THE HONEY THIEVES 131 
days, a stock of bees with confirmed bad habits 
would be taken to the sulphur-pit and settled at 
once for good and all. But modern bee-keepers 
have a better and less wasteful way. Now, look 
out for the queen! ” 
He was lifting out the comb-frames one by one, 
and subjecting them to a close examination. At 
last, on one of the most crowded frames, he spied 
the huge full-bodied queen, and lifted her off by 
the wings. Then he closed the hive up again as 
expeditiously as possible. 
“Now,” said he, as he ground the discredited 
monarch under his heel, ‘‘ we have stopped the mis- 
chief at the fountain-head. Of course, if we left 
the bees to raise another queen for themselves, she 
would be of the same blood as the first one, and 
her children would inherit the same undesirable 
traits. But to-morrow, when the bees are thoroughly 
sobered and frightened at the loss of their ruler, 
we will give them another full-grown fertile queen 
of the best blood in the apiary. In three weeks’ 
time the new population will begin to take over the 
citadel; and in a month or two all the old bees will 
have died off, and with them the last of the robber 
taint.” 
