326 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
they will receive her. Mr. Lange advises that the Italian queen 
be introduced immediately alter the bees of a deprived colony 
manifest undoubted consciousness of the loss they have sustained, 
and before they have started any royal cells, or made arrangements 
for doing so. — Yours truly, Samuel Wagner.” 
“Rev. L. L. Langstroth.” 
The chief obstacle to the rapid diffusion of this valuable 
variety has been the difficulty experienced by the ablest 
German Apiarians in preserving the breed pure, even 
Berlepsch having failed entirely to do so. By means of 
my non-sioarmer, however, this difficulty may be readily 
overcome. 
Let the bee-keeper who obtains an Italian queen in the 
Spring, give her, with proper precautions (p. 200), to a 
populous colony, whose hive is well furnished with drone- 
combs, having first deprived it of its queen. When 
the drone cells are filled with sealed brood, let nuclei 
(p. 189) be formed from this stock, and replace the combs 
removed, with others containing workers ready to hatch. 
By thus keeping the parent-stock always populous, a 
large number of nuclei may be formed from it. Just 
before the young Italian queens mature, adjust the non- 
s wurm,er (Plates II., V., Figs. 5, 17) to all the hives con- 
taining common drones, so as to shut them in, while free 
egress is given to queens and workers. As only the drones 
bred by the Italian queen have their liberty, all the young 
females will be fertilized by them. As fast as the queens 
of the nuclei become fertile, they may be given to the 
various stocks, and from these, in a short time, other 
nuclei which will raise Italian queens, maybe formed. In 
this way, an expert, who can be sure of having Italian 
drones until late in the season, might easily convert an 
Apiary of a thousand or more hives into stocks containing 
none but the new variety. 
