Ai3VAKCEt) BEE-CUl.TtJRfi. 



honey is coming in freely, when a colony 

 with a laying queen would accept another 

 freSh laying queen, simply by having her 

 placed upon the combs; and all would go 

 well until the queens came in contact. 

 Then would be a conflict in which the 

 chances of the new comer would be equal- 

 ly as good as those of the old queen. I 

 have sometimes doubted if bees recogniz- 

 ed each other, or the queen, by the scent. 

 I have clipped a queen's wing, and, upon 

 returning her (placing her directly upon 

 the combs), she was attacked by her own 

 bees. Perhaps she acquired a different 

 scent by being handled. If so, then the 

 hundreds of other queens that I have 

 clipped must also have acquired a differ- 

 ent scent, yet they were not attacked. 



So far as the queen is concerned, it is 

 important that she be brought before the 

 bees in a natural manner, in such a place 

 and in such a way as they would expect 

 to meet her. When clipping queens I 

 have replaced them by dropping them 

 upon the top bars, or at the entrance of 

 the hive, when the bees would immediate- 

 ly pounce upon them as intruders. A 

 puff of smoke would cause the bees to 

 " let up, " when the queen would walk 

 majestically down upon the combs, or in- 

 to the hive, as the case might be, and 

 here she would not be molested, because 

 the bees here found her where they ex- 

 pected to find their queen. When I wish 

 to introduce a queen by allowing her to 

 run in at the entrance, I first shake off 

 the bees, from two combs, in front of the 

 hive; as they are running into the hive, 

 I allow the queen to run in with them. 

 At such times as this there are no guards 

 at the entrance, the bees that are crawl- 

 ing in will not attack the queen, and by 

 the time the colony has recovered its 

 tranquility, the queen is quietly parading 

 the combs. 



When a colony has been queenless long 

 enough to build a batch of queen cells, I 

 usually introduce a queen by simply tak- 

 ing a comb, with the adhering bees and 

 queen, from a nucleus and hanging it in 

 the queenless colony. By means of 

 smoke, or a feather, I drive all the bees 



from the inside wall of one side of the hive, 

 and against this side of the hive I turn 

 the side of the comb upon which is the 

 queen. Thus she is not immediately 

 brought in contact with the excited, 

 strange bees; but the bees intermingle, 

 and, almost unconsciously, the whole 

 colony has accepted the queen. If any 

 of the queenless bees stray near the queen, 

 they find her surrounded by a cortege of 

 her own bees. She is also attending to 

 her duties, and is almost certain not to 

 be molested. When queeus come from a 

 distance they are more difficult to intro- 

 duce. They have not layed any eggs in 

 several days, and are in a jaded condition. 

 It is for this reason that it has always 

 seemed to me that the Peet cage ought 

 to be an unusually good cage with which 

 to introduce queens. This cage can be 

 attached to the surface of the comb, when 

 the withdrawal of a tin slide allows the 

 queen access to the surface of the comb 

 that is covered by the cage. Care should 

 be taken to select a spot where the young 

 bees are just gnawing out. If a few cells 

 of unsealed honey can be included, so 

 much the better. Tne queen can then 

 walk about upon the comb, and with the 

 Scotchman she can sing: 



" My foot is on my native heath." 

 She can drink nectar from the unsealed 

 cells. She will soon have a retinue from 

 the newly hatched bees that are ready to 

 accept her, as they have never known 

 any other queen. She will begin laying 

 in the few cells at her command, and 

 when she is released, will be in a nearly 

 normal condition, and surrounded by a 

 few followers. Usually the bees release 

 the queen by eating under the cage. If 

 they do not, she can be released by thrust- 

 ing the blade of a pocket knife through 

 the comb from the side opposite to the 

 cage, and giving the knife a twist or two. 

 The bees will clean out and enlarge the 

 opening, thus letting out the queen. One 

 objection to the Peet cage is that the bees 

 may release the queen sooner than is best. 

 Of course this may be remedied by leav- 

 ing in the tin slide, but this defeats the 

 advantages, or supposed advantages, aris- 



