-TUr.Y 1, 191 I 



ilry, got it yoing jnopeily, ;iii(l luul it \Aw- 

 tograplied. The illustration shows a cloud 

 of soft, white, cool, but very "choky" smoke, 

 and two to three puffs of such smoke drive)i 

 well into the hive will make the biggest 

 colony " roar " ' — not hard puffs like the one 

 l)ictured, but sufficient to make it go well 

 into the hive. There is rather more danger 

 of giving too much smoke than too little. 

 Dry, thin, hot smoke is likely to injuie or 

 burn the bees — often makes them quite cross, 

 and does not work nearly as well as the 

 other sort. In smoking the bees, if the 

 entrance is but about % iix'h lii^li it is not 

 easy to drive the smoke well into the hive; 

 and in such cases it is well to lift the cover 

 a little, send two or three puffs under it, 

 close it quickly, ar;d then give a couple of 

 jniffs at the entrance. For years 1 have used 

 nothing less than an inch-high entrance; 

 lience I previously failed to write of the 

 difficulty of i^roper smoking where a sma'l 

 entrance was used. 



The next factor is the colony condition. 

 It makes no ditference what that is so long 

 as it is quiet. It may have a queen, have 

 been just dequeened, have queen-cells in 

 almost any stage, or have laying workers. 

 The new queen will be accepted under any 

 of these conditions. Under the first, she may 

 or may not supplant the reigning queen. 

 That is a separate matter, and Avill be treat- 

 ed more fully further on. Just after de- 

 queening I consider to be the very best time 

 for introducing, provided the dequeening 

 was done quietly. With a good strain of 

 bees the deft operator will readily get the 

 old fjueen with little or no smoke, and when 

 he closes the hive the bees are nearly as 

 quiet as if they had not been disturbed; 

 therefore they respond perfectly to smoking. 

 Such is not the case, however, when a colony 

 is searched through several times, heavily 

 smoked, sifted, etc., as often occurs when 

 looking for black queens, timid queens, small 

 or imperfect ones, or with cross or nervous 

 bees. It is impossible to get bees into the 

 right condition for receiving the queen im- 

 mediately after such an overhauling. To be 

 sure, one can sometimes drop in a queen or 

 place her on the combs while the hive is 

 open, and the bees still in a turmoil imme- 

 diately aftei' removing the old queen, if the 

 new queen is fresh from a neighboring hive. 

 The safer Avay is to close such colonies and 

 let them remain undisturbed until thorough- 

 ly quieted, usually about twelve hours, and 

 then follow the prescribed plan. 



Anothei- factor of colony condition is 

 food su])iily. I have found that some per- 

 sons have tried to run in queens to colonies 

 destitute of stores — robbed out. It can be 



511 



done, but is dillicuU. Give to such a comb 

 of honey or a good feed of syrup, and re- 

 duce the entrance so the bees can protect 

 themselves. 



The j^resence of queen-cells is no hin- 

 drance except under the following condi- 

 tions: When cells are about ready to hatch, 

 perhaps the young queen already calling, a 

 good honey-fiow and hot, humid weather, 

 then the advent of a queen, particularly if 

 light in eggs, as after a trip in the mails, 

 sometimes precipitates a swarm. That is 

 exceptional, however, the cells usually being 

 destroyed. A virgin escaping from a cell 

 at about the time the queen is introduced 

 may supersede the new queen, though that 

 is rare. But it is not good policy to keep a 

 colony queenless long enough for such con- 

 ditions to arise. 



A siiKitvev in tlic iii-opei' condition, givino' a good vol- 

 ume of thick, cool, smoke. 



Laying workers are no bother at all when 

 running in queens by the smoke plan, but 

 as a rule a colony infested with laying 

 workers is not worth giving a queen to. It 

 is far better to set such on top of some other 

 colony, giving the bees and queen of the 

 latter the run of both stories for a week, 

 and then separate the two parts, giving a 

 queen to the part without one. 



Introducing- to nuclei in full-sized hives 

 has not been entirely successful unless the 

 bees were confined to that part of the hive 

 where the combs were, so the queen on 

 entering had to stay among them, and nei- 

 ther they nor she could wander off into the 

 vacant space. I have not had any such 



