THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



91 



averse to imprisoning bees in a little cage 

 during a honey flow ; have no faith in the 

 inversion of combs ; and think it best when 

 it is necessary to transport laying queens to 

 a distance in the working season, to do it in 

 full colonies or nuclei. 

 GuELPH. Ontario. March, ID, 1891. 



Introduction of Queens, Viewed in the 

 Economics of the Hive. 



F. H. AND E. H. DEWEY. 



fHE word economy primarily and lit- 

 erally means housekeeping, and in 

 that sense we may do well to examine 

 how the economy of the hive is related to 

 the absence of its familiar directress, and 

 amidst a jostling of furniture, the sudden 

 appearance of a new and perhaps alien mis- 

 tress. There is the same touch in a bee hive 

 as runs through the kinship of the world. 

 Why does a stranger attract about him a 

 staring crowd as he alights at the depot in 

 an idle town. The same number of persons 

 in a manufacturing place pass him to their 

 shops without a thought or a glance. In the 

 curious community the good people had no 

 absorbing occupation on their hands. Sup- 

 pose this stranger to be an object of suspicion 

 as in times gone by an Easterner was in a 

 raw town of the West, his stiff hat might be 

 saluted by a volley and his shining wardrobe 

 assimilated without leave or ado into the 

 prevailing styles of the region, because the 

 people there had no all-absorbing business. 

 In the bee hive we find less pilfering, less 

 vain ornament in burr-combs, generally 

 speaking a more forbearing temper and 

 quicker adaptability at the time of the honey 

 flow than in any other season. Passion and 

 energy are engaged and devoted. When we 

 disarrange the economy of the bee hive, 

 supplant not a chief servant, a head steward, 

 but the very mistress herself, unless the pas- 

 sion and energy of a race all energy and all 

 feeling be diverted from the savage, can we 

 expect anything else than an irascible con- 

 dition ? Some all-possessing influence must 

 prevent a fatality, whether it be stupefaction 

 by drugs, the despair of self-preservation 

 which makes a promising queen, though a 

 stranger, acceptable, or some other state of 

 self-complacency or indifference. 



A queen's "expectations of life" may be 

 improved if a colony is fed a day or so 

 before dequeening and on until the new 

 queen is accepted and Installed, unless nectar 



comes with a strong flow from the fields. 

 Care must be taken against robbing. Let 

 none suppose that the practical affairs of 

 the hive ever can become so absorbing by 

 the storage of sweets, that a queen may be 

 removed or a new crowned head come in 

 unremarked or unsaluted. There never was 

 a business in the hive or out so entrancing 

 that a common calamity did not shock each 

 individual and move the whole body politic; 

 but the new conditions are more charitably 

 viewed and new elements more cordially ac- 

 cepted when we are occupied in other ways 

 with golden blessings. Life is full of com- 

 pensations, and we should not tolerate even 

 in a hive utter despair or utter malignity. 

 We may then conclude tliat a happy diver- 

 sion by generous feeding, though not an 

 infalliljle course of successful introduction, 

 yet may still be the agreeable handmaid of 

 other means. 



Whatever the method of introduction 

 facilitated by feeding, the most annoying 

 and time-devouring part, the preliminary 

 capture of the old queen, will be yet as diffi- 

 cult as ever. Perhaps the following proced- 

 ure may be deemed worthy of trial. The 

 first move is always to close the adjacent 

 hives by zinc. Slide a zinc strip before the 

 entrance inside the operated hive after all 

 the combs have been removed from the 

 same and hung near by in some receptacle. 

 The bees are all brushed to one side of the 

 hive and a space sufficient for two combs 

 encloses them there by means of a zinc par- 

 tition. There two combs are placed, which 

 might well be of unsealed laryje. Two or 

 three combs of the fewest bees should then 

 be brushed off into the compartment, hung 

 beside the zinc in the main part and covered 

 with enameled cloth supported now by these 

 combs. The remaining bees may be brushed 

 with a little smoking upon the cloth and 

 into the smaller compartment, the combs to 

 be hung with the others under the cloth. 

 The old queen can be caught there at leisure 

 and found without much trouble as if in a 

 two frame nucleus. In a day or two the bees 

 beyond the zinc will be anxious for a queen 

 to replace the hatching brood and a new 

 mother may be introduced as seems best, a 

 regulated self-releasing cage adaptable to 

 the period desired, is quite generally satis- 

 factory. Each veteran has his own way, 

 rapid and easy, particularly if he owns 

 Italian queens ; others, who must spend an 

 hour or more peering about for a small 



