It requires a considerable amount of apiarian skill to accomplish the union of Italian with common bees, so that we find by experience it is best to send out complete stocks or swarms of the former. This is particularly desirable now that the packing of whole hives is so easily accomplished by us with the aid of bars and frames. We have sent a great number of stocks to all parts by rail. Still, as the introduction of fertile Italian queens is a frequent practice, and we are ourselves large importers of the same, it is only right to add some directions as to the course to be pursued where such union is resolved upon. These queens come over during the summer months, from May to October. They are packed in wooden boxes about five inches square, with a comb of sealed honey in a frame in the centre to feed the queen and the few workers that accompany her on the journey. The old queen should first be removed from the hive, but carefully preserved till it is ascertained whether all goes well with the stranger. The box containing the latter must now be prised open, and this should be done within doors, lest the queen should fly and be lost. On discovering her she must be placed in a queen-cage and gradually introduced to her new subjects in the manner explained under that article (pages 198 and 247). If this is successfully accomplished all is right so far; but unless considerable pains be taken the off-coming swarms will certainly produce mongrel bees. If none of the neighbouring residents are bee-keepers, the risk may be considerably narrowed by destroying the drones and drone comb in the other hives and rearing Italian queens to place at the head of each of these as speedily as possible. Every one of these queens, even if impregnated from an undesired source, will still produce _drones_ as purely Italian as herself (see page 64), and thus in another year the chance of Italian mates being found for the queens will be further increased: indeed the peculiarity of Italian queens in laying drone eggs in there _first_ year will probably produce this result more speedily. But should some hybrids be the result, as in all probability will be the case, even these are much to be preferred to the common black bee--some say (see page 53) that they are even better than pure Italians for honey-gathering, but they are more irascible. This course is undoubtedly in opposition to the design of Nature to avoid interbreeding, but we find even Mr. Hunter recommending it, though showing in another place that he perceives it to be a violation of his "law." By commencing with two Italian queens there might be more chance given of escape from the evil--if it really is an evil when not several times repeated. Von Berlepsch, however, informs us of the following method, devised by Dathe and others, by which even this objection _may_ be avoided:--