The Italian Alp-bee; or, The gold mine of husbandry / short and practical instructions to breed genuine prolific Italian queens; to multiply them by hundreds in a few months and how to change German hives into Italian

by H. C. Hermann

§ 16.

IN THE EARLY SPRING

Queens of a pure race may be bred with advantage, because the Italians breed drones two or three weeks earlier than the black bees, so that the Italian mothers can mate when there are no German drones whatever. However, the finest queens are only obtained by waiting the natural time when the inclination for breeding exists; from about a fortnight before to a fortnight after swarming time.

§ 17.

BOXES WITHOUT MOVEABLE PARTS.

Those who are not in possession of boxes with movable parts, but yet wish to Italianise their native bees, have much more trouble, and must leave it to chance whether the queen, bred from Italian brood, will mate with black or Italian drones. It is difficult and not everybody's business to take the finished queen-cells from such hives; but a clever bee-cultivator will know how to help himself even then.

In such a case all the people in the Italian hive must be driven out, and the hive put in the place of one, or better, two strong native hives, during the time of their strongest flight, and the empty hive will be populated by German people, who immediately begin to make queen-cells.[7]

[7] Here, too, a wire-grating may be fixed before the fly-hole, large enough to permit free entrance to the bees, but too narrow for drones; this will keep the hive pure. Of course, as soon the queen makes her mating-flight, the hive is carried, in the evening, after sunset, to the place where the pure Italians are until the mating is over.

The two native hives are then taken away and placed on another stand, or, if there is only one, on the bottom shelf of the bee-house. It is always better to take away all hives with black drones, so that here are only Italian drones flying. The loss of people will do them the less damage, as they would without that have had to give out a swarm.

In order that the forced or artificial swarm from the Italian mother-hive may soon be in full strength, it is necessary to put the swarm into a hive already filled with combs, which must be well fed to excite them to breed.