542 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



nto three apartments, as before mentioned, using each apartment for a single 

 nucleus, or, consenting to encounter the loss in honey and brood consequent 

 upon the colony's being queenless for a time, and the trouble of search in using 

 their entire colonies, they may abstra^kt the native queens and introduce the 

 Italian queen in a sealed state, taking care that she passes safely through all 

 the subsequent casualties to which slie may be exposed. 



The advantage of this method is that the risk of safe introduction into full 

 colonies is encountered before much time has been expended upon them; and if 

 lost, her loss is comparatively small, though at the height of the breeding and 

 honey seasons it is not so insignificant to the colony's prosperity. 



In all cases where the young queens become impregnated by the native or 

 impure Italian drones they should be supplanted by others, as speedily as pos- 

 sible, reared from Italian eggs of unquestionable purity ; and this precautionary 

 process should be repeated until every colony in the apiary is supplied with a 

 queen of undoubted purity. A most singular peculiarity of some of the young 

 Italian queens is that, during the first few days after their impregnation takes 

 place, they lay none but drone eggs, often depositing them in "worker" cells, 

 a blunder which she never after unconsciously commits until she reaches ad- 

 vanced age. 



The power of laying either kind of eggs seems, too, entirely under the control 

 of her own volition. Where a hive is deprived of all its drone combs, and en- 

 tirely ^^/e^Z with worker combs, if the season for swarming has arrived, and her 

 colony has become populous, as a last resort in preparing for the impregnation 

 of her successor she will lay drone eggs in worker cells. The workers will 

 also, in such an emergency, sometimes by enlarging a few worker cells, convert 

 them into drone cells. The worker cell is only one-fifth of an inch in diameter, 

 while that of the drone is one-fourth of an inch. Repeated examinations have 

 failed to discover any difference between the respective sizes of the comb 

 cells of the Italian bee and those of the nq,tive beyond the variation to be found 

 in different combs of our native bee. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



The worker bees manifest great affection for their queen. I have more than 

 once been stung by them. When catching or holding her she would utter a 

 cry of distress. When deprived of her they manifest the greatest sorrow and 

 anxiety for her recovery, yet, on hastily returning her an hour or more after, 

 I have seen them, in some cases, instantly sting her to death. The cause of 

 this singular and most unnatural treatment was for some time a mystery ; but 

 after repeated experiments I became convinced that it was owing greatly to the 

 manner of presentation, and the temper of the recipients when she was pre- 

 sented. Subsequent experiments have confirmed this opinion. The worker 

 bee is exceedingly watchful and impulsive. The slightest quick motion arouses 

 and excites it for an attack, and if, when in this condition, one of its own sister 

 workers alights suddenly near it she is liable to be seized, and I have sometimes 

 seen her stung to death before the mistake was discovered. Once excited to 

 combat, they seem completely abandoned to the destruction of the object of 

 their attack ; and although they quickly recognize the scent of a queen, yety 

 under the impulse of angry excitement, they do not often stop short of her 

 destruction. The knowledge of these facts has led to the adoption of various 

 expedients for the safe introduction of queens. As these processes may be most 

 safely and conveaiently accomplished with the use of the movable f'-ame hive 

 invented by the Rev. L. L. Langstroth, (by which I have been greatly aided,) 

 I shall, in explaining them, assume its use. 



The first, and probably safest, mode which I shall describe is as follows : In 

 the morning of a pleasant day, when the bees are flying freely, take from one 



