40 THR BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
until it is replaced. Where you find them thus 
clinging to the comb you have one good mark of 
purity.” She adds, however, that the only certain 
criterion is the markings of the young queens; she 
has had mother bees which produced workers, to all 
appearance pure Italians like themselves, but which in 
their royal progeny proved at once that they were 
only hybrids. 
The above directions are intended for frame hives; 
but the substitution can be effected in the case of 
skeps also. What extra labour there is in their 
case is occasioned by the difficulty in removing 
the old queen; for if the hive be queenless, there * 
is nothing to do but to introduce the Italian by 
a cage through the opening at the top. But in the 
more usual case the course to be followed consists in 
driving out the bees into another skep, and then 
searching for and removing the old queen, after 
which the new one may be inserted by the cage as 
above, and the colony left to return quietly to their 
home. Before queen-cages were so generally used, 
a plan existed of sprinkling the bees with syrup 
flavoured with peppermint, and then throwing the 
new queen in amongst them to take her chance. 
In this case, the bees having first been scared with 
fungus smoke preparatory to the driving, and then 
newly flavoured so that they have ceased to recognise 
their friends by their smell, the new monarch has a 
prospect of obtaining a favourable reception before 
they are sufficiently themselves to realise that she 
is a stranger. The latter portion of Mrs. Tupper’s 
directions however have no application to any 
