FUNDAMENTALS OF SUCCESSFUL INTRODUCTION 1 19 



hive when the queen is introduced and the emerging brood will 

 make no trouble. 



Fundamentals of Successful Introduction.— The following 

 extracts from an editorial by the late W. Z. Hutchinson in the 

 Bee-Keepers Review in 1891 cover the ground very fully: 



To introduce a queen to a colony of bees, two things must be well con- 

 sidered—the condition of the bees and the condition of the queen The con- 

 dition and behavior of the queen is very important. If the queen will only 

 walk about upon the combs in a quiet and queenly manner, and go on with 

 her egg laying, she is almost certain to be accepted if the other conditions 

 are favorable Let her run and "squeal" (utter that sharp " zeep, zeep 

 zeep ) and the bees immediately start in pursuit. Soon the queen is a 

 mass of tightly clinging bees and the only course is to smoke the bees 

 severely until they release the queen from their embrace, when she must be 

 re-caged for another trial. 



So far as the queen is concerned, it is important that she be brought 

 before tiie bees in a natural manner, in such a way and in such a place as 

 they would expect to meet her. When clipping queens I have replaced them 

 by dropping them upon the top bars, or at the entrance of the hive when 

 the bees would immediately pounce upon them as intruders. A puff of 

 smoke would cause the bees to "let up" when the queen would walk ma- 

 jestically down upon the combs or into the hive, as the case might be, and 

 here she would not be molested, because the bees here found her where they 

 expected to find their queen. ^ 



h. J^/fj"'^^ ^^"^-^^ °f *™f ""^r^ ^^ S'''^" ^^ t° 'lo^ lo"g a queen should 

 be caged before she is released. The behavior of the bees fs the best guide 



i^Hnl^^'h -^l"'."^ ^^''.^Se, clinging to it in masses, like so many 

 burdocks, their behavior indicates what the queen would have to endure 

 were she within the.r reach. The operator must wait until the bees are in a 

 different mood; until they are walking quietly about the cage, as uncon^ 

 cernedly as upon the combs of honey-perhaps the bees may be^offerlng food 

 to the queen and caressing her with their antennae. This shows that the 

 bees are favorably inclined toward the queen and that it is safe to release 



To be successful in introducing queens that have come from a distance 

 shnnM h'^''" 1 *^f colony must be well looked after. It is better that thej 

 should be hopelessli, qneenless. Let it build a batch of queen cells, and re 

 move them after the larv.^ are too old to be developed into queens; then the 

 bees are almost certain to accept a queen if given to them in%roper manner! 



frpoi^^^^^"".! Z ^ T'i''^ "''''"^ amiable mood when honey is coming in 

 Zil;,^'''"^ ^^\T^!: *^ >"troduce queens when no honey is being gatJfred 

 without feeding the bees two or three days before the queen is Released 



So much has been written about the introduction of queens 

 and so many plans are in use that it is difficult to give a com- 



