IN THE HONEY-BEE. 69 



and Berlepsch, who have done especial service to the breeding 

 and diffusion of the Italian Bees in Germany*, these golden- 

 yellow Bees are not only more beautiful, but also more indus- 



The statements also which Varro and Columella have made upon Bee-keeping, 

 show that in Italy the gold-coloured or variegated Bees and the unicolorous 

 blackish-brown Bees occur together. See Scriptorum rei rusticce veterum la- 

 tinorum (ed. Schneider), torn. i. p. 316. Varronis lib.iii. cap. 16: "Ut qui- 

 dam dicunt, tria genera cum sint ducum in apibus, niger, ruber, varius, ut 

 Menecrates scribit duo, niger et varius : qui ita, melior ; ut expediat mellario, 

 cum duo sint eadein alvo, interficere nigrum, quern scit cum altero rege esse 

 seditiosum, et corrumpere alvuui, quod fuget, aut cum multitudine fugetur. 

 De reliquis apibus optima est parva, varia, rotunda." Columella (lib. ix. 

 cap. iii. op. cit. supra, torn. ii. P. i. p. 437) in the description of the Bees 

 refers to the statements of Aristotle and Virgil, and says of the queens 

 (cap. x. op. cit. p. 453), t( Sunt autem hi reges majores paulo et oblongi 

 magis quam caeterse apes, rectioribus cruribus, sed minus amplis pinnis, 

 pulchri coloris et nitidi, levesque ac sine pilo, sine spiculo, nisi quis forte 

 pleniorem quasi capillum, quern in ventre gerunt, aculeum putet, quo et ipso 

 tamen ad nocendum non utuntur. Quidam etiam infusci atque hirsuti reperi- 

 untur, quorum pro habitu damnabis ingenium." Therefore, even amongst the 

 Romans, the variegated and golden-yellow Bees were more highly valued than 

 the unicolorous blackish-brown race. That this rusty-yellow variety of the 

 Honey-Bee is at present very widely diffused in Italy, appears from the descrip- 

 tion which Spinola (Insectorum Liguria species novce aut rariores, torn. i. 

 1806, p. 35) has given of a Piedmontese Honey-bee. This Bee, furnished by 

 Spinola with the name of Apis ligustica, agrees exactly, according to the 

 description, with the rusty-yellow Bees recently introduced amongst us from 

 Italy. Two individuals of the Apis liyustica, captured near Belliuzona and 

 Sesto Calende on the Lago Maggiore, which I have been able to compare 

 here with some Italian Bees of the true race bred in Seebach, I cannot re- 

 cognize as a separate species, but only as a rusty-yellow variety of the Apis 

 mellifica, the unicolorous dark form of which, according to Spinola's own 

 statements (op. cit. p. 133), also occurs, although rarely, in Piedmont. The 

 aurora-coloured Bees mentioned by Delia Rocca (Traite complet sur les 

 Abeilles, 17^0, torn. ii. p. 142), and said to have been introduced into France 

 from Holland or Flanders, may have belonged to the same Italian variety. 

 The Egyptian Honey-bee also, described by Latreille (Annales du Museum, 

 torn. v. 1804, p. 171) under the name of Apis fasciata, is probably nothing 

 but this southern rusty-yellow variety of the Apis mellifica, especially as 

 Latreille himself admits that this Egyptian hive-bee agreed exactly with a 

 kind of Honey-bee taken near Genoa. 



* Herr von Baldenstein of Graubiindten has the merit of having first 

 directed attention to the Italian Bees as an object adapted for experiment 

 (see the Bienenzeitung , 1848, p. 26). He had got an Italian bee-hive con- 



