276 QUEEN REARING. 



a strange queen, we put a small slice of comb honey, or honey 

 cappings, in place of the stopper of the cage, and close the 

 hive. It takes from 15 to 20 minutes for the bees to eat 

 through, and by that time all is quiet, so the queen walks 

 leisurely out of her cage, and is safe. 



539. If the colony, in which a queen is to be intro- 

 duced, is destitute, the bees should be ab;;ndantly fed on 

 the preceding night (605). After she has been released, 

 it is well to leave the colony alone for two or three days. 



As a fertile queen can lay several thousand eggs a day, 

 it is not strange that she should quickly become exhausted, 

 if taken from the bees. " Ex nihilo nihil fit " — from noth- 

 ing, nothing comes — and the arduous duties of maternity 

 compel her to be an enormous eater. After an absence 

 from the bees of only fifteen minutes, she will solicit honey, 

 when returned ; and if kept away for an hour or upwards, 

 she must cither be fed by the Apiarist, or have bees to sup- 

 ply her wants. 



Mr. Simmins has taken advantage of this appetite, and 

 of the propensity of bees to feed the queens, in introducing 

 them directly, after keeping them without bees and food, 

 for about 30 minutes. At dusk he lifts a corner of the 

 cloth (352) of the hi-\e in which he wants to introduce the 

 queen, drives the bees away with a little smoke (382), 

 and permits the queen to run between the combs. Then he 

 waits 48 hours before visiting the hive. Several bee-keep- 

 ers report having succeeded with this method. On ac- 

 count of this propensity of bees to feed queens, any num- 

 ber of fertile ones may be kept in a hive already containing 

 a fertile queen, if they are placed in cages between the 

 combs, near the honey and the brood. 



540. Some Apiarists use chloroform, ether, puff-balls, or 

 other ingredients, to stupefy the bees of mutinous colonies 

 who persist in refusing to accept a strange queen and who 



