The idea that "Italian bees" are inferior to other types is an error. The Italian became the most widespread honey bee in the modern world for its excellence. One hundred years ago, E F Phillips wrote the following. The honey bees in the US today are a hodge podge, but any weakness belongs to the particular strain, not to the original Italian race.

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Italian.  
This is the most popular race of bees among the best American beekeepers. The bees of Italy vary considerably in color, those in the north of the country being virtually identical with the German bees in color. 

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 Carniolans 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 compared chiefly with German bees, to which race they are vastly superior. 

Italian bees were sent to Switzerland in 1843, to Germany in 1853, to England in 1859 and to France about the same time, to Australia in 1862 and again in 1880, to German Guinea in 1887, from California to New Zealand in 1880.

Phillips, E. F. (1915). Beekeeping: A Discussion of the Life of the Honeybee and the Production of Honey. Macmillan.

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