36 THE DEE AS AN INSECT. [Ch. i. 



colour about them than others— the younger bees far the 

 most. These orange-coloured parts are transparent when 

 closely examined with the sun shining on them. The 

 drones are more darkly ringed than the workers, and are 

 light-yellow beneath, which is an infallible mark of dis- 

 tinction from the English drones, which are nearly white 

 in that part; many are also a fourth part smaller than 

 the English. The queens vary greatly : " The finest and 

 rarest," says Von Berlepsch, " are bright yellow varying 

 into a bluish. Others rather resemble the workers, ex- 

 hibiting only yellow rings ; and a few are very difficult or 

 impossible to distinguish from our own. From this we 

 see that the Italian is not a constant race, like, e.g., our 

 own or the Egyptian." 



It is now over thirty years since attention was recalled 

 to this variety by Captain von Baldenstein, who, when 

 stationed in Italy during a part of the Napoleonic wars, 

 had observed that the bees about Lake Como were of a 

 different colour from ordinary ones. In later years, after 

 his retirement from military life, he became a student 

 of natural history, and, remembering these bees, he pro- 

 cured a colony of them in 1843. This he preserved, 

 through constant disappointments, for seven years, and 

 in 1848 he communicated to the Bienenzeitung the 

 deductions of his experience. From this Dr. Dzierzon 

 was induced to pursue the experiment, and from him the 

 variety became introduced in Germany. 



The introduction of this new variety of bee into Eng- 



