THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



255 



honey from running when it is ready 

 for use. Pack it in soUd in the hole 

 leading to th^ wire-cloth cage so that 

 the bees must remove it slowly. I 

 find that about six inches in length 

 is about the right distance, so as to 

 t ike them three days for removal, while 

 the sized hole I used is five-eighths 

 of an inch in diameter. In all the 

 methods Mr. Cushman says he has 

 used, he does not tell whether the 

 queens to be introduced come from 

 a distant apiary or were from his own. 

 I find a queen coming from a dis- 

 tance harder to introduce than one 

 taken from a nucleus in my own 

 yard. I also find, as does Mr. C, 

 that a small colony will accept a 

 queen more readily than a large col- 

 ony. The queen spoken of in case 

 second might have been sound in 

 my opinion if the queen cells had 

 been destroyed every other day till 

 there was no larva from which they 

 could build cells. The queen which 

 was found dead in the cage might 

 have starved, as they frequently do 

 when alone in a cage having only 

 candy in it made of powdered sugar 

 and honey. Just what the trouble 

 was in all these cases I could not tell, 

 from the small amount of informa- 

 tion given. Losses of queens fre- 

 quently occur which are hard to be 

 accounted for especially when full 

 stocks of hybrid bees are the ones to 

 which we have to give queens. There 

 is only one absolutely safe way that 

 I know of to introduce a queen and 

 that is by the plan of caging bees, 

 I have given in the bee papers. All 

 the bees from a colony are shaken 

 into a wire cloth box minus the 

 queen, and kept in a shady place 

 with a cloth thrown over them for 

 four hours at which time they are 

 ready to accept of anything in the 

 hne of a queen, which is now given 

 to them through a hole in the box, 

 after which they are left until all are 

 quietly clustered, when they are put 

 in a hive on a new stand and given 

 one frame of hatching brood from 



their old hive, the rest of the hive 

 being filled with empty combs. In 

 a few days after the qneen gets to 

 laying, give a part or all of their brood 

 and honey back to them, still keep- 

 ing them on the new stand. This is 

 some trouble I know, but is much 

 better than to run any risk on a val- 

 uable queen coming to you unexpect- 

 edly from abroad. 



ANSWERS BY JAMES HEDDON. 



I never introduce any of the at- 

 tendant bees with the queen. My 

 plan is to firmly stop up the cage, 

 and leave it with the bees twenty-four 

 to forty- eight hours, according to the 

 honey-flow, and then examine, and 

 if peace and good nature seem to 

 prevail about the cage, I either dip 

 the queen in honey, and drop her 

 into the hive, or I place some comb- 

 capping over the mouth of the cage, 

 and let the bees release her a few 

 hours later. This is when the cag- 

 ing plan is used. 



I have successfully introduced 

 many queens in the way you men- 

 tion under heads ist and 2nd. I am 

 aware these are not infallible rules, 

 however. 



I think your '' scarcity of honey- 

 flow " accounts, in part at least, for 

 your failures. The most common 

 cause of loss in introducing, is the 

 practice of opening the colony a day 

 or so after introducing the queen 

 when although you find her well re- 

 ceived and laying, the disturbance of 

 opening the hive causes the bees to 

 re-suspect the queen and attack and 

 kill her after you close the hive. I 

 have treated this subject in my book 

 much more to my own satisfaction, 

 than space in this department will 

 admit of. 



ANSWERS BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



At the time the queen is removed, 

 the cage with the stranger queen and 

 attendant bees is placed on the tops 



