QUEENS 159 



solving this lump of excited regicides and saving 

 the queen. One is to drop the ball in a shallow 

 bowl of water. This baptism seems to cool the hot 

 blood and the bees swim off, trying to preserve their 

 own lives. The other is to smoke the ball until it 

 dissolves into individual bees, so anxious to get breath 

 for themselves that they forget to shut off the breath 

 of the obnoxious queen. There is a danger attend- 

 ing the latter method, for unless the smoking be 

 done carefully and without blowing hot air on the 

 bees, they will become infuriated by the heat and 

 surely sting the queen; as they evidently regard her, 

 and rightly, as the cause of their suft'ering. 



WHEN TO INTRODUCE A QUEEN 



The colony should have been queenless long 

 enough to realise the danger of the situation, but 

 not long enough to have done much toward build- 

 ing queen cells and developing larval queens; in 

 the latter case they prefer a queen of their own 

 dynasty and object to any other. Thus, if a 

 queen is to be superseded she should be removed 

 and, about two days later, the new one should 

 be introduced. 



It requires experience to know certainly that a 

 colony has become queenless, for often, when there 

 is no brood or eggs in the cells there is a virgin queen, 

 which eludes the eye, as she does not appear very 

 differently from the workers; a colony with virgin 

 queens of its own cannot be induced to accept an 

 introduced queen. 



