134 BEE-FARMING. 



the death. No one need be alarmed lest the Italians be 

 robbed, yet we fear they are themselves robbers when 

 they have the chance, but it is always weak defenceless 

 stocks that they plunder. 



We advise our English bee-farmers to have none but 

 pure-bred Ligurians ; the half-breeds or hybrids are very 

 savage in disposition, and are far from being so indus- 

 trious ; neither are they better as to swarming than our 

 black bees. 



BEES IN OTHER LANDS. 



The continent of Africa in all its widely-extended 

 regions seems well stocked with bees, particularly towards 

 the sea-coast. In Lower Egypt their cultivation forms 

 the employment of many of the poorer classes during a 

 great part of the year. During the inundation of the 

 Nile the cultivators, unable to find pasturage for their bee- 

 stocks in the lower province, transport them in boats to 

 Upper Egypt, resting occasionally by the way to allow 

 the industrious insects an opportunity to forage. The 

 insect supposed to be Jpis fasciata bears a considerable 

 resemblance to that cultivated in Greece. On the 

 western coast, where it is intersected by the Senegal, sepa- 

 rated as this region is from the most northerly parts of 

 Africa by mountains and deserts which form an insuperable 

 barrier to the passage of the inferior classes of animals, we 

 find what we are assured is another species of bee, viz. 

 A, Adanson'ii. It has, however, a very near resemblance 

 to the Ligurian bee, its difference being in the first two 

 rings of the abdomen, and the anterior half of the third, 

 which are of a pale chestnut colour. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Gambia a species of small black bee is found in 

 the woods, in all likelihood the same with those last men- 

 tioned ; and the town of Vintain, situated on the southern 



