190 riFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



need to look further. No such slipshod work wiU answer here. 

 Evei-y comb in the hive must be carefully examined. It may 

 be that not a cell is found in the hive except upon the very last 

 comb lifted out. Neither will it do to examine a comb with all 

 its bees upon it. The bees must be shaken off, so that the cells 

 can be plainly seen. If at the previous overhauling eggs or 

 cells were killed, or if for any reason it is suspected that the 

 colony is in danger of swarming, then the queen is found, and 

 the comb upon which she is found is put into an empty hive 

 standing near before the bees are shaken off the combs. If any 

 combs were shaken first, it would make it difficult to find the 

 queen. 



DEQnEENING TREATMENT. 



Latterly ho one plan of treatment is followed exclusively. 

 It may be the "put-up" or the excluder plan, or it may be 

 dequeening for about 10 days. The dequeening treatment is 

 the one most generally used. The queen is removed, the queen- 

 ceUs are killed, and in 10 days the queen-cells are again de- 

 stroyed and their own queen returned, or another queen given. 

 Sometimes a queenlessness of a week seems to do as well. At 

 any, rate, a queen in a provisioned cage may be given in a 

 week, for it will be a little time before she is out ready to lay. 

 Possibly, instead of waiting ten days and giving a laying 

 queen,. a ripe queen-cell or a newly born virgin is given at the 

 time of removing the old queen. This has the advantage that 

 if there is any thing like European foul brood in the case, it 

 may be considered somewhat in the light of a cure. It has 

 the disadvantage that my assistant is quite strongly opposed to 

 the idea of having a virgin in a honey-hive, lest she should take 

 it into her head to get the colony to swarm out, a thing that 

 may happen once in a great while in reality, and in the imagi- 

 nation of my assistant quite frequently. 



REPLACING WITH BETTER QUEEN. 



On the whole, perhaps the most common thing is to re- 

 place the removed queen with a young laying queen taken from 

 a nucleus. This will generally result in replacing the old queen 

 with one of better stock, for the young queen will be, reared 



