SEPTEMBER 1, 1914 



INTRODUCING QUEENS BY THE WATER METHOD 



685 



Sprinkling the Quneen and the Bees on Combs wiah Warm Water 



BY T. DWIGHT WHITMAN 



A good deal has been said of late in your 

 magazine about the smoke method of intro- 

 ducing queens. For one who is satisfied to 

 work by guess in the dark it is all right ; but 

 for my part I want to see what I am doing, 

 and be able to take a,ny queen, either virgin 

 or mated, right from the mails and see her 

 on the frames surrounded with the bees be- 

 fore I close the hive. 



" But how are you going to do it? " you 

 say. I have done it often with not a failure 

 except once when, after closing up the hive, 

 I did not leave it alone for at least three 

 days; and when I opened it to see if the 

 queen was laying she was frightened, and 

 ran and squealed, and the bees promptly 

 balled her. 



"Well, but how?" All right. We will 

 suppose that I am going to introduce a 

 queen that I have just received through the 

 mails. If I wish to save the queen in the 

 hive in which I intend to introduce the new 

 queen I provide two Miller cages, one for 

 each queen. I have my hive-tool, a lighted 

 smoker, and a dish of warm water and a 

 plant-sprayer; or, in place of that, a whisk 

 broom or bunch of weeds or simply my 

 hand. 



Taking the mailing-cage into the house I 

 open it by a window, cage the new queen in 

 one of the Miller cages (which must be 

 without any feed in it), and put her in my 

 pocket so that she will not get chilled. I go 

 to the hive in which I am going to introduce 

 her, and proceed leisurely to find the old 

 queen. When I find her I put her in the 

 other Miller cage with some attendants, and 

 feed if I am going to keep her in it ; other- 

 wise without feed if I am going to introduce 

 her in another hive, or simply lay her on 

 top of the frames in her own or another 

 liive without feed or attendants, and let the 

 bees take care of her until I want her. 



The old queen being out of the hive it is 

 now ready for the new one which has been 

 in my pocket for from twenty to thirty 

 minutes, and is beginning to get hungry. I 

 pick out a frame of brood that has some 

 open cells of honey near the top of the 

 frame, and arrange to place it in the center 

 of the hive. If the hive is a strong one with 

 lots of bees I start at the outside frame and 

 sprinkle it with the warm (not hot) water 

 on both sides, and do this with all of the 

 frames, reserving the frame T hnve selected 

 to go in the center of the hive, and on which 



I propose to place the new queen until the 

 last. Then, wetting that, I take the queen 

 in the Miller cage out of my pocket and dip 

 the queen, cage and all, under the water a 

 couple of times so as to wet the queen's 

 wings so that she cannot fly. She is then in 

 the same condition as the other bees in the 

 hive. Then drawing the plug I hold the cage 

 up against the frame of brood so that the 

 open end is near some of the open cells of 

 honey. The queen soon climbs out on the 

 frame, and, being hungry, at once sticks her 

 liead in one of the open cells and goes to 

 feeding, a space having been cleared for her 

 with a puff of smoke. As the other bees 

 gradually close around her they are so busy 

 thinking about drying themselves that they 

 pay no attention to the new queen. I gently 

 lower this frame in place from its former 

 diagonal position in the hive, close the hive 

 after sprinkling a little more water where I 

 last saw the queen, and the job is done. 



I do not disturb the hive for at least three 

 days, or, better still, a week. I can tell from 

 the actions of the bees or by examining the 

 ground outside the hive that the probability 

 is that every thing is all right. 



Now, this plan has every advantage that 

 the smoke method has. The queen is intro- 

 duced without attendants, so there is no risk 

 of disease. There is no lost time, no appli- 

 ances to buy ; moreover, you can do it at any 

 time and see what you are doing. 



The amount of water to be used depends 

 on the streng-th of the hive. With a strong 

 hive where the bees are inclined to be cross 

 I give them a good deal, but usually not 

 more than a sprinkle on each frame is re- 

 quii'ed. 



As water will quiet the bees as well as if 

 not better than smoke in most eases, you can 

 in a pinch get along without using any 

 smoke at all, which is sometimes an advan- 

 tage in the case of replacing a black queen, 

 or when, after a search, you cannot find the 

 old queen by using a queen-excluder and an 

 extra body, and you have taken a couple of 

 frames of brood from the hive that you are 

 sure the old queen is not on, and placed 

 them in the extra body over the queen-ex- 

 cluder on top of the old hive and filled up 

 the rest of the extra body with spare frames, 

 you can introduce your new queen in the 

 same way and hunt up the old queen in the 

 lower body at your leisure. 



This method meets all the requirements. 



