198 Beekeeping 



Egjrptian bees. Typically, the yellow color covers three 

 segments of the abdomen, the head and thorax and posterior 

 segments of the abdomen being black with some traces of 

 yellow on the mandibles, and the hairs have a yellow cast. 

 The legs are brown. Queens and drones are variable in 

 color from sohd black to the yellow found on workers. 

 Italians are gentle (but not equal to Caucasians in this 

 respect), less prolific than the eastern races but usually 

 better than black bees, build few queen cells, rarely develop 

 fertile workers, keep the hive clean, drive out wax-moths, 

 winter well, do not run on the combs, swarm less than Carnio- 

 lans and some eastern races and cap their honey less white 

 than Germans, Carniolans and Caucasians. The rearing of 

 brood is quickly curtailed in a dearth of nectar and they 

 cease rearing brood in the autumn sooner than most races. 

 An important characteristic of Italians is the resistance to 

 European foul brood. In this respect, they have been com- 

 pared chiefly with German bees, to which race they are 

 vastly superior. 



Italian bees were sent to Switzerland (by v. Baldenstein) 

 in 1843, to Germany in 1853, to England (by Neighbor) in 

 1859 and to France about the same time (by Hamet), to 

 Australia in 1862 and again in 1880, to German Guinea in 

 1887, from California to New Zealand in 1880, from Germany 

 to Ceylon in 1882 and from Italy to New Zealand (to 

 Hopkins) in 1883, to Guam in 1907 (from Hawaii by Van 

 Dine). 



The first importation of these bees to America has been a 

 matter of some dispute and was the basis of a sharp contro- 

 versy. Their introduction marks an important milestone 

 in American apiculture, almost equal in importance to the 

 invention of the movable-frame hive. About 1855, Samuel 

 Wagner and Edward Jessop of York, Pennsylvania, made an 

 unsuccessful importation of an Italian colony, which died 

 en route. In the winter of 1858-59, Wagner, Langstroth 

 and Colvin (Baltimore) sent an order to Dzierzon (Germany), 

 which was not delivered. Later in 1859, they received 



