ITALIANIZING. 69 



ing under 14 days, when I would again examine, 

 and behead. The drones from the first two frames 

 of Italian brood were becoming more numerous 

 every day. As it takes 24 days from the egg for 

 drones to come forth, the frame of drone eggs ob- 

 tained from the Italians on the 24th of April, would 

 have hatching drones on the 18th of May. Drones 

 would be coming from the other frames on follow- 

 ing days. It takes 16 days from the egg for a queen 

 bee to hatch out. Five days after hatching she will 

 fly out to meet the drone, that is in 21 days from 

 the egg she is ready for her marriage flight. If 

 measures were taken on the 1st of May, to force the 

 bees to rear queens, the queen cells would not be 

 begun before the next day, and some of them would 

 be built on following days. Hence if the bees 

 should rear queens from the eggs, the first ones 

 would be ready for the drones May 22d. But in all 

 probability they would rear some of the queens 

 from larvae two or three days old, and such ones 

 would come forth two or three days earlier. Thus 

 it was probable that if I began queen-rearing May 

 1st, some of the earliest queens would be ready for 

 the drones May 19th and 20th, just when my drones 

 would be coming out. This was what I wanted. 

 On the afternoon of May 1st, I made arrangements 

 to force two hives of black bees to rear queens from 

 Italian eggs or larvae. 



