Note 25 — VI. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

The plan of uniting an Italian queen to an English stock is, first, to discover the queen by lifting out the frames, then take her away. This, we find, is best done by putting a wine-glass over her whilst on the comb, and, with a card a little larger than the diameter of the glass, very carefully and gently passed underneath, so as not to injure her majesty, she is thus, with a few of her subjects, made a prisoner, and easily removed. Be careful to cut away with a penknife all queen-cells. Let the hive remain queenless for twenty-four hours, and then place the Italian queen in a small wire cage, the openings of which must be large enough to enable her to receive the attentions of, and to communicate with, her new subjects, and, at the same time, to defend her from the animosity with which bees regard a stranger-queen, that has a scent different from that of her new home. Three or four days' intercourse through the wire meshes generally has a reconciling effect, and the Italian queen may be let go free to become the monarch of the hive. Sometimes, even with all this precaution, the foreigner is slain, so that it is well to preserve the black queen alive (with a few of her own subjects), by feeding and keeping her warm until the result is known. The wire cage containing the new queen is made of a flat shape, so as to be pressed down between the combs, against some honey-cells, in order that, should the inhabitants of the hive be inattentive, her majesty need not starve, but have food within reach. As it is generally considered that the queen is fed by working bees, it is always necessary to put about half a dozen of her own subjects in the cage with her, to pay her the requisite attention.