better, as some assert, I think it is because the queens lay later in the fall, and thus keep the colony strong in numbers until cold weather. They have access to flowers which are useless to the common bee. That their bill is longer, any one can prove to his satisfaction in this way: Fill a tumbler with diluted honey or sugar sirup, cover it with wire cloth or perforated tin; have it so full that the contents touch the cover, and set it near bees of both kinds. After the black bees have taken it as long as they can reach it through the wire, the Italians will be found still upon it, filling their sacs and evidently lowering it. Not only do they store more honey, but their queens are much more prolific queens. It is wonderful how much brood may be taken from one of these queens. From one hive the last season I took thirty-two frames of brood and eggs at different times from which to rear queens, and from another thirty-six frames, yet both hives are as strong this fall as any of the common ones from which only one swarm had been taken. As ten frames fill one of my hives, it will be seen that this was equal to three full swarms from one, and more than three and a half from the other.

than the black

CHANGING FROM COMMON TO ITALIAN BEES. •

The case with which this is accomplished brings Italian bees within the reach of all, in every part of our land. Pure queens are raised by reliable persons and sent, as ordered, anywhere with perfect safety. If it was necessary to purchase and transport full colonies, the work of introducing the new variety would be much more difficult and expensive. Now, any one who is convinced that the Italians are better and more profitable can order one or more Italian queens, and from them raise others to supply all his hives. Many and full directions have been given how to Italianize, but still the plain, simple way seems to be Hittle understood. Having been engaged in the work for three seasons, I shall try to give some hints which may be valuable to those commencing in it. The queen being the mother of the whole colony, it follows that if a pure Italian queen be given them instead of their own all the bees reared after the change are Italians; and as the bees already there die off they are replaced by the others, and the stock, in a short time, is fully Italianized. By a pure queen, I mean one of pure stock, and which has been fertilized by an Italian drone. There has been much stock reared in this country which is hybrid. By this I mean the progeny of a pure Italian queen fertilized by a common drone. This, in the first generation, is hard to be distinguished from the pure; but it soon degenerates. As the drones are invariably like their mother, those reared from such hybrid queens are always pure. This fact should be borne in mind, as it makes it comparatively easy to keep the stock right.

The queen with which you commence should be pure beyond doubt. Purchase of some one who will warrant her, and whose guarantee you can trustremembering that in the beginning you will be no judge of their purity. The fall is the best time to purchase your queen, because she will then be ready for early operations the next season. Introduce her into the best and strongest colony you have, for safe-keeping through the winter. If you have but few colonies, the work for the next spring is very simple. About the middle of May,. if you examine the hive containing your Italian queen, you will find drones in all stages. Then take the queen out and confine her in a cage made by rolling a piece of wire cloth, four inches square, into a tube, tying it firmly, and putting a wooden stopper in each end. Next remove from another hive its queen, and having killed her, insert the queen cage between the two frames, and keep her there forty-eight hours. Then release her, and that hive has an Italian queen. The one from which you took her will preserve its pure drones with care, and immediately proceed to rear queens. În ten days you will find from six to

twelve queen cells nearly ready to hatch. Then take from as many hives as you have queen cells their queens, and leave them queenless about ten or twelve hours. Then from one of the hives take a centre frame containing brood, cut a hole two inches in diameter; cut out one of the queen cells from the hive containing them, with a little comb each side of it, being very careful not to press or injure it in any way; dip the edges of it in a little melted wax and insert it in the frame, and put it back in the hive. In nine cases out of ten this cell will be gladly received by the bees, and hatch in a few days. This process can be repeated with as many hives as you have cells, and if done by the last of May or first of June you may be quite sure that these young queens will be fertilized by Italian drones, because you will have no others in your apiary so early in the One or more cells must be left in the hive where they are reared, that it may be sure of a queen; and all your hives should be examined from time to time, to see that the cell in each hatches, and then to be sure that the young queens all lay at the proper time. I usually find them depositing eggs between the third and twelfth days after they hatch. If any colony fails to secure a fertile queen in this way, insert into it, from the hive which now contains your Italian queen, a frame containing eggs, and from that they will rear others. Before doing this, look over all the frames carefully to see that they have not commenced cells from their own eggs.

season.

After you have a fertile queen in each hive, watch the young worker bees as they hatch, and if all, or nearly so, are slender in form and have three distinct golden rings, you may hope they are pure. If there is a doubt about any one, you can exchange it for another at your leisure. Bear in mind that the main thing the first season is to get a young queen in every hive, reared from the one you purchased. That accomplished, all your drones will afterwards be pure, and young queens reared from that time forth will be quite sure to meet pure drones. The following spring your hives will have drones in them two weeks in advance of all black bees in the neighborhood; and if yours are strong, and you make early swarms, the chances are much in favor of your queens being purely fertilized.

The second season of your operations all doubtful queens should be replaced; and if pains be taken you can easily have none but pure queens in your hives while the original queen which you purchased lives. I find the temper and disposition of the bees a better test of purity than their markings. The Italians are more easily managed, and less easily provoked to anger. If you open a hive of them and lift out a frame, instead of flying about in all directions and getting in a rage, (as do the black bees,) hardly a bee leaves the comb-all cling to it quietly until it is replaced. Where you find them thus clinging to the comb you have one good mark of purity.

The only certain test that I rely upon is the color and markings of a queen's royal children, or the queens reared from her. The female bee is invariably like the father, and the queens are the only perfect female bee. If you rear queens from a queen, and they are well marked and colored, you may be sure she is purely impregnated.

I had a number of fine queens last season whose worker progeny was so well marked that I had little doubt of their purity. Yet on rearing queens from their eggs they are not like their mother, and their eggs, when tested, produced queens hard to be distinguished from common ones. This fact will explain why the Italians, in careless hands, so soon degenerate. There is no need of this if the queen you purchase is pure, and you take pains the first season to put a queen reared from her into every hive you have; and, in the second season, to replace all which show impure marks.

The most difficult part of this process, as I have described it, (and it is more easily done than described,) consists in finding the old queen. At swarming

time (the best season to do it) the hives are or ought to be populous; and to the beginner it seems a formidable operation to look the frames over, and find one bee among so many. Place an empty hive by the side of the one you wish to examine; after opening the latter very gently, sprinkle it well with sweetened water. It is better not to alarm them by the use of smoke when you wish to find the queen. Begin near the centre, and take out a frame, and look carefully on each side of it. If she is not on it, put it in the empty hive, and take out another, proceeding in the same way. If the queen is found on neither of them, spread a sheet before the hive which now contains the frames, and empty upon it the bees that remain clinging to the hive. If she is among them you will see her as she passes into the hive. If you do not find her, return the frames to the other hive, examining them with care. I have often found the queen on the first frame I took out; and then, again, have taken them all out three times before seeing her. There is little difficulty in finding Italian queens; they are not disposed to hide, and their bright colors make them very conspicuous. Those who are Italianizing large apiaries, or rearing queens for sale, need no advice in the matter, yet may be interested in some items of my experience. I have succeeded better in rearing queens in moderately large hives than in the small ones generally used for the purpose. I now have my nucleus hives, containing three frames, the size of my large hives. A hive containing twelve frames, which can be divided into four parts at will, is very convenient, the entrance into two of the parts being at the ends, and in the others at the sides. Such a hive is warmer than a single nucleus, which is important in the early part of the year.

If such a hive contains a pure Italian queen, and she be taken from it in May, there will be eggs in each of the four parts when the dividers are put in, and from thirty to forty queen cells will be started at once. In ten days as many of these as you please can be cut out and given to other hives, but four or more should be left in it. The young queens hatched in these hives are very sure to mark their place when they go out for their excursions, as the size and entrance make it peculiar in appearance.

Much complaint is made that the whole colony is apt to go out from a nucleus hive when the queen leaves for impregnation and does not return; thus queen and all are lost. There is a sure remedy for this: Bees never desert a hive, large or small, while there is brood in it. If, then, a frame containing eggs and larvæ be given to the small colony from another hive, about the time the queen will hatch, the bees will not desert it. Some have trouble in making the bees build more than one or two cells in these little hives. That is because they do not have a large proportion of young bees in them. The young bees of the current year are the ones that work the wax and build queen cells. They may be seen before they are twenty-four hours old at work on them. Keep plenty of bee bread and honey in the small hive, and supply it with water and young and hatching bees, and you will have numerous cells.

Be always sure that, in the hives where you are rearing queens, there are no eggs except from a queen of undoubted purity. It has been declared impossible for bees to remove their eggs from one cell to another, but I now know that they do so. Last year I put into nucleus hives, each, a frame containing eggs, while the other combs, full of honey and bee-bread, were those preserved from hives from which the bees had been taken, and which had been all winter in a cold room. By no probability could an egg have been in these, yet repeatedly were green cells built in them, and perfect queens hatched from them. I do not pretend to say how the bees remove so delicate a thing as one of those little eggs without injury; but is it really any more wonderful than some of their other operations?

I have reared queens every week from the 1st of April to the last of October,

and could perceive no difference in size or coloring at the different seasons; but out of eighteen reared in April last only two became fertile; and of twenty-two reared in October, all but four were lost, while nearly all those reared in May, June, and July were impregnated.

I do not find the pure Italian queens larger in size than the common ones; but queens reared from a pure Italian mother, fertilized by a common drone, are often very large and handsome. The colonies of such queens are, in every respect, equal to the pure. All such queens may be safely preserved, as their drones are pure. But no queens should be raised from them, and if swarms issue from their hives the queens should be taken from them and pure ones given them, for nothing pure comes from a queen reared from such queens. No one should be contented to stop short of giving a queen which will produce pure drones the first season to every hive he has, whether it be one or one hundred. This accomplished, your work is more than half done. The importance of this is manifest, for you will then have no common drones in your apiary the second season. When this is the case you can keep your own colonies strong, "swarm" them early, and have little to fear from outsiders.

will

So long as you have common drones a large proportion of your queens meet them. I raised one hundred and forty-three queens the first season, which became fertile, and though I had many Italian drones in a dozen hives, and suppressed the common drones as much as possible, only twenty-six of my young queens were fertilized by Italians.

It is said, and I doubt not with truth, that in all Italian stock brought to this country there is a taint of impurity. This is of little consequence if we keep our stock pure. By exercising proper care, we can not only keep them as good as the original, but also do much to improve them. I have several young queens even more beautiful than those I bought, and queens reared from them are as fine as any I have ever seen. Every one which does not produce pure drones should be replaced as soon as this is discovered, and those which are only hybrid may be changed before swarms are taken from them. All this requires care and patience, but it pays well to take this care.

In no way can the yield of honey be so sensibly increased as by introducing the Italian bee into different localities. As it replaces the old variety a great change will be observed.

but

I cannot think it wise for those rearing queens to sell to send out any those tested and proved pure. The practice of selling hybrid queens, or of sending those not tested, to those who are commencing in the business, promising to replace them if not pure, is a bad one. The beginner (who, perhaps, has never seen an Italian bee) cannot himself be a judge of purity, and in nine cases out of ten will be satisfied with what he gets, and rear from it. Though he will find any mixture of the Italian blood an improvement on his old stock, yet, in the second generation, he will have nothing pure, and be disappointed and discouraged. One had better pay a large price for a queen warranted pure by one whose reputation is at stake in the matter than to get a hybrid cheap, and find, in a year or two, that he has had all his trouble for little or nothing. I would advise every one purchasing a queen to clip her wings before putting her in a new home. It not only prevents her leaving the hive with a swarm at any time, but you are always sure that she is the one you bought, for bees often destroy a queen for no apparent reason.

SUBDUING BEES, BEE-DRESS, ETC.

I find a great difference between the Italian and common bees in their irascibility. The former are much more easily managed. Still the timid will do well always to use some precautions. Sprinkling with sugar water is the

best means of subduing them when you wish to open the hive. If you wish to find a queen readily do not use smoke, it induces her to hide; but for any other examination of the hive it answers well. A wire hat with a deep curtain to it, and a pair of rubber gloves with gauntlets, make a perfect protection against stings. The gloves are very expensive, as they soon wear out from contact with the bee glue or propolis. I find a pair of woollen mittens, with thumb and finger, as knit for soldiers' use, quite as good protection. They should be dipped in cold water before using. From these glue can be easily removed. A quiet, fearless manner when among bees does much to prevent their anger. No stand should ever be made angry; they do not soon forget it, and after they are once enraged they are difficult to subdue.

ADAPTATION OF THE BUSINESS TO WOMEN.

Health is to be derived from it. The ancients called the honey bee "Deborah, or she that speaketh." Would that its gentle hum might now speak to many women in our land, and awaken an interest in a pursuit so interesting, and, at the same time, so profitable. The quick observation and gentle handling, so requisite in the business, belong peculiarly to women, and there is no part of it which is laborious, or that may not be appropriately performed by them.

It has proved to me of great benefit. I came west twelve years ago, under sentence of speedy death from one of New England's best physicians, yet now rejoice in perfect health restored. More than to all other causes I attribute the change to the interesting occupation which has kept me so much of the time in the open air, and paid me for being there. I most heartily recommend it to others, who are seeking either health or a pleasant and profitable employment.

WHITE CHESTER BREED OF SWINE.

BY PASCHALL MORRIS, PHILADELPHIA, PENN.

The most approved and desirable points of the white Chester breed of swine are length and depth of carcass, breadth of back, small bone, very small head in comparison with the size of carcass, full ham, shoulders full and well pushed towards the head, leaving little or no neck, heavy jowl, dished face, thin skin, straight hair, and straight back.

The engraving represents a large and fine animal, combining in considerable perfection all the above points. He will be sixteeen months old on the 1st of January, 1867, and is estimated to weigh at that time, when he will be slaughtered, at least 550 pounds. His face is remarkably small. This is one of the most difficult points to secure, and is often an indicator of the rest of the figure, as well as of fattening properties. I have always found that a hog with a dish-face, short nose, small head, and breadth between the eyes, is right nearly everywhere else, and is an easy and quiet feeder. On the other hand, a long nose, and a long and large head, indicate, in a general way, a hard and feeder and a great consumer.

uneasy

The white Chester breed of swine is not an original, but a "made-up" breed, being a cross between the best native stock of Chester county and an imported Bedfordshire boar. He was imported by Captain James Jeffries more than forty