RACES AND RELATIONSHIPS OF HONEY-BEES. 203 



All Bee-races have descended from one type. 



No reasonable objection exists against the theory that all 

 known domesticated bee-races and their sub-races descended from 

 one original stock. Experience proves that all the domesticated 

 races of the Honey-bee and their varieties freely intercross, and 

 are fertile ; their mongrel offsprings are perfectly fertile likewise 

 with each other, and the parental races as well. Such is quite 

 sufficient evidence of their descent from one species, for it has 

 been observed as an almost invariable fact, that when once varieties 

 have been modified to such an extent as to become true species, 

 the offsprings of their hybrids, as a rule, are sterile. The opinion 

 held by some naturalists that, through lengthy domestication, this 

 tendency towards sterility in the offsprings of hybrids, when they 

 can be made to breed at all, becomes gradually obliterated, cannot 

 well be applied to bees, which, though called domesticated, are 

 not so in the same sense as other animals, which are kept more 

 or less in confinement, and are fed and tended. 



To decide what was the original type of the Honey-bee is a 

 matter surrounded by great difficulties, and therefore it may not 

 be possible to produce unquestionable proof of its appearance and 

 character at the present date, but certain indications point to the 

 probability of its being closely allied to either the " brown " or 

 the " Egyptian " bee. These signs are principally manifested in 

 the tendency of the reversion of certain crosses towards the colour 

 of one or other of these races. Before, however, discussing the 

 interesting phenomenon of "reversion," or "throwing back," 

 towards an original type, it will be as well to consider the principal 

 races of the domestic bee so far as they are known at present. 



The Races and their Varieties. 



1. The " Brown " or " Northern " Bee {Apis mellifica). — Is 

 of a uniform dark brown colour, sometimes greyish when young, 

 owing to the greater quantity of hair with which it is covered 

 at this age ; the hair is of a dirty yellow colour, as a rule, but 

 sometimes shiny ; with some strains an indistinctly reddish brown 

 band makes its appearance on the first abdominal segment. 



This bee is found throughout Europe, some parts of Asia, in 

 Algeria, and round the west coast of Africa, in the Old World. 

 It was early introduced into America and the Cape of Good Hope, 



r 2 



