118 INCREASE 



likely to become popular because of the fact that most bee-keepers 

 will hesitate to subject a queen to such treatment. 



Flour Method. — Dropping the queens into flour has also 

 been tried with success in some cases. A combination of the 

 flour and smoke methods is also practised successfully at times. 

 By this plan a colony is smoked in the manner described pre- 

 viously, and just before running the queen into the hive she is 

 dropped into a dish of flour. N^one of these methods seiems to 

 give the satisfaction under all conditions that the cage method 

 does. 



Sure Plan for Valuable Queens. — When one buys a queen 

 of more than ordinary value and is willing to go to some extra 

 trouble to insure her safety, there is an old plan of taking from 

 strong colonies two or more combs of sealed brood and shaking 

 off every live bee. There must be no unsealed brood or it will 

 die from lack of nursing. These frames of sealed brood are 

 placed in a hive body without a bottom board and this body is 

 placed over another colony with ordinary wire screening placed 

 over the top to prevent the bees from making trouble, while at 

 ► the same time furnishing plenty of heat to the brood above the 

 wire cloth. The queen is placed on top of one of the frames, 

 or her cage is opened and she is permitted to run between the 

 frames and the cover placed on the hive. The young bees as they 

 emerge will be confined to the upper hive body with the new 

 queen and she will shortly be surrounded with a nice little cluster. 

 If desired, after about five days the queen, having been removed 

 from the colony below, the wire cloth may be removed and two 

 or three days later after the colony has become accustomed to the 

 new queen the bees can all be shaken from the upper combs and 

 the upper hive body removed. If desired to make a new colony, 

 the upper hive body can be removed to a new stand and addi- 

 tional frames of brood given to strengthen them. 



This is about the only plan that is regarded as entirely sure 

 under all conditions. In this case there are no old bees in the 



