Introdnciu;^ Oncciis "/J 



several years I guaranteed the safe introduction of queens that I sent 

 out, and the tobacco-smoke method was the most successful of any 

 that I ever asked my customers to try. The day before shipping the 

 queen, I sent the following notice : 



As soon as you receive this notice, remove the queen from the colony 

 to which you expect to introduce the new queen. When she arrives, put her 

 away in a safe place until after sundown. Just at dusk, light your smoker. 

 When it is well going, put in a pipeful of smoking tobacco, put on the cover, 

 puff until you get an odor of tobacco, then blow two or three good puffs into 

 the entrance of the hive. Wait two or three minutes, then send in another 

 good puff or two; remove the cover, drive down the bees with a puff of smoke, 

 open the cage, and allow the queen to run down between the combs, following 

 her with a puff or two of smoke, and then put on the cover. Half an hour 

 later, light up the smoker again, putting in the tobacco as before, and blow 

 two more good puffs in at the entrance. If no honey is coming in, feed the 

 colony a pint of syrup each night from the inside of the hive, but don't disturb 

 the brood-nest for four or five days. 



The tobacco smoke partly stupefies the bees ; and by the time the\' 

 liave-jrecovered, the queen is in full possession. By doing the work 

 in the evening the bees are in condition to defend themselves by morn- 

 ing, should it be necessary. 



There is, however, one method of introducing a queen that never 

 fails. It is that of confining the queen in a hive with several combs 

 of bees just hatching. Go over several hives and find enough combs 

 from which the bees are just emerging to fill a hive. Choose those 

 combs having the least unsealed brood, as the most of this will perish. 

 Shake off every bee, hang the combs in the hive, and close it up hcc-tigJit. 

 Allow the queen to run in at a small opening, closing it after her. This 

 work should be done in the fore part of a warm clay. In a few hours 

 enough bees will have hatched to form quite a little cluster, with which 

 the queen is absolutely safe. If the nights are cool, it might be well 

 to carry the hive into the house for two or three nights. In five or six 

 days the hive may be given a stand in the apiary, and the entrance 

 opened sufficiently to allow the passage of a single bee. So much trouble 

 as this is not advisable unless the queen is very valuable. 



And now, in closing, a word of caution : When buying a queen 

 from a distance, let out the bees and queen upon a window ; catch the 

 queen and put her into a clean cage ; then kill all of the bees and throw 

 them and mailing-cage into the stove. This is to guard against any 

 possible chance of getting foul brood into the apiary from infected bees 

 or honey. A queen has never been known to carry the contagion from 

 one colony to the other — the only danger is that the food in the cage 

 might have been made with honey infected with the germs of disease. 

 Of course, the danger is very slight, even in this direction; but foul 

 brood has been known to have been communicated in this manner, and 

 there is no harm in exercising caution. 



