ITALIAN QUEEN REARING. 
81 
] the pan when necessary to feed, and when the bees are to be 
confined to the hive, turn the other end of the flap, which should 
have a hole in it covered with wire-cloth, to give ventilation. 
The boxes should be painted a variety of bright colors — some 
white, others red, blue, &c. — and scattered over the yard so that 
a young queen may easily distinguish her hive from any other 
near it. A cheap stand is made by nailing strips of board for 
posts to each corner of a bottom-board eighteen or twenty inches 
square. The posts should project eight inches below the bottom 
board, for legs, and two of them sixteen and two eighteen inches 
above it, laying on a board for shade. We make the small 
frames the proper size to fit four of them into one of the large 
frames, and thus obtain brood from any hive by filling the small 
frames with thin worker-comb, or sticking in small pieces and 
silo wing the bees to build the combs. "W"e prefer, however, to 
have one or more breeding hives made the same as the small 
bives, but long enough to hold sixteen of the small frames, and 
having several entrances along the front side. 
HOW TO COMMENCE QUEEN HEARING. 
As soon as drones can be reared in the spring, break up the 
stock from which you wish to breed, and transfer the combs into 
the small frames, placing them on the old stand in one of the 
long breeding hives. Shake the bees upon a sheet near the 
entrance, and as fast as tney enter and collect on the combs they 
■nay bo lifted out and placed in the nuclei boxes, giving a frame 
°f brood and one of honey to each, and filling the other two 
frames with empty comb. 
