THE PRINCIPLES OF BEE BREEDING. 21 
drones. The workers produced by these queens were not percept- 
ibly larger than the pure Egyptian workers, and in other respects 
still resembled the Egyptian type very much. The drones pro- 
duced by these queens — since impregnation exerts no direct influ- ` 
ence on them—vwere still pure Egyptian. I now raised some 
oung queens from these impurely fertilized mothers, and em- 
ployed.the Kohler process to secure their fertilization by black 
drones. According to the experience derived from crossing the 
black bee and the Italian, the workers produced by such queens 
should have been numerically one-half black bees, and the other 
half Egyptian. But when the hybrid workers made their appear- 
ance our anticipations were not realized. The hybrids diverged 
in two directions indeed, but the parental markings showed them- 
selves mingled or melted into each other, in a portion of the pro- 
geny. A portion of the workers resembled the Italian workers so 
perfectly, in color, size, and characteristics, that no expert could 
distinguish them from pure Italians. Another portion of them 
still resembled the Egyptian bees, showing a black body covered 
with a grayish pubescence, and manifesting the constitutional char- 
acteristics of the Egyptians. These observations led me to suppose 
that, probably ages ago, the Italian bee may have originated from 
a cross of the black bee with the Egyptian. I communicated 
this conjecture to, Dr. Gerstaecker of Berlin and other friends. 
The latter received the suggestion with great disfavor, regarding 
it as derogatory and dishonoring the Italian bee, and it required 
no inconsiderable labor to convince them that the conjecture had 
no reference whatever to any supposed value or want of value of 
any variety of the honey bee, but was of a purely scientific nature ; 
and that one variety might in economic value still rank high above 
another, though it be clearly demonstrated to be of hybrid origin. 
Dr. Gerstaecker informed me that he was unable to distinguish the 
workers produced by a cross of the black bee with the Egyptian, 
from the pure Italian workers ; but that I had assigned no reason 
for my hypothesis, and that the geographical distribution of the 
honey bee militated against it. I then again carefully studied the 
excellent little treatise by Dr. Gerstaecker, on “‘ The Geographical 
Distribution of the Honey Bee,” and found that the geographical 
for or against my views. Here the idea occurred to me that the 
conjecture would attain to the highest degree of probability, if a 
. 
