120 INCREASE 



prehensive review of them without leaving some confusion in the 

 mind of the reader. If, as is commonly believed, the hive odor 

 is the means by which the bees recognize the members of a com- 

 mon community, the great object to be attained by any method 

 is that the new queen shall acquire this peculiar odor as quickl^y 

 as possible. More than twenty years ago it was recommended 

 that to assist in accomplishing this result the queen to be removed 

 from the colony to be requeened should be confined for a time 

 in a cage. She is then removed and the new queen placed in 

 this same cage by means of which she is introduced to the colony. 

 This method has been reported as very successful by bee-keepers 

 for many years past. This is essentially the ordinary cage 

 method with the exception that the former queen is confined 

 in the same cage in which her successor is to be introduced for a 

 time before she is destroyed and the new queen placed therein. 



When a queen is to be introduced by any of the direct methods 

 it will be much help if she is confined by herself for at least 

 thirty minutes without food. Being hungry she will at once 

 solicit food when she comes in contact with the workers and will 

 much more likely be accepted. 



QUEEN REARING 



Although commercial queen rearing is a business by itself 

 that would require a volume for exhaustive treatment, the bee- 

 keeper's education is not quite complete until he has learned 

 to rear his own queens, even though it may not be advisable 

 for him to do so to any extent. Most productive bee-keepers feel 

 that they can ill aiford the time for extensive queen rearing at 

 the busy time of year when they can best be reared, and prefer 

 to buy them from some regular breeder. There are times, how- 

 ever, when one can rear his own queens to advantage, and it is 

 always well to be prepared to supply a limited number for special 

 purposes or to meet emergencies. 



Some of the most successful honey producers feel that only 

 by breeding from selected stock which has been tested under 



