THE ITALIAN BEE. 445 



ular intervals, supplying their place with empty comb. In 

 this way he succeeded in rearing nearly fifty young queens, 

 about one-half of which were impregnated by Italian drones 

 and produced genuine brood. The other half produced a 

 bastard progeny. He continued thus to multiply queens by 

 the removal of brood, till several of his artificial colonies 

 suddenly killed off their drones, and the original stock did so 

 likewise on the 25th of June. The bees of the original 

 colony still labored very assiduously, but gradually became 

 less diligent,* till when the buckwheat came into blossom, 

 it was surpassed in industry by many colonies of the com- 

 mon bees. But as young bees continued to make their ap- 

 pearance, he felt satisfied that the colony was in a healthy 

 condition. Later in the season, he unfastened the hive, pre- 

 paratory to putting it in winter quarters, and on attempting 

 to lift it, found he was scarcely able to move it. He now 

 discovered why it had so greatly fallen behind the other colo- 

 nies in industry. Having early rid itself of drones, (as 

 probably is done instinctively in Italy,) it had in consequence 

 of its extraordinary activity, filled all the cells with honey 

 in a very short time, and was thenceforward doomed to in- 

 voluntary idleness. It had attained a weight which scarcely 

 any of his colonies reached in the Summer of 1846, when 

 pasturage was so superabundant ; whereas the Summer of 

 1853 was certainly a very ordinary one in this respect. 



It was thus, also, made manifest that frequent disturbance t 

 had not produced any injurious effect. Until midsummer, 

 Dzierzon not only removed a brood comb containing about 

 5000 cells, every other day, but had on numerous other 

 occasions taken out comb after comb, several times a day, to 

 find the queen and show her to bee-keeping friends who 

 visited him, and who were anxious to see a queen thus dis- 



* See page 201. t See page 381. 



38 



