104 
A ppendix. 
tation in favour of the Italians. Nevertheless, the 
following circumstance is to their disadvantage — 
namely, that the queen mother of the pure Italian 
breed has a shorter term of life than a black queen or 
a queen of a mixed breed. This is an observation 
which I have often made, and in which several bee- 
masters in German Switzerland have concurred with 
me. 
This may be attributed to the fact that the Italian 
queen is much more fertile than the ordinary queen ; 
nevertheless, the Italian queen produced in our 
country has a longer life than the ordinary Italian. 
The same is the case with queens of a mixed breed. 
The latter have the advantage of being very fertile, 
and of producing large colonies in a short space of 
time — a circumstance which conduces to early and 
numerous swarming. 
This has been by some considered a defect. It is, 
on the other hand, an immense advantage, seeing that 
the prosperity of a hive, as well as its produce, de- 
pends on the strength of the stock. 
It is true that, by keeping to an unvarying system of 
small straw hives on the old principle, it is difficult to 
avoid the inconvenience of having a multiplicity of 
swarms ; but in the case of hives with moveable bars, 
by increasing the capacity of the hive in good time, 
natural swarming is avoided to a great extent, and 
can be regulated at the will of the bee-master. In 
1873 and 1874, I had hives of cross-bred Italian bees 
wliich in the month of June had only one story on 
