Editing Italian bee (section)

==Origin==
The Italian honey bee is endemic to the continental part of Italy, south of the [[Alps]], and north of [[Sicily]], where it survived the [[Last Glacial Period|last ice age]].<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-294x.2000.00945.x/full | doi=10.1046/j.1365-294x.2000.00945.x | title=Hybrid origins of honeybees from Italy ( ''Apis mellifera ligustica'' ) and Sicily ( ''A. M. Sicula'' ) | date=2000 | last1=Franck | first1=P. | last2=Garnery | first2=L. | last3=Celebrano | first3=G. | last4=Solignac | first4=M. | last5=Cornuet | first5=J.-M. | journal=Molecular Ecology | volume=9 | issue=7 | pages=907–921 | pmid=10886654 | bibcode=2000MolEc...9..907F | url-access=subscription }}</ref> On Sicily the subspecies is ''Apis mellifera siciliana''.
It is likely the most commercially distributed of all [[honey bee]]s, and has proven adaptable to most [[climate]]s from [[subtropical]] to cool temperate, but it is less successful in humid [[tropical]] regions. Italian bees that originate from the [[Liguria]]n alps in northern Italy are often referred to as the Ligurian bee, which is claimed only survives on [[Kangaroo Island]].{{Citation Needed|date=July 2023}}

Italian bees, having been conditioned to the warmer climate of the central [[Mediterranean]], are less able to cope with the "hard" winters and cool, wet springs of more northern [[latitude]]s.{{Citation Needed|date=July 2023}} They do not form such tight [[winter cluster]]s. More food has to be consumed to compensate for the greater heat loss from the loose cluster. The tendency to raise broods late in autumn also increases food consumption. Noted beekeeper [[Thomas White Woodbury]] first introduced the Italian bee to Britain in 1859, and regarded it as vastly superior to the Old British Black bee (''[[apis mellifera mellifera|A. m. mellifera]]'').