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STATE bee-keepers' ASSOCIATION. 109 



books and journals; you shouldn't have done anything of the 

 kind. The way to introduce a queen is not to kill the old 

 queen to start with. The way to do is to leave the old 

 queen in the hive; don't interfere with her at all. When 

 you get your cage with the new queen, uncover the wire so 

 that the bees in the cage can get at the bees inside of it, 

 and get at the queen if tiiey want to. Leave it there at least 

 48 hours, then catch the old queen and kill it, and uncover 

 the candy and cover up your hive as quick as you can. Just 

 as soon as you find the queen and kill it don't spend another 

 moment's time but get the frames back in as quickly as pos- 

 sible; uncover the candy, cover up the hive and go about 

 your business, and pay no attention to them for two or three 

 days; and when you go back you will find the queen laying 

 every time, and never have one balled. If you kill the old 

 queen according to the instructions in all the books, in nine 

 cases out of ten you will have trouble and have them balled. 



Dr. Miller — I have had queens balled a good many times 

 when there was but one queen in the hive and none other 

 had ever been in; they balled their own queen. 



Mr. Dadant — There are many cases in which we have 

 balled queens. I have seen hundreds of instances. I have 

 had two swarms come out and each of the two queens balled 

 because some of the bees of the other swarm were with that 

 queen. I have had queens that I was about to introduce, 

 balled before I had any time to do anything with them. I 

 have seen young queens balled in the hive. Those things are 

 accidents that happen in the bee-business, and the best of us 

 cannot avoid them. 



Mr. Root — -I would like to agree with both gentlemen, 

 but I think Mr. Dadant is exactly right. I also agree with 

 Mr. Abbott on his method of introducing queens. We have 

 been trying that all the past summer and the plan is all right. 

 Leave the old queen in the hive until you are ready to 

 release the new queen. We have been doing it with our 

 virgin and laying queens and it works better than it worked 

 the other way. But the "A B C of Bee Culture" has been 

 changed, Mr. Abbott, and our directions are changed to cover 

 that. We introduce our virgins; we have three or four in a 

 hive at a time, and we also have a laying queen. As those 

 virgin queens begin to lay we take out the laying queen and 

 leave the other in the hive, and when the other begins to lay 

 we take her out. I think there is one point that has been 

 dropped, and that is this question of scent of the bees. At 

 the University of Pennsylvania I spent some three months 

 a year ago last summer, and after working a long time at 

 this problem the intention was to consider some problem of 

 introducing. I remember Mr. Abbott had been trying to 

 pound that thing into us, and we didn't believe it — 



Mr. Abbott — For twenty years. [Laughter.] 



Mr. Root — And Dr. Phillips takes the ground — and he 

 has been studying this question very carefully — ^that this 

 question of introduction depends almost entirely on the scent 

 of the bees. If the bees are balled, and you handle that ball 



