Hi all

We often hear of how the Italian bee is less of a bee than the native bees of northern Europe but this seems to contradict that notion:



On April 8th, 1870, I visited the residence, at Highgate, of our

noble and good President of the British Bee-Keepers' Association, the Baroness

Burdett Coutts, whose name is almost a household word. When I went into the

peach house the gardener said to me, '' See what a quantity of peaches I have got

set.'' I looked round and said, '' You have, indeed; how do you account for it.''

'’Well," he said, ''l have always kept bees to fructify my fruit bloom, but last autumn

I bought a stock of Ligurian or Italian Alp bees, and they being hardier than the

common English bees, they began working earlier, and got into the peach house just

as the trees were coming into bloom, and the result is I have nearly double the

quantity of peaches set I ever had before.’' 



INTRODUCTION OR EARLY HISTORY OF BEES AND HONEY.

BY MR. WILLIAM CARR. NEWTON HEATH APIARY, 1880



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