Fertile Workers Replaced. 245 



hand, by use of a small, delicate pair of scissors, cut off 

 about one-half of one of the front or primary wings. This 

 method prevents any movement of legs or wings, and is 

 easy and quick. 



Some bee-keepers — inexperienced they must be— com- 

 plain that queens thus handled often receive a foreign scent, 

 and are destroyed by the worker-bees. I have clipped 

 hundreds and never lost one. 



FERTILE WORKERS. 



We have already described fertile workers. As these 

 can only produce unimpregnated eggs, they are, of course, 

 valueless, and unless superseded by a queen will soon cause 

 the destruction of the colony. As their presence often pre- 

 vents the acceptance of cells or a queen, by the common 

 ■workers, they are a serious pest. 



The absence of worker brood, and the abundant and 

 careless deposition of eggs — some cells being skipped, while 

 others have received several eggs — are pretty sure indica- 

 tions of their presence. The condition that favors these 

 pests, is continued absence of a queen or means to produce 

 one. They seem more common with the Cyprian and 

 Syrian bees. 



To "rid a colony of these, unite it with some colony with 

 a good queen, after which the colonj"- may be divided if 

 very strong. Simply exchanging places of a colony with 

 a fertile worker, and a good strong colony, will often cause 

 the destruction of the wrong-doer. In this case, brood 

 should be given to the colony which had the fertile worker, 

 that they may rear a queen ; or better, a queen-cell or queen 

 should be given them. Caging a queen in a hive, with a 

 fertile worker, for thirty-six hours, will almost always cause 

 the bees to accept her. Shaking the bees off the frames 

 two rods from the hive, will often rid them of the counter- 

 feit queen, after which they will receive a queen-cell or a 

 queen. But prevention is best of all. We should never 

 have a colony or nucleus without either a queen or means 

 to rear one. It is well to keep young brood in our nuclei 

 at all times. Queens reared from brood four days from 

 the egg are usually drone layers. 



