544 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



few minutes she may again be presented, sometimes with success ; but if not, 

 tihe should be removed as before, and replaced with her own nucleus, in doing 

 which the same precaution should be used as in presenting her to the new 

 colony, otherwise she may joerish by the cruelty of her bees. On the follow- 

 ing day, after smoking the queenless colony until all the bees are thoroughly 

 subdued and gorged with honey, the queen may again be presented as before 

 directed. If they shall refuse to receive her, it is safer to let them remain for 

 seven days from the time they were deprived of their queen, by which time it 

 will be found they have constructed a greater or less number of queen cells 

 upon their combs, in which embryo queens are being reared. All these should 

 be removed, or the embryo queens destroyed. On the following day, after 

 again smoking as above described, the queen may be presented as before. 



Last year, in introducing probably sixty queens by this process, only three 

 or four failed of success. It, however, requires some skill, judgment, and ex- 

 perience in handling bees. 



Another method is to first remove the incumbent queen, and on the following 

 day prepare a small fine-meshed wire box or case, (not of brass or copper,) about 

 three inches long by one and one-half inch in diameter, with an aperture at one 

 end large enough for the free passage of the queen. In this cage should be 

 placed a small piece of honey-comb containing enough honey for the queen and 

 half a dozen bees for a period of four or five days. The queen, with half a 

 dozen "workers," should then be placed in it, and the entrance of the aperture 

 closed with a covering of wax, the cage suspended firmly between two combs 

 in that part of the hive where most of the bees are clustered, and in such posi- 

 tion that the bees in the hive may communicate readily with the queen, and 

 have free access to the wax-closed aperture. They will soon gnaw it open 

 and release her. Several other contrivances have been resorted to, but with lim- 

 ited success. I succeeded, in my early experiments, in making some safe intro- 

 ductions by immersing the queen in honey at the time of presenting her, but 

 found, ultimately, that unless the recipients were in the proper mood, at the time 

 of her presentation, they would sometimes kill her. 



An incident showing the discrimination of these wonderful little insects oc- 

 curred in midsummer, some three or four years ago. On searching for an un- 

 impregnated queen, (then about two weeks old,) and failing to find her, I pre- 

 sented the colony an impregnated Italian queen ; and, as she glided down the 

 comb, I observed they did not treat her with that marked kindness which I had 

 expected. The hive was closed, and at the end of about half an hour, on again 

 opening it, I discovered two knots of bees, each containing a queen ; and on 

 separating the one containing the unirapregnated queen, I found her lifeless, 

 while the fertile queen, though a stranger, was still retained alive. 



PROFITS AND IMPORTANCE OF BEE CULTURE. 



The profits of bee culture, like other pursuits iu life, depend greatly upon the 

 knowledge of the subject possessed by the bee-keeper and the proper manage- 

 ment of his bees. The difference in continuance and abundance of pasturage 

 iu difierent localities will of course produce widely difi'erent results, but there 

 are very few, if any, localities in the United States habitable by man in which 

 bees properly managed will not pay a bountiful compensation for their cultiva- 

 tion, while in the more favorable localities four or five hundred per cent, per 

 annum is no unusual product. In California, and in some of the southern 

 States, where the pasturage continues to abound for the greater part or nearly 

 +he whole of the year, the product is often still greater. An average of fifty 



