REARING AND INTRODUCING qUEENS. 97 



best time to get the bees is in tlie middle of the day. 

 Go to a stock and first find the queen. Set the 

 comb she is on to one side. Put your light box 

 (prepared as before described with a hole in the 

 top) on a sheet near by, with one edge raised an 

 inch. Take one or more combs from the hive 

 (being careful not to get the one with the queen,) 

 and shake the bees from them, down beside the box, 

 which they will readily enter. When you have 

 bees enough in the box, close it so none can escape. 

 You now have the bees ready to put in the minia- 

 ture hive, as before directed. 



I think I have given such instruction as will en- 

 able any one, after a little practice, to rear queens 

 successfully.* I will follow it with such informa- 

 tion as will insure success in introducing queens 

 into full stocks of bees. 



Here let me caution bee keepers never to attempt 

 to introduce a queen into a full stock ot bees, until 

 she has begun to lay. A young queen, not fecund- 

 ated, will be destroyed in nine cases out of ten, in 

 spite of every precaution. Before introducing a 

 queen, the old queen in the stock, if any exists, 



*By taking brood for rearing queens only from such stocks as exhibit 

 the greatest industry, mildness of disposition, vigor in withstanding the 

 cold, etc., I find 1 am able to greatly improve the desirable qualities of 

 my bees from year to year. This systematic course of treatment has 

 produced swarms possessing very valuable characteristics. It is sur- 

 prising to note the difference in profits and ease of management, between 

 bees that have always been left to take their own course, and such as 

 have had their most desirable traits cultivated and improved to the 

 greatest possible extent for a term of years. The difference is almost as 

 marked as between the savage in his native wilds, and the most intelli- 

 gent and highly educated member of society. 



