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JOOBNAIi OF HOBTICULTURK AND COTTAGE GAEDENKR. 



[ September 6, 1867. 



LIGURIANISING AN APIAEY. 



Theke ia one point which I think is omitted in Mr. Wood- 

 bnry's article on the subject of propagating Lignrians, which 

 appeared in " Our Journal " of 11th uf April last, and which I 

 think important. It is not stated how the young queens are to 

 be introduced to the other hives, or what is to be done with 

 the nuclei when they have answered their purpose. I should 

 suppose the former must be done in a similar manner to that 

 recommended in " Bee-keeping for the Many," and the latter 

 would, perhaps, be placed in such positions as would be suit- 

 able for joining them to the nearest stocks afterwards. Or, 

 would it be better to remove the old queen and then drive the 

 Lignrian queens and bees out of the nuclei, and add them to 

 the queenless stocks in that style ? or to place the nuclei upon 

 the top of the queenless stocks ? I should fancy that in frame 

 hives it would be a good plan to remove the old queen and give 

 them a couple of queen cells from the Ligurians ; but certainly 

 the safer plan is to keep them in the nuclei until there is evi- 

 dence of the queen's impregnation. I am very much iuoon- 

 venienced for want of some worker-comb, being a beginner; 

 and some of the rebels in one of my artificial swarms have 

 made little else but di'one-comb. However, the queen has com- 

 menced laying in the worker-comb, so I have taken two of 

 these drone-combs, with honey in, to place on each side of my 

 Lignrian brood-comb in the nucleus. 



I added a swarm of black bees to the stock in which I placed 

 the Ligurian queen about a fortnight after I had received 

 her, as I thought it would materially strengthen the swarm, 

 and aid her majesty in accomplishing the desired revolution. — 

 J. K. J. 



[No queen should be removed from the nucleus in which she 

 has been hatched until she has commenced egg-laying, when 

 she may be placed at the head of another stock. And here I 

 may at once confess that I know of no means by which the 

 substitution of queens can he effected without some risk of a 

 mishap. After all my practice, and I have had not a little, I 

 have failed twice during this present season, and I can there- 

 fore do no more than describe the process by which the degree 

 of risk seems reduced to a minimum, without attempting to 

 guarantee success in all cases. My instructions in the first 

 instance apply only to moveable-comb hives, the combs of 

 which must be lifted out and looked over imtil the queen be 

 discovered. She should then be imprisoned in a small but 

 well ventilated box with a few score of her workers and a 

 piece of sealed honeycomb, and put by in some quiet, dark, 

 and cool place as a dernier ressort in case of failure. Four 

 or five days after her deposition the combs must be again care- 

 fully examined, and all royal cells excised. It will, indeed, be 

 better at this time to shake nearly all the bees off from each 

 comb in succession, in order to make sure that no royal embryo 

 escapes observation. Extinction of the recent dynasty having 

 thus been completely effected, at any rate for the time being, 

 the new pretender to the vacant throne must be first introduced 

 to her intended subjects under the protection of a wire cage,* 

 which having been secured between two of the brood-combs, 

 the hive should be closed and left undisturbed for a couple of 

 days, when the cluster of bees surrounding the royal prisoner 

 should be critically examined, and her liberation or continued 

 incarceration determined on in accordance with their demean- 

 our. If this cluster assumes the appearance of a dense knot 

 of workers intertwined and chnging closely together with all 

 the strength and energy of which they are capable, and mo- 

 mentarily increases its dimensions by the accession of num- 

 bers of bees which rush towards it from aU parts of the ad- 

 jacent combs, the regieidal frenzy continues in full force and 

 its hapless object must still remain within her prison-bars, in 

 order to be protected from the fury of the raging multitude 

 without. If, on the other hand, the bees which surround her 

 cage are so few in number as to permit a view of the move- 

 ments of the royal prisoner and her companions in captivity, 

 whilst none cling, "like grim death," with curved and threat- 

 ening abdomens against the wires of the cage, but rather 

 assume the quiet and respectfully attentive appearance which 

 marks the ordinary deportment of workers in the presence of 

 their acknowledged sovereign, the imprisoned queen may be at 

 once released with eveiy prospect of success, and if she be 

 allowed to traverse the comb for a few seconds in view of the 

 bee-keeper, he will be enabled to judge of the character of her 



* A wire iJipe-coTcr, pressed into the surface of a comb in the manner 

 described by Kleine, may be used for this purjiose, and it ia well to im- 

 prison two or three of her own workers with the oUeu queen. 



reception. Should she obtain the respectful homage proper to 

 the royal progress of a liege sovereign amongst her loyal subjects, 

 the hive may at once be closed with every hope of a successful 

 issue, but if she be seized and detained she must again be 

 restored to the protection of her prison, there to await the re- 

 turn of her rebellious subjects to a more dutiful frame of mind. 

 There are of course almost infinite gradations and degrees of 

 difference between the dense knot of would-be regicides which 

 I have first described and the comparatively few watchful at- 

 tendants who wait with respectful patience to welcome their 

 future sovereign on her release from captivity, and it requires 

 some practice to enable the bee-keeper to determine when it is 

 best to release an imprisoned queen, since, if she be left too 

 long incarcerated, the outsiders seem at length to come to re- 

 gard her with indifference, and she ultimately perishes either 

 from lack of food or from the effects of her unnatural and con- 

 strained position. 



In operating upon hives with fixed combs, I prefer effecting 

 a complete eviction of the inhabitants, which should be ex- 

 pelled by driving, and then estabhshed as an artificial swarm 

 in a moveable' comb-hive on their old stance, whilst the occu- 

 pants of the nucleus-box are inducted into their ready-fur- 

 nished dwelling. As it is most probable that the incoming 

 tenants will be comparatively few in number, and that they 

 will, therefore, find themselves over-housed, whilst the brood 

 left by their predecessors would in this case run great risk of 

 becorning chilled and, therefore, abortive, it is well during the 

 first week or so to shut up the bees every evening by means of 

 perforated zinc, and place them in a warm room (say the 

 kitchen), for the night. When the hive becomes moderately 

 populous, this practice may, of course, be discontinued. 



As soon as another young Italian queen is ready, and the 

 artificial swarm has pretty nearly filled its hive with combs, it 

 may be Italianised by an exchange of queens in the manner 

 first described. 



The various nuclei having answered their purpose by furnish- 

 ing Ligurian queens for other hives, should towards the end of 

 the season have queens raised within them for the last time, and 

 these having become fecundated, every nucleus should be built 

 up into a good stock by the gradual and careful addition of 

 ripe brood-combs taken from other colonies, being also trans- 

 ferred during the process into a full-sized hive, and fed up to a 

 sufficient weight to stand the winter. 



This, then, is the complete programme for Italianising an 

 apiary. Many of the young queens thus raised will, doubtless, 

 be crossed by black drones ; but even these will, as I have pre- 

 viously stated in these pages, certainly breed pure drones in 

 the following spring, when they may in their turn be weeded 

 out and replaced by queens of the current year, which will 

 then have a much better chance of true Italian impregnation. 

 It will be perceived that I have avoided all unions of adult 

 bees, which a very considerable amount of experience has satis- 

 fied me, can in no way be effected without risking the life of 

 the queen. " J. B. J." it appears tried the experiment and 

 was successful. I congratulate him upon his success, but, all 

 the same, I should have been afraid to risk it. 



Whilst confessing, therefore, that I know of no mode of 

 uniting adult bees which is free from the chance of an oc- 

 casional failure, I purpose taking an early opportunity of de- 

 scribing the process of effecting autumnal unions, by which 

 that danger appears recently to have been reduced to a mini- 

 mum by — A Devonshire Bee-keeper. 



P.S. — The rebels who made drone-combs in oneof " J.B. J.'e" 

 artificial swarms, did so, doubtless, in consequence of these 

 combs being built before a queen had been hatched out. This 

 argues a mistake on the part of the apiarian, for no large 

 artificial swarm should ever be made without a queen. Swarms 

 that have to raise quefins should be furnished with combs, and 

 consist of but comparatively few bees.] 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Manchester and Liverpool Podltrt Show.—" Mr. P. Taylor, of 

 Manchester, won the first prize for single Buff Cochin cockerel, and not 

 Mr. Dawes (ae stated in your report), as that gentleman's pen was empty. 

 Mr. P. Taylor's first-prize pen of Buffs was claimed at the sum of £25 by 

 Mr. Brierley, of Middleton, on the last day of the Show.— X. Y. Z," 



Gale's Hives {C. A. J.).— We hope to give more information concern- 

 ing them very shortly. 



Cheap Ligurian Qoeens {Qnestor).~I have some queens of the charac- 

 ter you describe, which cost but 5s. each.— T. W. Woodbuby, Mount Bad- 

 ftyrdj Exeter. 



