36 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
but the queens are more diverse, being sometimes, 
according to Von Berlepsch, ‘bright yellow varying 
into a bluish.” In anatomical structure no differ- 
ence whatever has been found; but an American 
lady, Mrs. E. S. Tupper, states in a prize essay 
that the proboscis of the Italians are longer than 
those of the brown bee, as she proved by exposing 
food under a perforated cover and finding that 
the former continued to suck after the syrup had 
been so far sunk in the vessel that all the brown 
bees had deserted it. But in its habits and economical 
value there is an all but universal consensus of 
opinion in favour of the new-comer. It is stated 
to be at once more productive of honey and more 
prolific of offsprmg, more industrious and _ less 
afraid of the cold, more courageous, but much less 
addicted to stinging. This phalanx of alleged virtues, 
together with its manifestly handsomer appearance, 
have rendered it in great demand—even more go in 
America and Germany than with ourselves. Baron 
von Berlepsch, it is true, retracted his first high 
estimate and took to denouncing the bee as a 
“humbug;” and Mr. Pettigrew has long taken a 
similar line in this country. But Dzierzon, Lang- 
stroth, and apparently every one else known in the 
apiarian world, have with more or less warmth 
sounded forth the praises of the stranger. The 
additions that it has brought to our scientific 
knowledge are valued equally by friend and foe. 
The bee-keeper who desires to Italianise his apiary 
need not, unless he chooses, buy entire hives of the 
foreign bees, but can commence by the purchase of 
