100 SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 



are not movable, disturb the bees and let them fill themselves with honey; 

 then send the smoke down between the frames until the bees set up a 

 march to go out on the alighting-board to escape from the smoke. Continue 

 the search by sending a little smoke down on them, and at the same time 

 watch the marching bees closely until the queen marches out; then you can 

 pick her up. If it is desired to remove a queen from an old box hive, remove 

 the top and send in the smoke at the entrance, and soon the queen will be 

 seen crawling around on ^op of the comb or the sides of the hive; then she 

 can be caught. A queen should never be handled roughly, nor mashed, for 

 it will greatly injure them, unless it is desired to kill them. It is not a good 

 idea to catch or handle queens at all unless it is necessary. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



Bees have a very great sense of smell and in this way they seem to 

 know each other, and, of course, they know when a strange bee or queen is 

 among them ; and as they allow no intruding bees except drones among them 

 they will kill them. It matters not how much they need a queen, if a strange 

 one is given them they will soon ball her to death. 



Queens are sent through the mails in small wood and wire cages, with 

 directions on each cage how to introduce them to a colony; and if these 

 directions are carried out there will not be many lost in introducing them. 

 And if queens are to be introduced from one hive to another in the same 

 apiary, or carried from one apiary to another, they must be put in similar 

 cages with plenty of candy (a very stif? dough made of strained or ex- 

 tracted honey and pulverized sugar), and then introduced in the same man- 

 ner you would queens sent through the mails. Queens sent through the mails 

 should be examined as soon as they arrive, to see that they are alive and 

 in good condition, for sometimes they will die in the mails or be badly 

 daubed or smeared with the candy. The cause of this is that the mail has in 

 some way been exposed to the direct heat of the sun, which, of course, would 

 soften the candy, and the queen and her escorts would be daubed or smeared 

 with it, and be in poor condition to introduce. 



If the queens arrive very badly daubed or dead they should be mailed 

 back to the sender, who will make the loss good by sending more queens in 

 their place. But the queens in good condition should be introduced as soon 

 as possible according to the directions found on the under side of the 

 pasteboard which is tacked over the wire cloth and which contains your 

 address. It will be seen that there is a very small strip of pasteboard tacked 

 over hole filled with candy on one end of the cage. This should not be re- 

 moved. The object of it is to delay the releasing of the queen, for they 

 would soon eat the candy out of the cage and release the queen before the 

 bees can get acquainted with her, and, of course, they would kill her. It 

 usually takes bees and queen more than 24 hours to form an acquaintance. 



After the ^ .icboard has been removed from over the wire cloth, intro- 

 duce '■'e queen as follows : 



*he undesired queens and kill them, and give the bees the caged 

 ■g the cages between two top-bars of the brood-frames con- 



