THE LIG URIAH BEE. 30 



bees in the following- stanza of his beautiful poem 

 "Eleanore" : — 



" Or the j;f//o'tu banded bees. 

 Through half-open lattices. 



Coming in the scented breeze, 



Fed thee, a child, lying alone, 

 With whitest honey in fairy gardens culled : 

 A glorious child, dreaming alone 

 In silk soft folds, upon yielding down, 



With the hum of swarming bees 



Into dreamfiil slumbers lulled." 



Our own experience with the Italian Alp bee enables 

 us to corroborate the statements which have been made 

 in favour of this new variety. We find the queens more 

 prolific than those of the common kind, and the quantity 

 of honey produced is greater. These two facts stand 

 as cause and effect : the bees being multiplied more 

 quickly, the store of honey is accumulated more rapidly, 

 and the Italian bees consume, if anj^hing, less food than 

 the common, kind. When of pure Italian blood, these 

 bees are, by some apiarians, thought to be hardier than 

 our own. That they forage for stores with greater 

 eagerness, and have little hesitation in paying visits to 

 other hives, we can testify from our own observation. 

 The following anecdote will illustrate their intrusive 

 propensities :■ — Another bee-keeper living in the neigh- 

 bourhood of our apiary, when inspecting our hives, ob- 

 served the yellow bees: he exclaimed, "Now, I have 



