Such an incarnate, North-German, Stock-Italian could not be convinced that there, where the home of the Italian bee is, by far the greater number of queens are dark, almost chesnut-brown, and, for all that, there is no difference in the colour of the working bees, whether they be produced by a light or a dark-coloured queen. All Italian Alp-bees have the same distinctive mark, that is, the two orange-red girths, no matter whether dark or light, and a dark queen will just as well produce light ones, as a light one produces dark queens, and the colour has therefore not the least influence on the race, but solely the marks of distinction. The Marquis of Spinola has called this bee the Apis ligustica, but on the same ground the Bavarians may call their bee Apis bavaria, or the Berlinians theirs, the Apis borussia, &c. The circumstance that these yellow bees are only to be found in the most perfect condition on the borders of Graubunden, in the Veltlin and Tessin, and that, the farther one goes from the Alps, the less handsome they are found; as for example in Nice; until they are entirely lost in lower Italy in the black species. This circumstance speaks for itself, that the yellow Alp-bees have been, through the glaciers,[2] unsurmountably separated from the black bees on this side of the Alps, and could preserve their race in original purity, while they might and could mix more, by latter gradual spreading, in lower Italy, Venice, Genoa and Nice with other kinds. We must therefore look for the original in Switzerland, and can call them with as much right Apis helvetica as the Genoese calls them Apis ligustica. [Footnote 2: The assertions of many German bee-cultivators that the Italian bee has German blood, as not even the Alps, like a Chinese wall, would prevent them from mixing with German bees, may sound very well and comprehensible _on paper_, but the matter would be quite changed if such a biographer would take the trouble to make, on the spot, inquiries which would present a scientific basis-. The last German place from the Julier-pass is called Stalla, between which place and Poschiavo (a distance of fifty miles) there are _no bees_. In May, and sometimes to the end of the month, the road leads from Stalla by the Julier-pass (nine miles), often through snow, then Oberengadien is passed (where not a single bee exists), and then through the Bernina-pass which demands a march, in the snow, of about fifteen miles, and passes are the _lowest points for passage_.