SECRETARY'S REPORT. . 317 



tlicy get acquainted witli their new mistress, wliicli vrill Le 

 twenty-four hours or so, when she is let out into the hive. If 

 their own queen is destroyed hefore they are aware of it, and 

 another, a stranger, is let in among them, they immediately 

 pitch in, and perhaps kill her, hut having lost their own queen, 

 they soon get reconciled to a foreigner, and are glad to welcome 

 her in the want of another. 



In regard to raising Italian queens, he has kindly furnished 

 the following, statement : — 



" It is not advisable to commence raising Italian queens in 

 this section hefore quite the last of May, or first part of 

 June, at a time when the hives are sufficiently populous to enable 

 you to remove bees and honey without any great detriment to 

 the parent stock. I make my queen-raising boxes six inches long, 

 (inside dimensions,) five and one-half inches deep, five inches 

 wide, with a front entrance in one end for the bees to pass and 

 repass. This size of box will allow just three frames, four by 

 five inches, on the Langstroth principle. All being ready, lift 

 out a central comb from your Italian swarm, and with a sharp 

 knife, cut out a piece of worker comb filled with uncapped 

 brood and lioney, just the size of one of your little frames, into 

 which press it firmly ; now take another little frame and fill it 

 in the same way, with honey and drone brood ; the third frame 

 may be filled with empty comb, either from the parent stock or 

 from surplus comb which you may have on hand ; lift the combs 

 carefully into the miniature hive ; now take about one pint of 

 bees from the parent stock, and put in with the combs and 

 brood ; give them sufficient ventilation and set in a dark, cool 

 cellar. Let it remain there until near the evening of the second 

 day, then place it some distance from your home apiary, where 

 you wish to establish your queen-raising apiary. Or if you wish 

 to raise your queens in your home apiary, it will be necessary to 

 bring your bees for the purpose of raising queens, from a dis- 

 tance, say one and one-half miles, from a swarm you may have 

 carried there in the spring for this purpose. On or near the 

 evening of the second day, when you bring your bees from the 

 cellar, let them take wing, as they now have their queen cells 

 all started ; they will soon return again, and readily accept this 

 as their future home. In about fourteen days the young queen 



