324 THE HIVE AND HONET-BEE. 



" 1. That the Italian bees are less sensitive to cold than the 

 common kind. 2. That their queens are more prolific. 3. That 

 the colonies swarm earlier and more frequently, though of this he 

 has less experience than Dzierzon. 4. That they a*'e less apt tc 

 Sling. Not only are they less apt, but scarcely are they inclined 

 to sting, though they will do so if intentionally annoyed or irri- 

 tated. 5. That they are more industrious. Of this fact he had 

 but one Summer's experience, but all the results and indications 

 go to confirm Dzierzon's statements, and satisfy him of the 

 superiority of this kind in evert/ point of view. 6. Tha,t they are 

 more disposed to rob than common bees, and more courageous and 

 active in self-defence. They strive on all hands to force their 

 way into colonies of common bees ; but when strange bees attack 

 their hives, they fight with great fierceness, and with an incredible 

 adroitness.* 



" From one Italian queen sent him by Dzierzon, Berlepsch suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining, in the ensuing season, one hundred and thirty- 

 nine fertile young queens, of which number about fifty produced 

 pure Italian progeny. f 



'■' Busch (Die Honig-biene, Gotha, 1855) describes the Italian 

 bee as follows : ' The workers are smooth and glossy, and the 

 color of their abdominal rings is a medium between the pale 

 yellow of straw and the deeper yellow of ochre. These rings have 

 a narrow black edge or border, so that the yellow (which might 



* Spinola speaks of these bees as ^^'selociores tnotli'*^ — quicker in their motiona 

 than the common bees. 



+ *' It is a remarkable fact that an Italian queen, ^pregnated by a common drone 

 and 3 common queen impregnated by an Italian drone, do not produce workers 

 of a uniform intermediate cast, or hybrids ; but some of the workers bred from 

 the eggs of each queen Avill be purely of the Italian, and others as purely of the 

 common race, only a few of them, indeed, being apparently hybrids. Berlepsch 

 also had several bastardized queens, which at iirst produced Italian workers exclu- 

 sively, and afterwards common workers as exclusively. Some such queens pro- 

 duced fully three-fourths Italian workers ; others, common workers in the same 

 proportion. Nay, he states that he had one beautiful orange-yellow bastardized 

 ~ Iliftlian queen which did not produce a single Italian worker, but only common 

 workers, perhaps a shade lighter in color. The drones, however, produced by a 

 bastardized Italian queen are uniformly of the Italian race, and this fact, besides 

 demonstrating the truth of Dzierzon's theory, renders the presCTvation and per- 

 petuation of the Italian race, in its purity, entirely ifeasible in any country wher? 

 they may be introduced." — S. "Wagnek. 



