328 A Modern Bee-Farm 
virgin much harder, so that the latter may not be out 
until about the third day, I have practised this plan with 
distant apiaries, leaving a virgin where I removed a fertile 
queen, and at the next visit the then virgin would be a 
laying queen. 
In Catching Queens 
I present a novel method of securing them without 
pressure and with no need of touching them by the hand 
of the operator. My tubular cage is placed lightly over 
the queen as she is found upon the comb, and in a few 
seconds at latest she is running up the tube, which is 
lifted and at once stopped with the finger. 
The illustration of the hand shows how I frequently 
carry queens round to the hives; for whether the cages 
have to be left or not, I find this a very convenient way, 
and after getting rid of one I often lift a frame from the 
hive with the four fingers still holding the cages. Of 
course a whole handful of these cages may be carried 
round with queens, if the ends are stopped with the cell 
pegs, with foundation, cork, a leaf,* or paper ; or they may 
just as well be in the pockets of the operator. We now 
come to the 
Flat Circular Cages 
illustrated upon the same comb. The reader of my former 
editions will know how severely I have condemned the 
practice of 
Holding Virgin Queens in Candy-stored Nurseries. 
It is a plan which I have never followed, being convinced, 
as Cheshire has also assured us, that the virgin queen 
* If the opening of the tubular cage is stopped lightly with a 
small portion of a dandelion leaf, the cage may be inserted and left 
‘where the Author’s fasting plan is first followed; the leaf soon 
withers. 
