Texas Beekeeping. 109 



and abiltiy to rear good queens is enabled to make just that much 

 more profit in beekeeping. By always breeding from the best 

 stock, the crop of honey may be increased to such an extent that it 

 will pay many times over the extra cost of rearing queens, and one 

 is not required to order good stock from various queen rearers who 

 may not send out any better stock than those reared at home. How- 

 ever, this can be prevented by a little investigation as to the relia- 

 bility of the queen rearer from whom it is contemplated to order 

 queens, with the result that nothing but extra good stock 

 will be secured. Queen rearers of established reputation can be found 

 who are prepared to produce large numbers of superior queens at a 

 much lower price than the beekeeper, who has all he can do to attend 

 to his bees in the production of honey ; and if queens are purchased 

 in large numbers, they can be obtained at a very low price. 



If the beekeeper is favorably situated to do so, rearing his own 

 queens is a point in his favor, provided he has the time to devote to 

 it. In many instances, however, the location is not such as to permit 

 the rearing of good queens, without interfering with the honey crop, 

 while the location may be unsurpassed for producing extensive crops 

 of honey. 



Every beekeeper should, however, acquaint himself with the rearing 

 of queens, so as to be prepared in case of an emergency. Wherever 

 it is possible to do so without loss, queens should be reared at home. 

 If this is not the fact, it would be best to purchase them. Queens may 

 be obtained at almost any time of the year from a large number of 

 •queen rearers whose advertisements appear in bee journals. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



Colonies of common bees, bought in either frame hives or in boxes 

 and then transferred into frame hives, can be improved by introducing 

 a queen of a good strain of Italian or other pure race of bees by sim- 

 ply hunting out and destroying the common queen and giving the new 

 queen to the colony. The colony having an inferior or aged queen 

 may be improved by introducing a new queen after removing the old 

 one, and any colony that has become queenless by the loss of its queen 

 may be made "queen right" in the same way. 



It must be remembered, though, that if the queen of a colony is 

 removed and a strange queen put in her place, the bees will promptly 

 seize the intruder and sting her to death or "ball" her until she is 

 dead. In balling, they crowd into a large cluster and squeeze to- 

 gether with such force that the death of the queen follows. Instead 

 of liberating the queen into the hive, she should be placed in a small 

 cage provided with screen wire cloth on one side and having a 

 passage-way in one end filled with "queen cage candy." The bees 

 will remove this candy, which takes from three to four days. By the 

 time the passage is cleared, the queen has not only acquired the 

 same scent as that of the colony, but the bees of the colony realize 

 their queenless condition, and she is permitted to march out of the 

 cage unmolested and takes up her egg-laying duties almost immediate- 

 ly. There are various styles of queen-introducing cages, but they 

 all work on the same principle. The mailing cages, in which the 



