ADVANTAGES OF THE FRAME HIVE. 



43 



termed, — clinging round her, making her the centre of 

 a ball of bees, and so suffocating or squeezing her to 

 death. 



Consequently when the bee-keeper wishes to give 

 a new queen to a hive, he first removes the old one, 

 and gives the bees a little time to mourn her loss. 

 Then, when they are beginning to prepare to make a 

 fresh one for themselves, he puts his new queen into 

 a little wire cage, like one of these here illustrated, 



Queen Cages. 



and then puts cage and queen carefully into the hive. 

 The bees at first may wish to destroy her, but are 

 prevented by the wire covering of the cage. After 

 a while they get used to her, talking to her through 

 the wires, and are ready to adopt her as their own 

 queen. As soon as this is the case, the bee-keeper 

 lets her out, and she is welcomed, and the hive 

 once again prospers with a young and active queen 

 and mother at its head. But one of the greatest 

 advantages of the frame-hive is that the frames, 

 when the combs are full of honey, can be taken out, 

 and by means of a machine called an Extractor, 



