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

The working-bees originate out of the female-eggs. There are in a hive from 6000 to 70,000. They require from the egg to maturity eighteen to twenty-one days, they then remain in the hive for ten or fourteen days before they fly out.

The bees are able to bring up a queen out of every working-bee's eggs, and also from the grub if it is not above three days old. In that case they elongate and increase the width of the cell in the shape of an acorn, and give more feeding-mucilage than they are in the habit of giving to the working-bee.

To insure success in the cultivation it requires dexterity, and study of the nature of bees. The queen requires from the egg ten to seventeen days to her full development, when she will fly out about from one to three days, after her creeping out of the egg, to be impregnated, and then after the lapse of six or ten days more, she commences to lay eggs. Then she will not fly out again unless with a swarm. The bees always prepare several queen-cells at one time, which, however, do not mature at the same moment. The queen is only once impregnated during the whole course of her life which lasts from about three to five years.

§ 4.

THE DRONES

These are males. There are about 2,000 in a hive, and then only in summer, for, as soon as the swarming and honey-carrying-time is over, they are turned out as useless eaters. They serve only to impregnate the queen. The drones require from the egg to maturity, twenty-one to twenty-four days.

§ 5.

THE WORKING-BEES.

The working-bees mate probably with the drones, and are, therefore, capable of laying eggs, but which produce only drones; and, generally, a hive in which the working-bees commence laying eggs, is going to destruction. It can soon be observed, as they lay often two, three, to twenty eggs, without order, in one cell. In such a hive there is no longer a queen, and it is best to separate it at once or to unite it with a healthy hive, for such demoralised people generally kill a newly added queen. Those, who dispute the mating of the working-bees with the drones are in error. Only place young bees without a queen in a place distant from any drones, and no eggs are ever discovered; but, as soon as they are brought in the neighbourhood of drones, and they have no queens, they lay drone-egg.

§ 6.