AUSTRALASIAN BEE MANUAL 107 



bent inward, would prevent the clipped queen from 

 falling to the ground, and so enable her to return to 

 her hive. 



In every case when a queen is purchased the wing 

 should be clipped to prevent subsequent misunderstand- 

 ing. It sometimes happens that a short time after a 

 queen has been accepted the bees for some reason will 

 supersede her, raising another queen from her eggs, 

 the young one not being distinguishable from her 

 mother. If the new queen should get cross-mated her 

 bees will be hybrids, and the bee-keeper, not knowing 

 the queen he introduced has been superseded, naturally 

 accuses the bee-breeder of fraud in sending him a cross- 

 mated instead of a pure queen. Now, by clipping the 

 wing it can be seen at once if the original still reigns. 



SUPERSEDING QUEENS. 



The supersedure of queens after they are past their 

 prime or in some other way have become defective, ma}' 

 be done by the bees, by installing another and younger 

 one in her place. It is now the practice however, among 

 the majority of experienced commercial bee-keepers, 

 to carry out a system of superseding them- 

 selves, and not trust to the bees to do it, as 

 they believe in the latter case that queens are 

 frequently kept till long after they have passed their 

 profitable age. The consensus of opinion is in favour 

 of supersedure at or near the close of a queen's second 

 season, and I feel certain that (with few exceptions), 

 owing to the genial winter temperature of Australasia, 

 and the prolonged breeding season, queens are at their 

 best in this part of the world in their second season, and 

 rapidly deteriorate after. I therefore recommend the 

 replacing of queens not later than Feburary of the 

 second season, excepting, of course, in very special 

 cases, where a queen may have exceptionally good 

 qualities, as reflected by her bees. 



SWARMING CELLS. 



Some bee-keepers object to making use of spare queen 

 cells from a colony that has just swarmed, on the 



