198 
Beekeeping 
Egyptian bees. Typically, the yellow color covers three 
segments of the abdomen, the head and thorax and posterior 
segments of the abdomen being black with some traces of 
yellow on the mandibles, and the hairs have a yellow cast. 
The legs are brown. Queens and drones are variable in 
color from solid black to the yellow found on workers. 
Italians are gentle (but not equal to Caucasians in this 
respect), less prolific than the eastern races but usually 
better than black bees, build few queen cells, rarely develop 
fertile workers, keep the hive clean, drive out wax-moths, 
winter well, do not run on the combs, swarm less than Carnio- 
lans and some eastern races and cap their honey less white 
than Germans, Carniolans and Caucasians. The rearing of 
brood is quickly curtailed in a dearth of nectar and they 
cease rearing brood in the autumn sooner than most races. 
An important characteristic of Italians is the resistance to 
European foul brood. In this respect, they have been com¬ 
pared chiefly with German bees, to which race they are 
vastly superior. 
Italian bees were sent to Switzerland (by v. Baldenstein) 
in 1843, to Germany in 1853, to England (by Neighbor) in 
1859 and to France about the same time (by Hamet), to 
Australia in 1862 and again in 1880, to German Guinea in 
1887, from California to New Zealand in 1880, from Germany 
to Ceylon in 1882 and from Italy to New Zealand (to 
Hopkins) in 1883, to Guam in 1907 (from Hawaii by Van 
Dine). 
The first importation of these bees to America has been a 
matter of some dispute and was the basis of a sharp contro¬ 
versy. Their introduction marks an important milestone 
in American apiculture, almost equal in importance to the 
invention of the movable-frame hive. About 1855, Samuel 
Wagner and Edward .lessop of York, Pennsylvania, made an 
unsuccessful importation of an Italian colony, which died 
en route. In the winter of 1858-59, Wagner, Langstroth 
and Colvin (Baltimore) sent an order to Dzierzon (Germany), 
which was not delivered. Later in 1859, they received 
