The Rearing of Queens 427 



is eaten away she walks out without excitement and is 

 accepted. This is the most common method of introducing 

 queens. Some beekeepers dip the queen in honey and place 

 her in the colony. The workers promptly remove the honey 

 and usually accept the queen. Others fill the hive with 

 smoke and close the entrance after letting the queen run in. 

 Whatever is done the queen should acquire the colony odor 

 so that the workers will not attack her as they normally do 

 strange queens. Young virgin queens are more readily 

 accepted than mated queens. Colonies that have been 

 queenless for a considerable time are usually difficult to 

 requeen and this is especially true if in the meantime some 

 of the workers have begun to lay eggs (p. 187). In intro- 

 ducing a queen it is necessary that the colony be queenless 

 or the strange queen will be killed. 



Improvement of stock. 



In addition to the manipulations of queen-rearing there 

 are some fundamental principles which should be considered. 

 It should be the policy not only to provide queens as needed 

 but to keep steadily improving the stock. For this work 

 beekeepers usually depend on the specialists in queen-rearing 

 but it is desirable that each beekeeper keep the ideal of 

 bettering his stock constantly before him. The breeding of 

 Italian queens for additional yellow on the abdomen, result- 

 ing in the so-called five-banded bees, clearly demonstrates 

 that changes can be made by applying the principles of 

 breeding to queen-rearing. While the merits of these bees 

 is a subject of dispute the success in this line of endeavor 

 should encourage the beekeeper to believe that as striking 

 things are possible in other lines of bee breeding. 



It is evident that certain characteristics which the bee- 

 keeper wishes to develop and some which he wishes to reduce 

 or destroy must be inherited. Exceptional prolificness, 

 gentleness, excessive swarming, protracted breeding and 

 their opposites are characteristic of various races and strains 

 of bees but not of the entire species. This leads to the belief 



