DIRECT INTRODUCTION 



97 



able to the beekeeper with a lighted smoker. He describes his 

 plan as follows: 



"A colony to receive a queen has the entrance reduced to about 

 a square inch with whatever is convenient, as grass, weeds, rags or wood, 

 and then about three puffs of thick white smoke because such smoke 

 is safe is blown in and the entrance closed. It should be explained 

 that there is a seven-eighths inch space below the frames, so that the 

 smoke which is blown in at the entrance, readily spreads and penetrates 

 to all parts of the hive. In from fifteen to twenty seconds the colony 

 will be roaring. The small space at the entrance is now opened; the 

 queen is run in, followed by a gentle puff of smoke, and the entrance 

 again closed and left closed for about ten minutes, when it is reopened, 

 and the bees allowed to ventilate and quiet down. The full entrance 

 is not given for an hour or more, or even until the next day." 



Neither of the smoke methods above given, nor, for that 

 matter, most of the direct methods, are entirely reliable under 

 adverse conditions. The great advantage in the use of such 

 a method is the saving in time. Some queen breeders of the 

 author's acquaintance have used the smoke method extensively 

 for this reason, and with good success. Introducing a queen 

 which is taken from a hive or nucleus and given at once to anoth- 



Fig. 39. A queen-rearing apiary in Georgia. 



