EGYPTIAN AND OTHER FOREIGN BEES. 43 
little liquid honey is now squirted or dropped 
within the entrance-hole, the worker bees will 
presently be drawn forth and fly around the hive; 
after these the drones and queen will issue, and 
the return of the latter must be watched, and the 
process repeated, if necessary, day after day until 
she exhibits either the ‘wedding token” or else a 
marked abdominal expansion. The hive must be 
brought back every evening to its place of confine- 
ment until the end is satisfactorily achieved. 
The extent to which the Italianising process 
has been pursued, and also that to which the 
two breeds tend naturally to intermix, are strik- 
ingly illustrated by a statement of Mr. Cheshire 
that ‘the black bee hardly now exists—every- 
where he has been improved by foreign blood.” 
He adds, ‘‘In 1874, in a most isolated moorland 
in Northumberland, where frame hives were un- 
known, but where lttle skeps abound, we failed to 
find a pure specimen of the English variety.”* So 
much the stronger is the reason for a discontinu- 
ance of the confusing term “black;” that of “ brown,” 
which we herein have adopted, was more correct 
from the first, and can by no possibilty perplex 
or mislead. 
EGYPTIAN AND OTHER FOREIGN BEES. 
We have room for only a few sentences in reference 
to the other foreign varieties and species alluded to 
* © Practical Bee-Keeping,” p. $0. 
