The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-06-28
Lessons on Bee Culture for Beginners

Il
A correspondent of the Texas Far
mer writes to that paper as follows:
told you in a former letter that
ten colonies of Italian bees would
give six hundred pounds of honey
per annum. with but little care. Now
| will tell you how you can get from
1000 to 5000 pounds of extracted
honey from the same number.
Keep your bees from swarming, bv
adding story as fast as they are
filled, and about once week during
the swarming season look through
your hives and cut out all the queen
cells. You can by this plan get a
queen to fill three story Simplicity
hive. Commence early, and feed, if
necessary, to keep up brood rearing
but this advice is rather too late for
this season, so | will show you how
to 1talianize your black bees at cost
of only $3.50.
Purchase pure tested queen and
Introduce her to your strongest black
colony, and give her frame of
drone comb in the centre of the
breod nest, and as soon as
you find capped drone cells you will be
ready for operations. Destroy your
black droneS by emptying all your
black bees in front of the hive, and
by making the entrance so narrow
that drone cannot get in. Catch
your queen and drive your bees in
and leave the drones out. You can
soon dispatch them, and cut out or
shave off the heads of the drone
brood with a sharp knife. AS soon as
you get ready to Italianize your other
nine 1--WE suppose you have just ten)
go to your strongest black stock and
pinch off their queens head, and
as soon as this colony has started
queen cells-and [ generally assist
the by cutting holes in the newest
and lightest brood combs, where there
are plenty of brood, and take round
pointed stick, or pencil, and start
queen cells myself. AS soon as the
bees have got the cells under good
headway, go to your Italian Colony
and take out frame that has brood
just hatching-that is, eggs just
Matching into larv9-take a tooth
pick quill, or small spoon made for
the purpose, and after extracting the
black larvae from the queen cells, dip
out carefully the young italian larvae
and put in your cells.
AS the a owe plan requires very
nice work, perhaps the following
would suit you better: Take
strong colony and take from them all
their brood combs, and destroy their
queen. or give her away or make up
a small colony for her, and get comb
of brood, eggs, etc, and cut holes as
above described, and with your sharp
stick, start over eggs or larvae not
over one day old, cells to the amount
of double your size to ItalianiZe, and
in about ten days you are ready to go
to work. Destroy your black queens
on the ninth day after starting queen
cells; on the tenth day graf cell
in each colony; next day look and see
if the cells are all right; if any are de-
stroyed graft in another, and if they
refuse to take cell, which is very
seldom the case, you can proceed by4I
the first plan. In twelve days from
the time your cells are started, your
queens are hithed, and your italian
drones are Matching, too-some are
already out. About four to six days af-
ter Matching, your young queens will
take their bridal trip, and if they
meet with drone on their first flight,
they will begin to lay on the tenth or
twelfth day.