QUEENS 161 



around, revealing her gracious majesty with a few 

 attendants, safe beneath the wire screen; for no bee- 

 dealer would be so heartless or foolish as to send a 

 queen on a journey without a few ladies-in-waiting 

 to give her companionship and care. 



The cage in which a queen is shipped is always 

 tagged or labelled with directions for introducing 

 the queen, which, if followed implicitly, almost 

 always insures success. 



The plan of a queen-cage is a cell made of wire 

 screen with twelve to fifteen meshes to the square 

 inch, large enough to allow the bees to thrust in 

 their antennae and thus get acquainted with their 

 proposed sovereign, but not large enough to permit 

 a sting to be effectively thrust through. The cell, 

 itself, is large enough so that the prisoner will not 

 suffocate if the cage is balled. At one end of the 

 cage is an opening into which is pressed a cork of 

 candy, over which is tacked a piece of pasteboard, 

 through which is a central line of perforations. At 

 first the bees are wild to get at the queen, and in- 

 cidentally in their attack they get a taste of the 

 candy through the holes in the pasteboard. This 

 distracts their attention, and they work indus- 

 triously at biting away the pasteboard to get at the 

 candy. And by the time they have worked their 

 way through the delectable door, their attitude to- 

 wards the prisoner is naturally sweetened, and 

 usually they accept her at once. The '' Good candy" 

 is used for this purpose, for the queen is also sus- 

 tained on this confection during her incarceration, 



