following lines, first alluding to the 

 kings after severe combat : " Having 

 withdrawn the kings from the battle, 

 kill the one which seems of the most 

 degenerate kind, and let the more val- 

 orous reign alone in court. The one 

 will be glowing with refulgent spots of 

 gold, for there are two kinds. This is 

 the better distinguished both for his 

 form, and gemmed with glittering 

 scales. The other is hideous with sloth 

 and ingloriously drags a ponderous 

 stomach." As regards the progeny : 

 " The others shine and sparkle with 

 brightness, burnished over their bodies 

 with gold and regular marks ; these are 

 the best breeds ; from them, at the 

 stated time of the year, you will press 

 the luscious honey.' 1 I think, there- 

 fore, there can be little doubt as to the 

 color, quality and location of the Italian 

 bee. Virgil has no doubt fallen into 

 some inaccuracies, such for instance as 

 calling the queen the " king," being 

 under the impression the workers were 

 all females, and imagining that bees 

 were manufactured from substances 

 gathered in the fields ; but on the whole 

 it exhibits a surprising degree of 

 knowledge for that period. He men- 

 tions even the method was adopted of 

 clipping the queen's wings to prevent 

 swarming : " But when swarms fly 

 fitfully and sport in the air without any 

 fixed intention, disdain their hives and 

 leave their abode cold, you will restrain 

 their unsettled minds from this useless 

 play ; nor is it any great labor to curb 

 them, you have only to clip the wings 

 of their kings," 



Then, again, in reference to Prof. A. 

 J. Cook's paper on " The History of the 

 Bee Smoker," Virgil has the priority 

 over Columella, the great naturalist of 

 Cadiz, whose writings, are some forty 

 years subsequent to Virgil. One would 

 almost imagine Virgil was describing 

 the rag smudge so recently in use : "If 

 at any time you intend to rob their nar- 

 row mansions and the honey preserved 

 in their treasures ; having first sprinkled 

 them with a draught of water, extend 

 your hand and with your mouth blow 

 forward the persecuting smoke." It 

 does not appear that killing the bees for 

 their honey was practiced at that period. 



The finale of the book is perhaps the 

 most amusing, where the poor shepherd 

 Aristeus, having somewhat interfered 

 in the plot of rescuing Euridice out of 

 the infernal regions by her husband 

 Orpheus, had all his bees, which were 

 his onlv means of suppart, destroyed 

 by the nymphs of the goddesses. 



Orpheus tickled his harp so well 

 He lured Euridice out of hell ; 

 Had she been as good as she was fair, 

 How the dickens did she get there ? 



Well, the upshot was, the poor fellow 

 after great supplication had to propiti- 

 ate the gods by the sacrifice of four 

 young bulls and four two-year-old oxen, 

 with orders to stop up their nostrils and 

 revisit them in fourteen days, at the 

 expiration of which their decomposed 

 carcasses emitted clouds of bees, and 

 he was again made happy. No doubt 

 wild bees having been known to make 

 their dwelling place in the skeletons of 

 dead animals, gave the origin to this 

 legend of the generation of bees, and 

 to show how this false notion prevailed, 

 in a herbal printed in London, in 1665, 

 there is a large engraving representing 

 all the stages of this method, with di- 

 rections in sober seriousness. 



I fear I have trespassed too much on 

 your valuable space and indulged in a 

 subject that may be uninteresting to 

 the generality of your readers. If so, 

 you know what to do with it. 



A singular circumstance occurred 

 as I was taking a very late swarm this 

 afternoon. One of the bees stung me 

 on the ear very severely ; my daughter, 

 who was standing by me, pulled out 

 the sting, which fell upon her wrist and 

 stung her. I have often noticed a con- 

 vulsed motion of the sting after extrac- 

 tion, but I should hardly suppose it 

 would retain sufficient muscular power 

 to sting a second time, but it did. Be- 

 ing late in the evening, the bees were 

 unusually savage, and my gloves were 

 literally covered with stings, 



Lawrence, Kan., July 12, 1879. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



What Is the Italian Bee? 



TITOS. L. FRASER. 



In considering the ethnological and 

 commercial history of the Greeks and 

 Romans, I am induced to believe that 

 the Italian bee is a hybrid, the product 

 of the German and Egyptian varieties. 

 My reasons for this are the following : 

 The black bee from its spontaneous 

 emigrating habit, from the earliest 

 dawning of their history, accompanied 

 the Germanic races and probably pre- 

 ceded them in occupying the forest 

 wastes of Western Europe : and as the 

 Greeks, Romans, Ionians, etc., were of 

 Caucasian origin, it is probable that 

 the black bee preceded all others in 

 those countries, but when Cecrops 

 founded Athens and introduced art, 

 refinement and letters into Greece, it is 

 probable that the Egyptian bee, already 

 domesticated, was introduced by their 

 masters and naturally fraternizing with 

 the black bee, a hybrid was the result. 



Again, the Egyptian bee held in the 



