16 ITALIAN BEE KEEPING. 



not retnrn to the hive when it is placed in a neighbour's garden, 

 but mil return to their old home, where of course they don't find 

 their hive, and are thus lost to both buyer and seller. However, in 

 Italy peasants wiU barter a hive of bees for a measure of corn. 



Supposing a hive of bees to have been secured, then, according 

 to Don Giotto's advice, it is necessary to wait till twenty-one days 

 after this hive has swarmed a first and also a second time. I 

 only repeat this bit of advice, because it wiU be more easy to get 

 a hive after it has swarmed than before. 



Wben you intend to transfer your bees, first prepare the frames 

 by boring four little holes {d d, Pig. 2) on the inaides of the two 

 sides of each frame, leaving the space of the thickness of a comb 

 between every two holes ; then make as many little wooden pegs as 

 you have made holes, and see that these pegs fit into the holes. 

 When the combs are cut down to fit into the frames, the pegs keep 

 them in their places until the bees themselves have fixed them to 

 the frames. 



If you have secured a hive at some distance, it must be brought 

 home tied up in a stout bit of canvas, and put in some conve- 

 nient outhouse, where also must be prepared a table with two large 

 knives and the new frames. 



Then, having put on your veil and gloves, and tied your sleeves 

 round your gloves, and the trousers round your boots, unpack the 

 old hive and put it quietly on its side on the table. 



Perhaps some people in England would next give the bees two 

 teaspoontuls of chloroform on a bit of rag, and, then turning down 

 the hive on it, wait until the bees were stupified for half an hour 

 during which time the operation of transferring the combs to the 

 new hive could be accomplished, and on the bees recovering they 

 might find their way into their new home then arranged (with queen 

 inside) on the table beside them. However, this is not the way Don 

 Giotto acts.* 



Perhaps I had better describe now how he transferred for me 

 the combs and bees from an old box into a new hive. My first 

 swarm came to me by chance. It alighted on a fig tree in the 

 kitchen garden, and, having no hive ready, I bored some large 

 holes in the side of a little square box, and when the swarm was 

 shaken into it and the lid closed, the bees made it their home. A 

 year afterwards I wished to have some honey from this swarm but 

 I could not, because the bees had attached their comb to the Ud' • bo 

 I wrote and asked Don Giotto to help me. He kindly came from 

 his mountain home on the Apennines, and, having made preparations 



* ^w'Ti''T° ^'°*'" ^^°^^ '^ ^°°^ ^™^''* *°'' "Jiloroform is fatal to 



