74 Advanced Bee Culture 



no honey is coming in. The moral is, to feed when trying to introduce 

 queens during a dearth of honey. 



To introduce a queen from one colony to another in the same 

 apiary does not call for the skill needed when the queen has been absent 

 several days from a colony, and is jaded by a long journey. I have fre- 

 quently taken a queen from a colony, caged and sent it away, and then 

 immediately taken a laying queen from a nucleus and placed her upon 

 the spot upon the comb whence I had taken the other queen, and had 

 the satisfaction of seeing her immediately surrounded by a circle of 

 admiring retainers. I believe there are times, particularly- when honey 

 is coming in freely, when a colony with a laying queen would accept 

 another fresh laying queen simply by having her placed upon the combs, 

 and all wotild go well until the queens came in contact. Then there 

 would be a conflict in which the chances of the newcomer would be 

 as good as those of the old queen. 



So far as the queen is concerned, it is important that she be 

 brought before the bees in a natural manner, in such a place and in 

 such a way as the\' would expect to meet her. When clipping queens 

 I have often replaced one in the hive by dropping her upon the tops 

 of the frames, when the bees would immediately pounce upon her as 

 an intruder. A puff of smoke would cause the bees to "let up," when 

 the queen would walk majestically down between the combs, and there 

 she was not molested, because there was where the bees expected to find 

 a queen. When I wish to introduce a queen by allowing her to run in 

 at the entrance, I first shake off the bees from U\o combs, in front of 

 the hive, and as they are running into the hive I allow the queen to run 

 in with them. At such times there are no guards at the entrance ; the 

 bees that are crawling in will not attack the queen, and by the time the 

 colony has recovered its tranquillity, the queen it quietly parading the 

 combs. 



When a colony has been queenless long enough to build a batch 

 of queen-cells I usually introduce a queen by simply taking a comb, with 

 the adhering bees and queen, from a nucleus, and hanging it in the 

 queenless colony. By means of smoke, or a feather, I drive all of the 

 bees from one of the inside walls of the hive, and against this side of 

 the hive I turn the side of the comb upon which is the queen. Then 

 she is not immediately brought in contact with the excited, strange 

 bees ; but the bees intermingle, and, almost unconsciously, the whole 

 colony accepts the queen. If any of the queenless bees stra_\' near the 

 queen, they find her surrounded by a cortege of her own bees. She is 

 also attending to her duties, and is almost certain not to be molested. 



When queens come from a distance, they are more difficult to 

 introduce. They have not laid any eggs in several days, and are in a 



