in- 

 stitutions perpetuated by hereditary 

 usages, and that insulation which was 

 almost a stranger to exterior commerce, 

 it is presumable that the Ligurian bee 

 was perpetuated in its purity and char- 

 acter in the same manner that the Ger- 

 man or black bee was among the north- 

 ern nations of Europe ; and that whilst 

 the Ligurian bee was extended in its do- 

 main by the arts of the domestic and 

 civilized culture peculiar to the Greeks 

 and Komans, the black bee was en- 

 larged by that spontaneous emigration 

 eminently instinctive in both varieties, 

 and keeping company, from a similar 

 instinct in human character, with the 

 Sanscrit, Aryan and Germanic races, 

 and probably, like their human mas- 

 ters, developing their history from a 

 Hindoo or tropical source. 



If this be true, is it not probable that 

 Apis Dorsata is the common father of 

 his less robust, but equally industrious 

 descendants of Europe ? Is not this 



the more probable, from the considera- 

 tion of the fact that domestic gentle- 

 ness is the result of long continued do- 

 mestic culture and usuage ? How much 

 more gentle and docile the true Italian 

 bee than the wild German, addicted to 

 its native forests ! One of the first and 

 most striking peculiarities of the black 

 bee, to the novice in bee culture, is the 

 wild and perturbed state of both the 

 queen and worker, when he opens a 

 hive to handle or observe them. How 

 different the domestic turkey from his 

 tougher and more agile congener of the 

 forest, though having but 300 years of 

 domestication ! 



But my purpose is to show that Cen- 

 tral Italy is the best source whence to 

 obtain the Italian (or, if you choose, 

 the Ligurian) bee, and whilst praying 

 prosperity upon all bee-culturists, in- 

 cluding venders of queens and nuclei, 

 candor and prudence impels me to pro- 

 ceed to the point. 



Separated from the rest of Europe 

 by that, to man, almost impassable bar- 

 rier, the Alps, Italy is and was insula- 

 ted from the immigrating inroads of 

 most of the insect races, excepting that 

 boundary which was such a formidable 

 barrier to human aggressors, and conse- 

 quently, for thousands of years, the 

 black or German bee has been trespass- 

 ing upon his equally aggressive, but 

 more docile neighbor of Itaty, and vice 

 versa, so that as a natural sequence, the 

 bees of Northern Italy are hybrids, and 

 although they present the three-banded 

 test, they are obviously of a darker color 

 than those of Middle and Southern 

 Italy. So convinced I am of this fact, 

 that to import a queen from Northern 

 Italy, unless she is carefully and spe- 

 cially derived from a pure source, is in 

 effect to obtain a hybrid mother from 

 which you vainly expect a pure stock 

 of Italian bees, and consequently have 

 to display great care in selecting queens 

 and drones, in order to get anything 

 like a fair sample, spending years of 

 toil and care to obtain that which ulti- 

 mately is but a hybrid still. 



Tuscany and the Roman States, it is 

 believed, perpetuated the ancient Ital- 

 ian bee with a tolerable degree of pu- 

 rity, but even in those States the Amer- 

 ican purchaser of queens and nuclei 

 upon which he stakes his credit, honor 

 and interests, cannot be too cautious in 

 his selections. 



Had the Vandals, Goths, Lombards, 

 Heruli, etc., been addicted to a settled 

 instead of a nomadic mode of life, they 

 would probably have imported the 

 black bee into Italy, when they over- 

 ran that country, but nations or hordes- 

 of their habits would not be apt to en- 



