76 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



HOW TO INTRODUCE QUEENS 



WRITTEN FOR THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



By C. C. miller, 



EUGENE SECOR, 



E. L. PRATT, 



GEO. F. ROBBINS, 



M. A. KELLEY, 



DR. G. L. TINKER, 



H. D. CUTTING, 



MRS. H. HILLS. 



Number One. 



Dr. C. C. Miller. 



How to introduce queens — tJie Simtnins' plan 



— Caging — Introducing queens to sealed 



brood. 



I can onl}' answer this in a rather 

 one-sided vva}'. Tliat is I can give 

 my own experience, and that has not 

 been veiy mucli in the nsnal line of 

 ■caging the queen so long a time and 

 then freeing her. Years ago I put 

 a queen in a hive which had no queen, 

 with no preparation or introduction 

 whatever — ^just put her in. She was 

 accepted all right and I followed up 

 the same plan for a long time before 

 I met iKwy loss, and I'm not sure but 

 I would follow the same plan now in 

 preference to caging. I am free to 

 confess, however, that I never tried 

 the caging plan more than perhaps 

 three or four times if as many as that. 

 Perhaps I hardly ought to say I in- 

 troduce the queen with no preparation, 

 •for the colony must be in a certain 

 ■ condition. I'll give you the minu- 

 tiae. After the colony has been so 

 long queenless that they have started 

 queen-cells, I take out one of the 

 combs containing brood, place the 

 queen directly on the brood, put back 

 the comb and shut up the hive and 

 that's all. Tliis I generally'' did when 

 bees were gathering honey, and it is 

 possible it would be unsafe in the 

 fall. Later on I fell upon another 

 plan which has been published as the 



Simmins plan, although it was origi- 

 nal with me as well. Where a queen 

 has been raised in a nucleus in my 

 own yard, the plan is veiy simple, 

 and even surer than the one given. I 

 doubt if it is necessary to wait till 

 the bees have started queen-cells. I 

 simply go to the nucleus and lift out 

 the frame on which the queen is found, 

 and put it in the queenless colony, 

 comb, bees, queen and all. I don't 

 need any other plan than one of these 

 two for a queen of ordinary value. 



A queen of extra value, as an im- 

 ported queen, deserves and receives 

 extra care in introducing. I generally 

 know beforehand when I am to have 

 an imported queen, and I manage to 

 have some frames of brood with no 

 unsealed larvse. I am careful to brush 

 off every single bee, and put these 

 frames in a hive, then put in the 

 queen and shut up the hive bee-tight. 

 This hive must be put in the house 

 where it will be warm enough to keep 

 the brood from chilling, or else it 

 must be put over a strong colony 

 with an opening through which the 

 heat can ascend from the lower to 

 the upper hive, but this opening must 

 be protected bj' two pieces of wire 

 cloth at least one-fourth inch apart 

 so that there can be no communica- 

 tion between the bees in the two hives. 

 I should have said that there must be 

 brood just hatching out in the new 

 hive and this will soon make force 

 enough to start housekeeping. In 



