THE ITALIAN HONEY-BEE. S39 



apiary of even moderate size. There are so many circumstances attending tliis 

 process wliicli require frequent examinations and a perfect knowledge of wliat 

 is transpiring in the hive, that their use is almost if not absolutely indispensable 

 to success. I shall therefore assume it in this article. The same egg which 

 produces the worker bee, and as such is twenty-one days in maturing, is, through 

 the agency of nutritious food and other operations of the workers,- converted 

 into a queen in sixteen. The process of its conversion must be commenced, 

 however, before the egg has reached the end of its sixth day's age, unless, as 

 is sometimes though rarely the case, its hatching and development are retarded. 

 Old bees, or those which have remained in the hive over winter, will seldom 

 rear queens ; it is therefore necessary to use those recently hatched for the 

 purpose. 



It is not necessary to employ an entire colony full size ; a nucleus of a quart 

 or more of young bees Avith three or more combs will answer the purpose even 

 better, as the time consumed in examinations is thereby lessened, and a great 

 saving effected. They are better protected, and in some respects more con- 

 trollable, by being placed in a small hive to suit the size of the nucleus ; but I 

 have sometimes partitioned off a Langstroth hive into three apartments, and 

 used each apartment for a separate nucleus with tolerable success. The par- 

 tition, however, should entirely separate apartments, and prevent communica- 

 tion between them. As bees which have once flown from the hive will, if re- 

 moved but a short distance, on flying out again, return to the same spot where 

 the hive formerly stood, it is very useful, in extensive breeding, to have two 

 apiaries, or localities for keeping them, a mile or more apart. By this means 

 nuclei may be formed in one, which, on being removed to the other, are unable 

 to find their way back, and therefore adhere to their new locality. Bees which 

 have never flown from their hive do not require this precaution, as but one 

 mature queen is tolerated in each hive, except in case of preparation for 

 swarming; and bees, so long as possessed of a queen, will not rear another. 

 All nuclei for rearing queens must be made queenless, and deprived of all 

 combs containing native eggs which have not been laid longer than six days. 

 They should then be furnished with a comb, or piece of comb, containing the 

 eggs of a pure Italian queen, which if not abundant, the comb containing them 

 may be cut into strips three-fourths of an inch in width by about six inches in 

 length, and this strip inserted into a frame of comb, the strip resting horizontally 

 upon bearings of half an inch at its ends, with an open space cut out between 

 these bearings, and under the strip containing the eggs, an inch in breadth. The 

 bees will generally so distribute the queen's ceils along the length, and at the 

 lower edge of the strip of comb containing the eggs, as to admit of their being 

 separated without much loss. The comb containing the eggs should hang 

 between two others, containing a sufiiciency of honey and pollen to amply 

 supply their wants. These combs, however, should contain no eggs or grub 

 young enough to be convertible into queens ; otherwise the bees may select 

 these native or impure eggs or grub for queens, and rear the pure Italian eggs 

 as workers only. This is the more important from the fact that they sometimes 

 transfer eggs and grub from one cell to another, or from a worker to a queen 

 cell. They may therefore take an impure egg or grub, and by placing it in a 

 cell constructed upon the comb containing the pure Italian eggs, lead the 

 breeder to suppose it pure ; and should it be nearly so, and produce a progeny 

 not easily distinguishable from the pure race, it may be the means of intro- 

 ducing impurity into the apiary, which, failing soon to discover, may be so 

 extensively disseminated through it as to requu-e much time, care, labor, and 

 loss to eradicate it. 



The dissemination of large numbers of impure queens which has already 

 taken place in this country will be productive of much mischief in this respect. 

 It should never be lost sight of that, although the drone progeny of a queen 



