262 Excellencies of Italians. 



The Italians certainly possess the following points of 

 superiority : 



First. They possess longer tongues, and so can gather 

 from flowers which are useless to the black bee. This 

 point has already been sufficiently considered. How much 

 value hangs upon this structural peculiarity I am unable to 

 state. I have frequently seen Italians working on red 

 clover. I never saw a black bee thus employed. It is easy 

 to see that this might be, at certain times and certain 

 seasons, a very material aid. How much of the superior 

 storing qualities of the Italians is due to this lengthened 

 ligula, I am unable to say. Mr. J. H. Martin has a very 

 ingenious tongue measurer by which the length of the 

 tongues of bees in the several hives can be quickly and 

 accurately compared. I have made a very simple and con- 

 venient instrument to accomplish the same end ; two rec- 

 tangular pieces, one of glass and the other of wire gauze, 

 are so set in a frame that the glass inclines to the gauze. 

 At one end thej' touch; at the other they are separated 

 three-fourths of an inch. Honey is spread on the -glass 

 and all set in the hive. The bees can only sip the honey 

 through the gauze. The bees that clean the glass farthest 

 from the end where it touches the "gauze have tlie longest 

 tongues. This gives only relative lengths, while Mr. 

 Martin's register tells the absolute length. 



Second. They are more active, and with the same oppor- 

 tunities will collect a good deal more honey. This is a 

 matter of observation, which I have tested over and over 

 again. Yet I will give the figures of another: Mr. Doo- 

 little secured from two colonies, 309 lbs. and 301 lbs. 

 respectively, of comb honey., during the past season. These 

 surprising figures, the best he could give, were from his 

 best Italian stocks. Similar testimony comes from Klein 

 and Dzierzon Over the sea, and from hosts of our own 

 apiarists. 



Third. They work earlier and later. This is not only 

 true of the day, but of the season. On cool days in spring, 

 I have seen the dandelions swarming with Italians, while 

 not a black bee was to be seen. On May 7th, 1877, I 

 walked less than half a mile, and counted sixty-eight bees 



