Hi all Murray McGregor got me looking at books following his email of looking at bees for two days to see if wings longer then body. Glad he found some, but he didn't say if any were uniformly mated that way or not. Kinda hope he found one. Have had a few also on biobee reference pictures they too have looked at, so I decided to post where to find pictures in a few books I have, and reference the pages/text so if you too have the books you can look at them for comparison. These are just a few book more popular in reading. There are many more out there with pictures. Problem is, the pictures are not with the texts on races/strains really depicting what they are. They are just pictures and many are old pictures just continued to be used over the years, while the text has been rewritten numerous times, which I find interesting. You'd think they'd change both to match the times! But glad they didn't, for now you can see old picutres of bees taken when combs used were much smaller, to compare to what you have today in your hives, to see how uniformly small or large or mixed sizes your bees are. I start with Langstroth on the Hive & Honey Bee, revised by Chas. and C.P. Dadant, 21st edition, 1922 It opens with pictures opposite title page of drone,queen, and worker bee reproduced from lithographs of the Barbo studies, published originally in 1873 in Milan, Italy. I consider it a good picture series because it has been reproduced so much to industry, though not noted as bees from Milan Italy in 1873, in current editions of Hive & Honey Bee, 1992, page 583. This would be good IMPOV for those looking for good picture of Italians with good body perspective as to length of wings, abdomen for a simple hybrid. yellow/blackish or brownish (at least more so that what is called so today - again IMOV). Then I look at A Manual of Bee-Keeping by E. B. Wedmore, 3rd edition illustrated. It too opens with a picture opposite the title page of queen, drone, and worker bee and is of British Black Bees, after Curtis, from Bagster's "The Management of Bees," 1834, with bees shown both magnified and natural size. I consider it a good picture series of small black bees in general whether for UK or mainland EU or mediterranean area or even here in our area of USA. The wings shown of the worker are IMPOV what Allen has been talking about and I look for uniformly in all subfamilies when I can find it for grafting my small blacks, though color markings probably differ a little as I look for silver hairs on tergits also! But I like the body perspective shown as to length of wings and abdomen. When I look at the June issue of Bee Culture on the cover I see a queen bee for a "tiger-tail" that I have compared to the 1913 edition of ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture page 469 of the queen pictured there opposite drone with longer wings then body and worker with wings about same length. In the 1920 edition of ABC & XYZ page 640 you see the same picture of the bees (pg 469) but on page 112 you see a different picture of worker and queen with long wings and different race it looks like. In Ruttner's Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee 1988, on page 142 I see a long winged worker bee that looks similar to long winged worker bee in USDA's Beekeeping in the United States, 1980 edition, page 31 of long winged small black worker bee in S. Arizona. Also on the cover in Ruttner's book, I see what I call a "Tootsie-roll" queen in coloration. In the Dark European Honey Bee, 1990, page 50 and page 3 one can see pictures of long winged bees by John Curtis (1791-1862). Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com