THE ITALIAN HONE J -BEE. 533 



" Loney-board" or intervening partition between them and the brood chamber. 

 A successful remedy for preventing the queen from going up into the recep- 

 tacles to deposit eggs, and the consequent storage of pollen therein by the 

 workers, thereby injuring the quality and appearance of the surplus honey, may 

 be found in using movable frames in sections, or otherwise, made about one 

 and one-half inch in breadth on their tops, and placing between these frames 

 thin perforated partitions, or comb guides. The space thus allowed for the 

 combs being too thick for one brood comb, and too thin for two, the woikers 

 build but one, the cells of which, being too deep for brood cells, present, to- 

 gether with the presence of the comb guides, such uninviting quarters for her 

 royal ladyship that, in the storage of over a ton of honey in such receptacles, 

 I have not had a single instance of egg-laying in receptacles thus arranged. 

 The frames or sections may be made of such size as to contain any desired 

 quantity of honey within their capacity. If several sections are used in one 

 frame they should be made to fit exactly, and without grooves, so that they 

 may be easily and quickly removed by a little pressure. As queens seem to 

 possess an inveterate hatred toward each other, and seldom both separate alive 

 when they meet, the workers are compelled to guard the cells of the young 

 queens, during the time they are being reared, against the attacks of the old 

 queen ; and I have often seen her driven hastily away when she attempted to 

 approach them. Under these circumstances it would seem most unnatural 

 that she should deposit an egg in a queen cell ; and although several distin- 

 guished European apiarians take the opposite view, and assert it as impracti- 

 cable for the workers to take an egg or young grub from a worker cell and 

 transfer it to a queen cell, I have witnessed so many instances of their 

 having done so that there can no longer be any doubt upon this point. One of 

 my imported Italian queens this summer gave some evidences of infirmity, and 

 although the colony was not in a condition to swarm, at least eight or ten young 

 queens have been, at difi'erent periods, reared by the workers in her hive. One 

 of these queen cells was constructed upon the outside combs which werejilled with 

 honey, and where no other eggs were or had been laid during the season, and 

 where the queen would not be likely to go, or to find the cell. The same pre- 

 caution, but in a less striking degree, was exercised by them with two others of 

 the queen cells. On two occasions I found the young queens hatched, and one of 

 them had evidently been " out" at least three or four days, yet both the old and 

 young queens were being treated with the kindness and attention with which 

 queens are usually treated by the workers. Late in the month of August the 

 queen deposited some three hixndrcd drone eggs in drone cells, at a period when 

 colonies with younger queens were destroying them, indicating clearly their 

 preparations to meet the contingency of her early and final exit. The carrying 

 of eggs and grub from one cell to another is an important fact to be noticed in 

 the rearing of Italian queens, of which I shall hereafter speak. 



When a colony is deprived of its queen the workers wili build none but drone 

 or store combs until they are again possessed of one, and they not unfrequently 

 build a large excess of drone combs in the brood chamber of their hives when 

 possessed of a queen, which, as she never deposits any but drone eggs in them, 

 is productive of the most injurious efi"ects so long as it is allowed to remain ther£. 

 In the early part of the season, or until about the first or middle of April, queens 

 will seldom deposit drone eggs ; but as soon as their pasturage begins to yield 

 a bountiful supply of honey, they commence laying them, and then lay eggs iu 

 each and every consecutive comb and cell (whether drone or worker) within 

 the compass that their workers can keep warm, or hatch, and continue to do so 

 until the honey pasturage begins to decilne, which is, here, generally about the 

 first of July, when they will again discard the drone egg-laying. Mean- 

 time, however, if there has been a great excess of drones in the brood chamber, 

 the drone progeny, (being only consumers,) often upon their exit, leave too 



