S74 QUEEN REARING. 



Introducing Impregnated Queens. 



633. Oreat 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 : 



"If another queen is introduced into the hive within twelve 

 hours after the removal of the reigning one, they surround, seize, 

 and Iveep 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. 



635. 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 her at once. But as this method generally causes some 

 robbing (664) in times of scarcity, it is not always to be 

 relied upon. 



636. Our method consists in placing the queen in a small 

 fiat cage, made of wire cloth, between two combs, in the 



