6o (JUEEN-REARING IN ENGLAND. 



segments, and more or less of the basal part of the fourth seg- 

 ment. The scutellum on the posterior part of the thorax is 

 also yellow. Extreme goldens, with the fourth segment 

 entirely, and the fifth segment more or less, yellow, have also 

 been bred, but it appears that they do not breed true. In 

 Italians the three basal segments are bordered at the edges 

 with black and the scutellum is darker. Italians from the 

 Swiss Alps have the black bands, wider than Italians from 

 the Ligurian Alps, while Cvprians have them narrower. Races 

 with the abdomen entirely black occur in Britain, France, 

 Germany, Malta and other places. 



From 1901 to 1912 I was engaged, at Ripple Court 

 Apiary, near Dover, in breeding a golden bee, to which I 

 gave the name "British Golden." This bee was extracted 

 from crosses between. English blacks, Italians and American 

 goldens. The golden character was soon isolated, and thence- 

 forward it was found possible to maintain the pure golden 

 breed by breeding from queens that produced all goldens, 

 though, as may be imagined, many of the queens were mated 

 with blacks and produced hybrids. No attempt was made 

 to increase the area of the golden colour. The diagram 

 (Fig. I in Fig. 34) shows the colouring of the abdomen of 

 a pure British Golden worker. It is interesting to compa.re 

 this with Fig 4, which is the colouring of the abdomen of a 

 pure British Golden queen. It will be seen that the yellow 

 in the queen extends much further than in the worker. The 

 factor,* or factors, that produce a half yellow and half 

 black abdomen in the worker produce an almost entirely 

 yellow one in the queen. There is no difference in the 

 gametes ; the difference is merely a fluctuation in the zygote 

 caused by n difference in the quality and quantity of food 

 supplied in the larval stage. Since the work of breeding 

 British Goldens. was begun in Ripple Court Apiary, in 1902, 

 a very large number of pure golden queens ha\e been bred ; 

 afx>ut 1,500 of them were kept until their young workers 

 hatched, and notes were made of the colouring of these. 

 The.se workers were .of two types only, golden and inter- 

 mediate (see Figs, i & 2 in Fig. 34). Not a single black 

 worker was seen. Most queens produced a considerable pro- 

 portion of each type, but some produced all goldens, and 

 .some all intermediates. 



* Tbe word " factor " is here used in tlie Mendelian sense only. 



