11G 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEKERS’ JOURNAL. 
to constitute Kangaroo Island a locality 
possessing this advantage, and this season 
we have received some young queens, reared 
and mated on the Island, from the apiary j 
of Mr. Liebig. of Pirie Street, Adelaide, | 
which are proving to be in every respect 
equal as regards gentleness, beauty, prolific- 
ness, and other good qualities, to the queens 
we obtained from that beemaster last year, 
than which, we desire no better. 
The price at which these queens are now 
offered, will place the introduction of pure 
Italian stock within reach of almost every bee- 
keeper ; for there is no longer any doubt that 
the Ligurian or Italian is par excellence the 
best bee for Australia. 
-♦ 
ITALIAN BEES AND ITALIANISING. 
As many of our readers enquire about the 
best mode of obtaining pure Italian bees, 
and the cost of a colony of Italians, we think 
it desirable to give all the information we 
can on the subject in the pages of our 
Journal. A hive of Italian bees can be 
obtained from almost any dealer in apicul- 
t.ural supplies ; many of whom will be found 
to advertise on the cover of this, and previous 
numbers, the price varying from 30a. to 00s., 
or 80s., according to the kind of hive, quality 
of the queen, and strength of the colony. 
"VVe do not, however, recommend the pur- 
chase of Italian colonies to those who adopt 
beekeeping for profit. The proper course is 
to purchase a good Italian Queen, costing 
from 15s. to 40s, (we see Kangaroo Island 
Queens advertised for 15s. in the Journal) 
and introduce it to a good strong and healthy 
colony of common bees. In a month the hive 
will be teeming with young Italian bees, and 
in three months nearly the whole stock will 
consist of pure-bred, yellow-banded Ligurians. 
It must be borne in mind that it is a diffi- 
cult matter to keep up a pure breed of Italian 
bees, except in certain localities where no 
black bees exist, for, the first time the 
Italian colony sends off a swarm, the queen 
goes out with it, leaving queen cells, contain- 
ing pure-bred young queens ; but there are 
very mauy chances to one against these 
young queens mating with pure Italian 
Drones, unless very careful precautions are 
taken. Indeed, it almost seems as if young 
Italian Queens are determined to mate with 
black drones if possible, and an apiary of six 
or ten hives, all pure Italian, at the beginning 
of the swarming season will, at the end of it, 
show most of the new stock to have fallen off 
into Hybrids, and, if these Hybrids swarm, the 
progeny of the young queens will be found to 
have returned a long way towards blacks. 
Nevertheless, the introduction of the Li- 
gurian blood will be found of im m ense 
advantage in improving the working and 
breeding capacity of the bees, as well as their 
hardiness. 
To keep up a pure breed necessitates fur- 
nishing every hive that has swarmed with a 
purely-mated queen, and such queens must 
be purchased, unless bred by the beekeeper 
himself, and precautions taken to secure 
their mating with Italian Drones. The 
methods of rearing pure Italiau Queens will 
be described in a future article. 
Let us now r describe the method of intro- 
ducing an Italian Queen to a stock of common 
bees. There are numerous plans advocated, 
but in all the first step necessary is to find, 
and remove or destroy, the queen already in 
the hive. In a frame hive this is not difficult 
if one is accustomed to see the queen, still it 
requires a careful -watch and sharp eyes to 
find a Black Queen in a crowded colony. If 
the queen cannot be found by searching the 
frames and inside the bex, the best way is to 
move the hive from its stand, put an empty- 
one in its place, spread a white sheet with 
one end stretched over the bottom hoard of 
the temporary hive, which must be raised a 
little in front to allow the bees to enter freely ; 
now take the frames one by one from the full 
hive and shake the bees from them on to the 
cloth in front of the empty hive, and by 
carefully watching the bees as they march up 
the sheet to get under cover, the queen can be 
easily discovered and caught. If not required, 
destroy her at once, but if likely to be wanted, 
place her in a queen cage. The bees will now 
be mostly in the temporary hive. The frames 
from which the bees were shaken having been 
replaced in their own hive, that hive must 
now be put back on its own stand, and the bees 
shaken from the temporary one back among 
the frames, and any bees still adhering to the 
temporary box will soon get back to their old 
home. 
The bees, being now queenless, will, as soon 
as they are awa.ro of the fact, get restless, and 
will run about over the hive in an excited 
manner, looking for the queen, and the best 
time to introduce the new queen will be 
towards sunset the same evening ; of course it 
is necessary to see that there are no queen 
cells built, and if there are, they must be 
destroyed. In No. 5 of the present volume, 
page 35, we described a queen cage we have 
used very successfully for introducing, and 
which is, indeed. Alley’s Combination Cage 
slightly modified. If the new queen be placed 
in this cage, and the cage itself laid on the top 
of the frames under the mat with the feed 
hole open, the bees will soon release the 
queen, and accept her. 
Many beekeepers prefer what is known as 
the Pipe-cover Cage, which is a piece of wire 
net (about twelve to the inch) 2 inches wide, 
and 31 long, rolled up on a piece of round 
broomstick, about an inch diameter. One end 
of the wire net is bent over all round, so as to 
close up an end, and the ends so pressed over 
can be secured and made smooth with a htt e 
melted wax. You thus have a wire net 
