88 



IRE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



bees. If you have a practiced eye 

 and can find the queen, leave her in 

 the new swarm or division. If there 

 are any queen cells have them in the 

 hive that has no queen. Now remove 

 the new hive to the stand it is to occupy. 

 In fastening your foundation in box- 

 es I think there is no better or rapid 

 way than to use a foundation fastener. 

 However, if you have no fastener, 

 yeu may take two parts of wax to one 

 part of rosin, melt it together, and 

 when warm dip your foundation into 

 this, then place it in the center of top 

 of box, aud hold it there a second un- 

 til cool, this will hold it firmly, or use 

 the same, only hold your foundation 

 in the box, then with a spoon, pour it 

 so it will run along the edge of founda- 

 tion, it will, if not too warm, cool im- 

 mediately, and be ready for use. 

 Still, I say again, there is no way as 

 quick, simple and cheap as the founda- 

 tion fastener. Take off your top box- 

 es as soon as capped over, as the bees 

 traveling over them will darken the 

 cappings and spoil its market value. 

 Have a system and use it in grading 

 and sorting for market. Remember 

 the old adage, "cleanliness is next to 

 godliness," and bear in mind that 

 holds good in the apiary as well as 

 the household.— W. B. T. (New York.) 



INTRODUCING QUEEN; 



Should I attempt to give all the di- 

 rections and various methods that have 

 been tried and recommended from 

 time to time it would almost make a 

 book within itself, as well as confuse 

 the average bee-keeper. As this book 

 is intended for the " masses," I will 

 only give a few plain, practical meth- 

 ods of introducing queens, and try not 

 to confuse the average reader, as it is 



only through practical experience that 

 we can become experts at introducing 

 queens. Queen dealers send queens 

 by mail to most all parts of the world 

 in cages called queen cages. These 

 cages are usually so made that they 

 answer as an ntroducing cage. 



Now the colony we wish to intro- 

 duce the qup r * to must be made queen- 

 les. t j first tally considered best to 

 let tx nek aga queenless a few hours 

 until i. ' invome aware of the fact 

 and thex. give them the caged queen 

 which can be laid on top of the brood 

 frames if the weather is warm, or the 

 caged queen can be placed between 

 two brood combs, which is rather the 

 best plan. It usually takes 24 to 48 

 hours before the bees will accept the 

 strange queen; sometimes it will take 

 three or four days, and in extreme 

 cases it will take a week. The queen 

 should not be let out until the bees 

 became friendly toward her, which we 

 have to judge of by their actions. So 

 as the bees cling to the cage in a close 

 cluster, seemingly to try their best to 

 get in to the queen it is not safe to let 

 her out. We must wait until they 

 are walking leisurely about over the 

 cage, not paying any particular atten- 

 tion to the queen, and then we can let 

 the queen out with safty. 



LETTING THE QUEEN OUT. 



When you think it safe to let her 

 out, have your smoker in readiness, 

 and be sure to get the bees under sub- 

 jection. Now open the cage a little, 

 just so the queen will have plenty of 

 room to crawl out, and watch closely 

 how the bees behave toward her. 



If they attack her, or " ball her," 

 you should cage her and wait another 

 day. 



By " balling," I mean the peculiar 



