90 REARING AND INTRODUCING QUEENS. 
hives, such as will hardly miss a pint or quart from their 
numbers, great care being exercised not to remove the 
queen. The best time to get the bees is in the middle 
of the day. Go to astock and first find the queen. Set 
the comb she ison to one side. Put your light box (pre- 
pared as before described with a hole in the top) ona 
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 hees ready to put in the 
miniature hive, as before directed. 
I think I have given such instruction as will enable 
any one, after a little practice, to rear queens success- 
fully.* I will follow it with such information 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 of bees, until she has 
begun to lay. A young queen, not fecundated, will be 
destroyed in nine cases out of ten, in spite of every pre- 
*By taking brood for rearing queens only from such stocks as exhibit the 
greatest industry, mildness of disposition, vigor in withstanding the cold 
etc., 1 find I am able to greatly improve the desirable qualities of my bees 
from year toyear. Thissystematic course of treatment has produced swarms 
possessing very valuable characteristics. It is surprising to note the differ- 
ence 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 <lifference is almost as marked as hetween the savage in native wilds 
and the most intelligent and highly educated member of society. 
