274 QUEEN REARING. 
Intropucine InprEGNATED QUEENS. 
533. Great caution is needed in giving to bees a stranger 
queen. Huber thus described the way in which a new queen 
is usually received by a colony: 
“Tf another queen is introduced into the hive within twelve 
hours after the removal of the reigning one, they surround, seize, 
and keep her a very long time captive, in an impenetrable clus- 
ter, and she commonly dies either from hunger or want of air. If 
eighteen hours elapse before the substitution of a stranger-queen, 
she is treated, at first, in the same way, but the bees leave her 
sooner, nor is the surrounding cluster so close; they gradually 
disperse, and the queen is at last liberated; she moves languidly, 
and sometimes expires in a few minutes. Some, however, es- 
cape in good health, and afterwards reign in the hive.’’ 
The manner in which strange queens are treated by the 
bees, when they are queenless, depends mainly on the state 
of the honey harvest. 
534. But in order to meet with uniform success, the fol- 
lowing conditions must be fulfilled: 
The bees must be absolutely queenless. Sometimes a 
colony contains two (117) queens, and the Apiarist after 
removing one may imagine that he can introduce a stranger, 
safely. Many queens are thus killed. 
535. As bees recognize one another by the scent, the 
new queen should be placed so as to get the odor of the 
hive, before being released among them. This can be ef- 
fected readily by sprinkling the bees and the new queen 
with sweetened water scented with peppermint, and liberat- 
ing ber at once. But as this method generally causes some 
robbing (664) in times of scarcity, it is not always to be 
relied upon. 
536. Our method consists in placing the queen in asmall 
flat cage, made of wire cloth, between two combs, in the 
