Italian bee

The Italian bee, or Italian honey bee (Apis mellifera ligustica), is a subspecies of the western honey bee. It is endemic to the continental part of Italy south of the Alps, where it survived the last ice age, and is probably the most widely distributed commercial honey bee, adaptable to most climates from subtropical to cool temperate but less successful in humid tropical regions. Its abdomen carries brown and yellow bands, and breeders recognise leather, bright yellow and very pale cordovan strains. Its body is smaller and its overhairs shorter than those of darker honey bee races, and its tongue measures 6.3 to 6.6 millimetres. Beekeepers value its gentleness, productivity, cleanliness and low tendency to swarm, but it rears brood heavily, consumes large winter stores and drifts between hives. It reached Britain in 1859 and Kangaroo Island in South Australia in 1884.