66 FORTY YEARS AMONC THE BEES. 



BEE-STRAINER. 



A Strainer may be used for straining the bees throug^ii 

 and leaving the queen. A queen-excluder is fastened 

 to the bottom of an empty hive-body, and that makes 

 the strainer. Tlie strainer is set over a hive-body in 

 which there is a frame of brood but no bees — at least it 

 must be certain 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 cover when it is lifted off the hive, so it is well to 

 glance over the under surface of the cover as it is re- 

 moved from the hive. Once in a great while I have 

 known the queen after no little searching to be on the 

 shoulder or some other part of the operator. How she 

 managed to get there I don't know. 



CATCHINC, 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 a^ong out of 

 reach. So I make a reach more as if attempting to catch her 

 by the head, and the movements she makes is likely to 

 bring my thumb and finger down on each side of her 

 thorax, and in that 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 

 indeed there is not so very much danger if the hold is 



