RACES. 
609 
hive, while the bees on the fullest combs run into 
lumps, hide the queen, or tumble off pell mell in their 
hurry. Amidst its other faults, it is quarrelsome with 
neighbouring bees, yet only an indifferent defender 
against robbers ; it unites badly, does not easily learn 
a new location, and is relatively slow in building into 
strength in spring ; but it is a good honey-gatherer, 
and usually, in my experience, flies as early and as 
late as Italians. One good point it has, which should 
atone for many faults — it excels as a comb-builder, 
and places over its honey, cappings of snowy 
whiteness, beside which the work of the yellow races 
is patchy and inartistic ; and the comb honey so sealed 
is less liable to injury by damp. This race is also 
less prone to swarm out, and leave unfinished sections. 
It is not its habit to clog the brood-nest, and, as a 
possible consequence, it adopts sections more easily 
than the yellow races. Here, then, are good and bad 
qualities associated. The object of the bee-keeper would 
be achieved if judicious crossing could retain the 
comb-building capabilities of the native race, and yet 
secure the greater coolness and fecundity of the 
Italian. Many crosses of Italian mothers with black 
drones produce splendid honey-gatherers and good 
builders, while the queens are easily found because of 
their light colour ; but the temper of the workers is 
often at fault. Judicious selection should each genera- 
tion bring us nearer to the bee required. 
Apis ligustica, the Ligurian, Italian, or Yellow Alp 
bee, although long known to naturalists, did not attract 
the attention of bee-keepers until nearly thirty years 
ago, when, in our own country, Germany, and America, 
VoL. II. _ 2 R 
