REARING AND INTRODUCING QUEENS. 99 



(success depends on thorough work here.) With a 

 sharp knife cut out and destroy every such cell that 

 is finished or commenced. Don't leave any part of 

 a queen cell in the hive, for the bees will not accept 

 a strange queen if they have the means of raising 

 one of their own. Having destroyed every queen 

 cell, finished or unfinished, return the combs to the 

 hive ; but before putting the honey board over the 

 brood section, cut a hole in it a little smaller than 

 the top of a tumbler. Cover this hole with a light 

 piece of board, simply laid on, (not nailed, for you 

 will need to remove it without jar.) Then put the 

 honey board in its place over the brood section. 



Let the hive remain until near sunset, for the bees 

 to get quiet, and to learn that they are without a 

 queen and without the means of rearing another. 

 Just before sunset, take the queen you propose to 

 introduce, and with her a score or more of workers, 

 and put them in a tumbler with a piece of wire 

 cloth over the top to keep them in. (To get her 

 from the miniature hive, where she was reared, to 

 the tumbler, take it to a close room, before a win- 

 dow, so if she takes wing she may alight there.) 

 Go to the hive into which she is to be introduced, 

 and remove the cap, avoiding any jar that may irri- 

 tate the bees. Take off the board over the hole in 

 the honey board, and turn the tumbler containing 

 the queen bottom up over it, keeping the wire cloth 

 between the queen in the tumbler and the bees in 

 the hive. Replace the cap to the hive, and let the 

 queen and her attendant bees remain in the tumbler, 

 in communication with the bees in the hive through 



