We may remark here with regard to these acts of surrounding a new queen, that they evidently arise from a great number rushing upon her at once for the purpose of stinging her, but that very frequently such purpose is frustrated by the immovable position in which the inner bees are held. Suffocation however will soon effect the same end if the ball be not dispersed. There are cases, on the contrary, in which friendly bees surround a queen to protect her from others, and sometimes the knot is made up of members of both parties, perhaps without enclosing the queen at all. The hissing note will at once distinguish a hostile onset from a protecting rally.
With the Renfrewshire cage ([page 199] as above) all the variation needed is to place the cage between instead of within the combs, so as to permit of the queen's release at the bottom. The inventor considers that this gives an advantage in introducing her majesty in the first place to those bees that have been engaged in feeding her; but, as already noticed, it is not the feeding, but the familiarising with her presence, which is the great point, and that is surely quite as well accomplished with the other cage as this. There is also here no opportunity, as in the other case, of being certain whether she is well received or not, so that we always put a good-sized board under the entrance, and examine the next day whether she has been thrown out dead or not.
In effecting the exchange with cottage hives, the bees must first be driven out into another hive (as described at [page 226]), and after the old queen is removed they must be sprinkled with a little water flavoured with a drop of extract of peppermint (to be obtained of any chemist), which overcomes the particular hive-scent, and makes all smell alike; then throw the new queen in among them and place the mass of them back in the hive. If preferred, an eke ([page 186]) may be placed on the stand, the bees precipitated into it, and the hive of combs placed above, when the bees will ascend. If this is done in the evening the queen will in most cases be well received. As there is no opportunity of excising queen cells, the process should be performed, say, in the middle of October, when breeding has ceased. Stupefying the bees with fungus is a method devised by Huber as applicable in any kind of hive, and it has been highly approved of and declared to be infallible.
A strange queen is generally well received by young bees, whether she be Italian or English—for we have never found the slightest difference in reception, though Mr. Wagner (Langstroth's "Honey Bee," [page 325]) was of opinion that there is more opposition in the case of the foreigner. The difficulty is to have a sufficient number of such young bees. In the middle of a hot summer's day a stock may be divided and the part with the old queen left in its former position, while the other part, with as many brood combs as it is prudent to take, may be removed a few yards off. The old bees that have been brought with the latter will in three or four hours have most of them returned to their former abode, and the new queen may then with safety be given to the remainder without caging, taking care to introduce her to the young bees on the combs. This task must only be attempted on a warm midsummer day and when the night temperature need not be feared for the young brood in its deserted condition. Stocks may be divided and artificial swarms formed in this way--from the end of May to the beginning of July—if the apiarian has queens in readiness.
§ IX. ITALIANISING.
It requires a considerable amount of apiarian skill to accomplish the union of Italian with common bees, so that we find by experience it is best to send out complete stocks or swarms of the former. This is particularly desirable now that the packing of whole hives is so easily accomplished by us with the aid of bars and frames. We have sent a great number of stocks to all parts by rail. Still, as the introduction of fertile Italian queens is a frequent practice, and we are ourselves large importers of the same, it is only right to add some directions as to the course to be pursued where such union is resolved upon. These queens come over during the summer months, from May to October. They are packed in wooden boxes about five inches square, with a comb of sealed honey in a frame in the centre to feed the queen and the few workers that accompany her on the journey. The old queen should first be removed from the hive, but carefully preserved till it is ascertained whether all goes well with the stranger. The box containing the latter must now be prised open, and this should be done within doors, lest the queen should fly and be lost. On discovering her she must be placed in a queen-cage and gradually introduced to her new subjects in the manner explained under that article (pages 198 and 247).
If this is successfully accomplished all is right so far; but unless considerable pains be taken the off-coming swarms will certainly produce mongrel bees. If none of the neighbouring residents are bee-keepers, the risk may be considerably narrowed by destroying the drones and drone comb in the other hives and rearing Italian queens to place at the head of each of these as speedily as possible. Every one of these queens, even if impregnated from an undesired source, will still produce drones as purely Italian as herself (see [page 64]), and thus in another year the chance of Italian mates being found for the queens will be further increased: indeed the peculiarity of Italian queens in laying drone eggs in there first year will probably produce this result more speedily. But should some hybrids be the result, as in all probability will be the case, even these are much to be preferred to the common black bee—some say (see [page 53]) that they are even better than pure Italians for honey-gathering, but they are more irascible.
This course is undoubtedly in opposition to the design of Nature to avoid interbreeding, but we find even Mr. Hunter recommending it, though showing in another place that he perceives it to be a violation of his "law." By commencing with two Italian queens there might be more chance given of escape from the evil—if it really is an evil when not several times repeated. Von Berlepsch, however, informs us of the following method, devised by Dathe and others, by which even this objection may be avoided:—
"When the young queen has left the cell, she is transferred after forty-eight hours, or even earlier, into a cellar or some other dark and cool place. If the drones, by one of which the impregnation is to be accomplished, are not among the colony of the queen, they also must of course be inserted. We now wait for a sunny day free from wind, when the thermometer in the shade is at least 17° above zero [70° Fahr.]; the bees in question, towards five in the afternoon, when drones have completely ceased from flight, are fetched out of their prison, and set up in any spot, if possible where isolated and with the flight-hole exposed to the sun; then, by means of a small syringe or in any other way, direct some liquid honey into the flight-hole. In a minute or two the bees will sport in numbers in the front, and it will not be long before the queen and drones also fly out. At evening the colony is brought back into custody, and the manœuvre is repeated till the young queen has commenced laying, or till her accomplished fructification is made sure by expansion of the abdomen, or, upon return from a flight, by having the more or less torn-off drone penis upon her extremity." Some essential particulars are not here specified, but we interpret the instructions to refer to a nucleus hive in which the queen is hatched with several workers, but with no drones present except those specially introduced. By choosing these, also from their birth, from the progeny of a different queen from the mother of the one in the nucleus, all may apparently be made as straightforward as could be desired. Even Von Berlepsch, who is no friend to the Italians, praises this method as a "beautiful discovery:" it dates only from 1867.