66 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 



will not pull it loose. A lazy way of introducing queens is to have 

 a cork in the end of the food apartment and removing this merely 

 insert the traveling cage in the colony and allow the bees to eat 

 their way through, liberating the queen about the time they are 

 ready to accept her. 



It goes without saying that the colony should be made queen- 

 less before introducing a strange queen, preferably twenty-four 

 hours before. The queen usually may be released toward night of 

 the second or third day. All cells should be removed at this time 

 and it is not a bad plan to feed the bees a little when about to re- 

 lease a queen. 



These points, of course, apply in introducing queens at any 

 time. It may be desirable to hold fertilized queens for a week or 

 two and the pipe covered cage is adapted to this use as well. A 

 dozen to twenty queens may thus be kept ready for use in a top 

 story above a queen excluder preferably or in a queenless hive. 



METHODS OF CONTROLL.NG INCREASE 



We find firmly fixed in the bee that universal desire for the ex- 

 tention and preparation of its kind. It is shown in the persistent 

 inclination of the bees to swarm at certain seasons of the year when 

 the honey flow is on and the over-populus colony is beginning to 

 feel its cramped condition in the hot spring and summer months 

 The month of June is our swarming time and unless strict meas- 

 ures are taken to prevent its continuance, the month of July is added. 

 In the Bitter Root Valley where spring opens up nearly two weeks 

 earlier on account of being on the Pacific Slope, swarming may 

 come earlier, in the last days of May. 



The old way was to let the bees swarm and when found hang- 

 ing on a tree, shake them into a box or empty hive, set them up and 

 let them build their new home. Wire cloth boxes or swarm catch- 

 ars with lids were devised for use in the tops of trees into which the 

 bees were shaken and the cover closed and the whole let down 

 with a rope when the bees were quietly clustering. The main thing 

 in these operations was to secure the queen and then the bees 

 would stay. 



Plenty of ventilation must be given the newly hived swarm, 

 especially if the weather is at all excessively warm. Care should 

 be taken that the hive before putting the bees in, has not been 

 standing in the sun and so become heated, and ventilation may be 



