> I say they are the same bees—just different color-morphs. I thought that was clear. 

This sort of reasoning implies that those who breed specific traits into lines of bees such as the MacArthur Grant winning work of Marla Spivak (the "Minnesota Hygienic Bee") are creating specific traits out of thin air, rather than via skill, talent, and long hours.

Carnis are profoundly different bees from Italians.  Doubting NY residents can  mail-order NWC queens from Strachan Apiaries, or pick up at Mann Lake in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and see for themselves.

Right now, colonies are staying pretty solidly-clustered in NYC during daylight hours, and an Italian colony would have a cluster at least twice the size of any carni cluster.  (Lots of hungry Italians, eating their beekeepers out of house and home, thank whatever deity you worship for candyboards.)  That simple metric alone - winter cluster size, and resulting amount of winter stores consumed is such a significant difference, it simply cannot be ignored.

Old bee ads used to advertise "3-banded Italian" bees, and it was never clear to me if they meant the bees themselves, or the Italian flag.  The 3 bands were radial, rather than axial, so they could not be racing stripes to help improve flying speed.

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