92 REARING AND INTRODUCING QUEENS. 
into the corners of the hive, lift out the combs, and 
look sharply for queen cells, (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 a 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 sun- 
set 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 vet her from the miniature hive, where 
she was reared, to the tumbler, take it to a close room, 
before a window, so if she takes wing, she may alight 
there.) Go to the hive into which she is to be intro- 
duced, and remove the cap, avoiding any jar that may 
irritate 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. 
