FIFTY YEARS A^IONG THE BEES 1S9 



It may be called the excluder plan, and I will now give it 

 as we first practiced it. 



EXCLUDER PLAN OF TREATMENT. 



We find and cage the queen, destroy all queen-cells, 

 remove the hive from its stand, and put in its place a 

 hive containing three or four frames of foundation. The 

 foundation is on one side of the hive with a dummy next 

 to it. The rest of the hive is left vacant. Upon this 

 hive is put a queen-excluder, and over the excluder the 

 old hive with its brood and bees, and over this the supers 

 as before (Fig. 6(3). Then the queen is run in at the 

 entrance of the lower hive, and the colony is left for a 

 week or ten days. 



At the end of the week, or as soon after that time 

 as we can conveniently reach it we take away the lower 

 story with its excluder, and put back the queen in the 

 old hive, which is left on the stand. When we remove 

 the lower story with its three or four frames that a week 

 before contained foundation, there will be less advance 

 made in those frames than you would be likely to sup- 

 pose. The vacant part will still be vacant, the amount 

 of honey will be very small, generally only one or two 

 frames will have been occupied by the queen, and pos- 

 sibly nothing beyond eggs will be found. If larvae are 

 found, they will be still small, and not in large quantity. 

 It appears from this that there is some sulking for a time 

 on the part of the queen, or else that the bees are rather 

 slow to prepare the foundation for her. It is possible 

 that this interim without any laying may be an important 

 part of the treatment. I don't know. 



SOME FAILURES. 



At any rate, in the first two seasons of using the 

 plan, there was no case of any colony making any 

 further prepai'ation for swarming after being thus 

 treated. The third season (1902) everything did not 



