flying and facilitated our work in spooning them out in a 

 mass and filling the mating boxes- Food in the form of sugar 

 syrup was given and the bees securely fastened in with 

 adequate ventilation. These boxes of bees were then placed 

 in a cool dark shed for the night. By morning the bees were 

 perfectly dry, having generated heat during confinement. 

 Previous to this experiment a native colony, purchased some 

 months previously from West Argyllshire, was rearing queens 

 on the cell-cup principle, while another native stock, procured 

 from Arisaig, was being used for mass production of drones — 

 achieved by the liberal use of drone comb. 



As all bee-keepers are aware, it is very difficult to make old 

 bees stay in a new location, particularly when their old home 

 is only a few yards away. It was therefore necessary to 

 remove the small mating boxes some distance from the apiary. 

 An old quarry, some two and a-half miles away, was used 

 and the bees transported. On arrival, the entrances were 

 opened, more food given, and at the same time a ripe queen 

 cell was introduced from the queen-rearing colony. 



The drone rearing colony was removed at the same time 

 to the mating station. A liberal shaking of the combs in 

 front of the mating boxes gave each a number of healthy 

 strong males. This process was repeated the second day. The 

 weather was not at all ideal for mating, but, notwithstanding 

 this fact, we discovered within a fortnight after the intro- 

 duction of the ripe queen cells twenty-one of the queens 

 were mated and four missing. Later in the year we were 

 able from the progeny of the queen to prove that all had 

 been pure mated, although within four hundred yards - of the 

 station there was a* bee-keeper with six colonies of bees com- 

 prising Italian and Austrian strains. 



We then decided to carry out further tests in the College 

 apiaries to discover the reason for the bee-keeper's contention 

 that queens often mated with alien drones. In a very limited 

 space we have at present 150 colonies of bees of various 

 strains, including British, French, Austrian, Dutch, Italian, 

 and Golden Italians. 



