ITALIANIZING. 59 



south than my place, where the season was somewhat 

 earlier, and I was delighted with seeing a few drones 

 among the first to fly out. My first work with the 

 Italians must be to secure a good supply of pure 

 drones. 



The Italians had come in a hive of different pat- 

 tern from mine, having a frame longer and shallower. 

 Against this frame I have not a word to say, for in 

 the hands of many intelligent bee-keepers it has 

 given excellent results ; but in order to work with 

 ease and profit it was essential to have all my bees 

 in hives of the same kind. I therefore went at once 

 to work to transfer them to one of my hives. When 

 the hive was opened the frames were found all 

 right. They had been securely fastened at both top 

 and bottom so that there could be no shaking about 

 while on the journey. After removing the fasten- 

 ings the frames were lifted from the hive, and the 

 bees shaken back into the hive. Then the frames 

 were carried to the shop to transfer the combs. 

 There were ten frames of good comb. Six of the 

 frames had each a nice patch of brood, which did 

 not seem to have been injured by the journey. A 

 part of this was drone brood, some of which was 

 hatching. It took but a few minutes to transfer the 

 combs to my frames. In doing this I noticed in 

 one of the combs a number of fresh-laid eggs, assur- 

 ing me that the queen was all right. In transferring 



