222 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



united in the fall, or at any other time, some of 

 the bees prove to be quarrelsome or pugnacious, 

 they will speedily become pacified and reconciled 

 on being repeatedly perfumed as described. But 

 resort to this mixture is not advisable when a 

 colony is being robbed." 



Mr. FuTTERER remarked. — "A somewhat 

 similar process, but using chloroform, and thus 

 stupefying the bees, has been recommended in 

 the Biencnzeilung. I have tried this ten or 

 t'welve times, and have lost some very fine 

 queens. The use of grated nutmeg has also 

 been proposed. I have tried it and succeeded 

 three times out of four, but the mishap, though 

 only one in four, may involve the loss of a valu- 

 able queen." 



Mr. Leschetzky said : " I have charge of an 

 eight hive pavilion (the joint property of sixteen 

 members of our association) which is used ex- 

 clusively for rearing queens, and I thus had 

 many opportunities for observation. I have 

 reared more than one hundred queens in the pa- 

 vilion, and emploj'cd various methods of intro- 

 ducing them in queeuless colonies, but none 

 ever proved to be entirely satisfactory, all being 

 attended with difiiculties, risks and delay. I 

 was always ready to sacrifice a ciucen in my ef- 

 forts to discover or devise some simple and 

 sure process. On reflection I conceived that 

 after removing the native queen the intended 

 successor would be readily accepted if I operated 

 in accordance with the natural habits of the bee. 

 "With this view I caught and removed the old 

 queen in the morning, and attached the cage 

 containing the strange queen to one of the brood 

 co?nbs, and liberated her in the evening of the 

 same day. Next morning I examined the hive, 

 and found the queen safe and laying eggs. 

 Again, I -removed the native queen in the even- 

 ing, placed her intended successor caged on a 

 brood comb purposely set in the rear adjoining 

 the movable door of the Dzi(,Tzon hive, and liber- 

 ated her in the evening of the following day. 

 She was at once accepted. I repeated this pro- 

 cess frequently until I was satisfied that it had 

 been fully tesfed, and with proper attention was 

 always successful. Only once Avas a queen 

 killed for me, and then the mishap was attribu- 

 table to my mistake in attaching the cage con- 

 taining the offered queen to an empty comb in- 

 stead of a brood comb. 



I am thoroughly convinced that the most 

 dangerous foes an introduced queen has to en- 

 counter are the young bees found on the brood 

 combs, and our first endeavor must be to make 

 these familiar with the offered stranger, so as to 

 induce them to accept her freely. Hence I use 

 the precaution now to place a brood comb at the 

 rear end of the hive, next the door, and to it I 

 attach the cage containing the queen I would in- 

 troduce, lean then promptly liberate her at the 

 proper time, without 'producing excitement 

 among the bees. 



By this process, now used successfully more 

 tlian fifty times, the bees do not become conscious 

 of queenlessness, and never begin to build queen 

 cells, and as the new queen is liberated in the 

 evening, when bees are known to be more peace- 

 fully disposed than at any other times, it ii evi- 



dent that the process has many advantages over 

 any hitherto employed, especially as brooding is 

 thus interrupted only for one day." 



Mr. Kneipp observed: — ''When I wish to 

 change queens, I catch the old or native queen, 

 cage her and let her remain in the hive that day. 

 The cage thus becomes imbued with the scent or 

 odor of^ the colony. In the evening, at dusk, I 

 remove this queen and substitute for her the one 

 I intend shall be her successor, using the same 

 cage and besmearing it on every side with honey 

 taken from the same hive, and immediately rein- 

 serting it. If the queen thus given is a very 

 precious one, and I desire to be absolutely sure 

 that she will be accepted, I puff segar smoke 

 gently in the entrance of the hive at intervals of 

 thirty minutes, !br about tAvo Iiours. In from 

 twenty-four to thirty-six hours, I liberate her, 

 u'sing segar smoke again as before. Thus pro- 

 ceeding 1 have invariably been eminently suc- 

 cessful. 



When I desire to unite the bees of two or 

 three colonies, 1 drive out or shake off the bees 

 successively into a large glazed earthen pot, and 

 introduce the selected queen directly among 

 them, unconfined. I then thoroughly mix or 

 shake together the whole mass, two or three times 

 at short intervals, and then, to prevent the gener- 

 ation of excessive heat, I transfer them imme- 

 diately to the hive prepared for them. 



Since I employ this method I have never had 

 bees or queens injured or killed, as the bees be- 

 come exceedingly alarmed and are apparently 

 glad to escape Avith life." 



Mr. DziERZON said: — "It frequently hap- 

 pens, after the removal of the old queen, that 

 her successor, Avhen introduced, is apparently 

 well received and accepted by the bees, but is 

 subsequently, a week or ten days later, de- 

 stroyed by them. It is, of course, desirable that 

 a valuable queen should not incur such risks, and 

 if we would be sure of her thorough acceptance 

 she should be given to a secoud swarm, from 

 which a still Airgin queen has just been re- 

 moved, or to an artificial coloiiy having queen 

 cells nearly mature. The workers of such colo- 

 nies have been for some time queenless and are 

 ready to accept and permanently retain any fer- 

 tile queen that may be offered to them. Care 

 must, however, be taken to remove every j'oung 

 queen such colony may contain, or the ucav 

 queen might still be lost, and though queen cells 

 Avill commonly be destroyed by the Avorkers on 

 the acceptance of a queen, it is safer to remove 

 them immediately, especially if the embrA'o ■ 

 queen be nearly mature, so that the introduced 

 queen may not incur the risk of being killed by 

 an emerging one." 



Mr. Reitekspietz remarked : — "When I 

 Avish to introduce a valuable Italian queen in a 

 healthy, populous black colony, whether in 

 spring, summer or fall, or even in unfavorable 

 weather, I proceed in the folloAving manner : 



"At noon, or in the afternoon, I capture the 

 native queen, confine her in a cage and place 

 this in or on a brood comb. Having replaced the 

 combs taken out when searching for her, I close 

 the hive and leave it in this condition twenty- 

 four hours. Then, that is at about the same hour 



