No. 7. DEPARTMEiNT OF AGRICULTURE. 267 



entrance of the hive, then pry ofE the cover just enough to allow 

 the smoke to go in but not enough to let the bees out, puff some 

 smoke under the cover and then lift it off, shaking the bees from 

 it near the entrance of the hive. Then pry a frame at one side 

 enough to loosen it and lift it out, shake the bees in front of the 

 hive and stand the frame down against the outside of the hive or at 

 the rear, near at hand. Remember to take out the outer frame first. 

 If it be held fast by burr comb cut it loose with a long bread knife. 

 After the first frame has been removed it is easy to pry aside the 

 other frames, and they can be raised and examined for eggs, drone 

 comb, queens, queen cells, moths, and disease. If worker eggs be 

 found the bee-keeper knows that the hive has a queen and she has 

 been laying within three days. If no eggs be found and queen cells 

 be present he will know that the queen has been lost, probably in 

 the last manipulation, and that the bees are engaged in rearing a 

 new queen. He can then, if he wish, remove all the young bees 

 ("worms" or larva3) from the queen cells and in their place insert 

 those of some strain or variety which he may wish the new queen to 

 be. In this way he can produce his own queens without trouble or 

 expense. 



It is very important for the bee-keeper to be able to remove the 

 drone comb when he doesn't want it and thus prevent considerable 

 loss by these lazy fellows consuming good honey. In this way he 

 can also prevent the drones from appearing in certain hives that he 

 may not wish to propagate in his apairy. On the other hand, by in- 

 serting drone comb into frames where he may wish the drones he 

 can thus propagate the good qualities of his best hives. The bee- 

 keeper should select for propagation only those which have yielded 

 ttl>e largest amount of honey, as it is not at all advisable to rear 

 queens from a poor hive or queen. It is best to remove the poor 

 queen from the hive and introduce a better one. At the end of 

 four or five days cut out all the queen cells that are found in the 

 frames in the queenless hive and out of the desired hive remove 

 a frame with the eggs and insert in the poor hive. From these 

 new queens will be reared. The detailed method of rearing queens 

 is so complicated that we cannot discuss the subject here but would 

 simply show how it is possible. In looking over the frames the 

 evidences of diseases of bees can be found and the proper remedies 

 applied, the larviie of the bee moth can be detected and removed, 

 the drone comb can be cut out or inserted as desired, and queen cells 

 can be cut out or can be inserted them from other hives. For ex- 

 ample, if I have several hives which are not yielding as much as I 

 think they should I can start one of them to making queen cells by 

 the methods mentioned, and when these queen cells are completed 

 and capped they will be about the size and shape of a peanut. I 

 then remove each queen from the hives I wish to re-queen, cut a 

 queen cell from the desirable hive, and set it in the comb of the hive 

 from which a poor queen has been removed. In this way a queen- 

 less colony is started to rearing queens for several hives, and I have 

 no trouble in transferring the queen cells with the new queens in 

 them and re-queening each colony. 



With the modern frame hives there is no difficulty in introducing 

 a new queen of a different race. I have recently had bees sent 

 from the different states in the Union, and in fact from across the 



