THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



109 



sugar syrup. Friend Root in 

 "Quinby's New Beekeeping" and 

 H. Alley in his " Hand}^ Book" 

 give exliaustive directions for feed- 

 ing. We prefer for this purpose 

 the glass-jar feeder, described in 

 the latter, as it is simple and 

 inexpensive. 



In our August No. we treated 

 the subject of wintering pretty 

 thoroughly, and need only to allude 

 to it here, unless it be to state 

 that, with the exception perhaps 

 of the spring months, the fall is the 

 most vexatious and trying time in 

 which to handle bees. After the 

 honey season closes and the 

 days and nights become cool, the 

 bees seem to make it their special 

 business to be cross and irritable, 

 often disposed to pry around their 

 neighbors' homes and the honey 

 room in quest of sweets. 



In going about the apiary at 

 work, be careful and gentle in all 

 your movements ; do not jar the 

 bees or handle them roughly ; 

 take time to do your work care- 

 fully. You will find that the honey 

 boards or cloth coverings are well 

 glued down now. Do not remove 

 them Avith a jerk, but»slowly and 

 gently, puffing smoke among the 

 bees to keep them down when you 

 are doing this. If, through care- 

 lessness, you allow a large num- 

 ber of bees to escape from the 

 hive without being filled with 

 honey, you will regret it, and they 

 will bother you as long as you 

 have the hive open. 



Again, as the queens cease la}^- 

 ing they become smaller and 

 hence more active, and as the bees 



are looking about for robbers 

 now, the queen sometimes be- 

 comes frightened and starts to 

 run, while the bees mistaking her 

 for a robber pounce upon her and 

 either sting or ball her. This is, 

 in man}' cases, the direct cause of 

 the loss of queens in introducing. 



We never have had any trouble 

 in introducing queens. We al- 

 ways remove the old queen (pro- 

 vided the colony has one) and 

 then brush the bees from one of 

 the combs, taking the comb into 

 the bee room near the window to 

 avoid the loss of the queen, and 

 caging the new queen in the side 

 of the comb in a wire cage 3x4Xf 

 inches. Cut a hole through the 

 comb, leaving the plug hanging 

 loosely in the hole, so that the 

 bees can see the queen through it. 



We have never lost a laying 

 queen when introducing in this 

 way. In fact, we experimented 

 once with some virgin queens and 

 have taken out an old queen in- 

 troducing a virgin queen over two 

 days old in this way immediately 

 after with success. We would not 

 advise others to adopt this plan 

 with virgin queens, but it would 

 be well to try it with one or two as 

 an experiment. 



We consider that the best time 

 to introduce a queen is when the 

 old one is removed, as the bees 

 soon discover iheir loss, and in 

 looking about for their old queen 

 discover the new one in the c^ge 

 and immediately begin to feed and 

 care for her. While they are do- 

 ing so, she becomes acquainted 

 with them ; and when the first bee 



