12 
BEE-CULTURE. 
composed of six segments or rings, The Italian variety is 
distinguished by having the first three segments under the 
wings yellow. The abdomen of the queen is nearly all of a 
golden yellow. These bees are more prolific and vigorous 
than the German variety, and give off earlier and larger 
swarms. They are more industrious aud work more freely 
on the second or seed crop of clover and other flowers on 
which the common bees do not work; consequently, in bad 
seasons, they are rich in honey, while the other variety are 
starving; and strong, vigorous colonies always protect them- 
selves best against moth and robbers. 
Pure Italians are less inclined to sting than the Black bee. 
They are no more inclined to rob than other bees, if they are 
so much so. The queen being very yellow is more easily dis- 
tinguished than in the German variety. Correspondents of 
our agricultural journals speak in glowing terms of these 
bees. Dizinzon, the great German bee-keeper, says the 
profits of his Apiary have boen doubled since their introduc- 
tion. The almost universal testimony of those with whom 1 
am acquainted who have tested them, is strongly in their 
favor It is true, that of two hives cf common bees ap- 
parently alike good, one may occasionally be very far superior 
to the other in productiveness, and so there may be poor 
hives of Italian bees. Yet such eases as the following seem 
conclusive that there is something peculiar in them that 
makes them better adapted to our locality than the common 
bee. 
In the summer of 1868, eighteen hives that I had Italian- 
ized nine miles distant from this place gave fourteen swarms, 
mostly in good condition for winter, while ten hives of black 
bees sitting beside them, receiving the same care did not 
give off a swarm, aud perhaps as much as three hundred hives 
in the country around failed to give off a single swarm ; yet 
the eighteen Italian colonies gave oil' fourteen swarms. 
A neighbor tells me that his Italian hive gave off four 
swarms ; his first swarm swarmed twice, and two of the after- 
swarms swarmed, making eight swarms in one season as the 
increase from the original stock. Two of the swarms went 
to the woods; the remaining six and the mother colony were 
all well supplied with honey for winter, besides making him 
e *ghty pounds of surplus or box honey to spare. Estimating 
his six new colonies at ten dollars each, and his honey at 
