ITALIAN BEES. 115 



the bees upon a sheet, that the queen may be seen and destroyed 

 as she crawls toward the hive. If the Italian queen was ob- 

 tained from a distance, the box in which she was shipped should 

 be opened before a window, in a closed room, that the queen be 

 not lost should she fly from the box. "When introducing a 

 choice queen, we should run no risk of having her stung by the 

 bees ; she must therefore be confined in a small wire-cloth cage, 

 which should be immediately inserted near the centre of one of 

 the brood combs, where the bees will cluster upon it, feeding 

 the queen and keeping her warm. A drop of honey placed 

 within her reach can do no harm. At the end of thirty-six hours, 

 she should be liberated, smeared with honey, and allowed to 

 crawl down among the bees. 



Another method is to remove the native queen, and if near 

 the swarming season, look for queen cells and destroy them if 

 any are found. The stock is now allowed to stand queenless 

 for about ten days. Open the hive on the tenth day, at the 

 farthest, and cut off all the queen cells, for if longer neglected 

 a queen might hatch which would have to be hunted up and 

 destroyed. The bees being now without eggs or young larva?, 

 will give up all hopes of rearing a queen, and the Italian may 

 be safely introduced as before directed. In all cases the queen 

 should be well smeared with honey before she is allowed to go 

 among the bees, as while cleaning off the honey they have no 

 disposition to sting, and having time to discover her rank, re- 

 ceive her kindly. 



In the proper seasons a populous stock may be divided 

 and an Italian queen caged and given to the queerjless part, 



