THE LIG URIAN BEE. 209 



artificial swarm. The foregoing- facts speak for them- 

 selves ; but as information on this point has been very 

 generally asked, I have no hesitation in saying that I 

 believe the Ligurian honey-bee infinitely superior in 

 every respect to the only species that we have hitherto 

 been acquainted with." 



In a private letter received from Mr. Langstroth, he 

 informs us that he has, in the season of 1865, bred over 

 300 Ligurian queens; these he has disseminated to 

 various bee-masters on the American continent, and the 

 united opinion of apiarians in that country is increas- 

 ingly in favour of the decided advantage of the cultiva- 

 tion of the Italian bee. 



After such emphatic testimony as this, corroborated, as 

 it is, by many other observers, there seems every reason 

 to expect that the Ligurian bee will gradually supersede 

 the common kind throughout the United Kingdom. 

 The honey-bee of the Holy. Land is the Ligurian. 



The Rev. H. B. Tristram, M.A., in his valuable book,, 

 "The Land of Israel," has the following interesting 

 account of the bees in that country : — In Palestine bee- 

 keeping is not an unimportant item of industry, and every 

 house possesses a pile of bee-hives in its yard. Though 

 similar in its habits, the hive-bee of Palestine is a different 

 species-to our own.. "We never," ]\& says, "found 

 Apis mellifica, L., our domestic species, in the country, 

 though it very possibly occurs in the north; but the 

 common Holy Land insect, Apis ligustica, is amazingly 



p 



