FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 61 



quietr.et^s of the bees on that one pair is suffieier.t warrant for 

 seeking the queen there. 



If the bees get to running, it is hardly worth while to 

 continue the seai'ch for the queen until they have quieted down. 

 Sometimes she will be on the side or the bottom of the hive, and 

 will be found only by lifting out all the combs. 



BEE-STRAINER. 



A strainer may be used for straining the bees through and 

 leaving the queen. A queen-excluder is fastened to the bottom 

 of an empty hi\e-body, and that makes the strainer. The 

 strainer is set over a hive-body in which there is a frame of 

 brood but no bees — at lea.«t it must be opvtain that the queen 

 cannot possibly be in the hive-body under the strainer. Then 

 all the bees are shaken and brushed from the combs into the 

 strainer. The workers will go down through the excluder, being 

 hurried by a little smoke if necessary, while the queen will be 

 left in the strainer. 



On the whole the queen is generally found so easily by the 

 ordinary looking over the combs that it is seldom that any other 

 plan is resorted to. 



It happens once in a great while that the queen is on the 

 (■(i\er when it is lifted off the hive, so it is well to glance over 

 the under surface of the cover as it is removed from the hive. 

 Once in a great while I have known the queen after no little 

 searching to he on the shoulder or some other part of the 

 operator. How she managed to get there I don't know. 



CATCHING THE QUEEN. 



When the queen is found, she must be caught before she is 

 clipped. I want to catch her by the thorax or just back of the 

 thorax, and if she is in motion, by the time I reach for the 

 thorax it will have passed along out of reach. So I make a 

 reach more as if attempting to catch her by the head, and the 

 movement she makes is likely to bring my thumb and finger 

 down on each side of her thorax, and in thai position she is held 

 firmly on the comb (Fig. 21). There is no danger of hurting 

 the queen by giving a pretty hard squeeze on the thorax, and 



