108 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



would cage her again, and liberate an- 

 other, and so on. By this means, you 

 could, in a few days, have five or six 

 virgin queens all in one hive mated, and 

 ready to be disposed of as circum- 

 stances required. Either nuclei or 

 full colonies can be used; or if there is 

 a short season when you do not care to 

 have your old queens lay, cage some of 

 your virgins in the hive, and before 

 liberating them, cage the old one, pro- 

 ceeding as above, thus securing many 

 fine queens, either for sale or supersed- 

 ing purposes. A queen should not be 

 allowed to remain in a colony, till such 

 time as she is so old and feeble as to 

 require crutches to get around. Bather 

 than allow that I would prefer to have 

 tAVO queens laying in one hive at once. 



Young queens just hatched, or hatch- 

 ing, may be introduced at once into 

 any colony, or any queen may be in- 

 troduced at once, by my chloroform 

 system, which has been fully explained 

 before. Caged queens should be in- 

 troduced with care and judgment, and 

 an expert can tell just when a queen 

 will be accepted, and can introduce 

 one successfully, while the novice is 

 liable to have her destroyed, as he is 

 liable to liberate her if the bees are 

 balling the cage as if they were feed- 

 ing her, not knowing the diflerence. 

 A queen's actions has much more to do 

 with her acceptance, or destruction, 

 than has her peculiar scent. I can 

 introduce any strange queen success- 

 fully, totally disregarding her scent, if 

 I can only get her to behave herself as 

 she should. Why will bees accept a 

 young, freshly hatched queen, having a 

 different scent? Because it has no fear, 

 and acts accordingly. Instead of try- 

 ing to invent new ways of introducing 

 matured queens, learn to make them 

 act like young ones, and the difficulty 

 is over. 



The subject was then discussed by 

 Messrs. King, Locke, Salisbury, Todd 

 and others, resulting in the following : 



To introduce queens, both laying and 

 virgin, calls for a knowledge of the 

 nature of the insects, and great care 

 in performing the operation. Bees will 

 accept a queen much more readily, if 

 introduced immediately after the old 

 queen has been removed, and before 

 the bees recognize their loss. 



Queens, and especially virgin queens, 

 can be more successfully introduced 

 when the bees are gathering honey, 

 than in a time of dearth. If one is 

 obliged to introduce queens when the 

 bees are gathering no honey, it would 



be well to feed the bees, placing the 

 feeder on the top of the frames. 



While virgin queens just hatched 

 will almost always be readily accepted 

 by a queenless colony (one that has 

 been queenless for two days, or more) 

 yet it is very difficult to introduce one 

 that is five days old to the same colony. 

 The proper and careful use of tobacco 

 smoke in introducing virgin queens 

 was strongly advocated, as the best 

 and safest means, whereby it could be 

 accomplished ; although some of the 

 most prominent members opposed it 

 for various reasons. For introducing 

 laying queens, the majority seemed to 

 favor the "Betsinger cage." To intro- 

 duce with this cage, remove the old 

 queen, and then place the new queen 

 on a comb containing hatching brood. 

 After which place the cage (a cage 

 formed of wire-cloth, in the shape of 

 the tin cover to an oblong box, say 

 3X4 inches, with sides I of an inch 

 deep) over the queen, passing the sides 

 down into the comb until they reach 

 the septum or foundation. Then cut 

 an ^ inch cage from the opposite side, 

 using for this purpose the small blade 

 of a penknife, or other small knife, 

 leaving the plug which is formed, hang- 

 ing loosely in the opening, so that it 

 can be easily removed by the bees. 

 The beauty of this method is, that the 

 bees on finding that their queen is gone, 

 will immediately commence to release 

 the new queen, and after gnawing an 

 opening around the plug, one bee will 

 find his way into the cage and is fol- 

 lowed by others, who at once present 

 their antennae and tongue, feeding the 

 queen, and showing their pleasure at 

 being able to release her. Soon find- 

 ing herself at liberty, she will quietly 

 leave the cage, and enter upon her 

 duties as mother bee. Those who ad- 

 vocated this method gave the most con- 

 vincing evidence of success. 



MARKETING PRODUCTS. 



This subject was thoroughly dis- 

 cussed, Messrs. King, Pierce, Bacon, 

 Todd, Root, Locke and others, tak- 

 ing part. 



Unity of action, and the establishing 

 of proper relations between the pro- 

 ducer and consumer, whereby a de- 

 mand may be created, and prices made 

 staple, were strongly advocated. 



INIr. King referred to the British 

 honey organization for example. The 

 condition of the honey market was 

 considered, and it was shown that 



