94. MANUAL OF APICULTURE. 
any other. Fig. 66 shows a pipe-cover cage as made by the author, 
the size of which may be greater if circumstances require—that is, when 
it seems advisable, with a queen of great value, to include under the 
cage a number of cells containing emerging brood. Ordinarily the size 
here shown will suffice. The queen is caged before a closed window on 
a comb of honey with five or six recently emerged bees taken from the 
hive to which she is to be introduced. The comb holding the caged 
queen is to be placed in the center of the 
queenless colony, where the bees will cluster 
Rertycee cee an on it, yet with the end of the cage pressed 
iSeecomoreuaterdtimuanediins firmly against the adjoining comb, so that the 
PREC E E EE EH cage will remain in place even though a heavy 
WiBREUnIy SHE BARA cluster should gather on it. On the following 
fh SuuMaattanity rH «day, just before dark, the queen should be 
— 
||| released, provided that upon opening the hive 
| the workers are not packed densely about the 
Hl cage trying to sting her through it. In the 
latter case she should be left twenty-four or 
Hic. 66-—Benton queenintrodue. even forty-elcht) hours lonser sandesimunie 
ing cage. (Original.) aig ee : 
autumn it is generally advisable to keep her 
caged several days or even a whole week. If left longer than one day 
all queen cells should be hunted out and destroyed a few hours before 
releasing the queen. Feeding while the queen is caged is a good plan 
if gathering is not going on briskly. Upon freeing the queen, diluted 
honey drizzled down between the combs will serve to put the bees in a 
good humor for the reception of the new mother bee. The entrance 
of the hive should be contracted for a short time so that but a few bees 
can pass in or out at a time. 
The conditions necessary to success in introducing queens are com- 
plied with by the above plan, namely: The bees are queenless long 
enough to have become fully aware of the fact, yet usually not long 
enough to have started queen cells; the strange queen is caged a suf- 
ficient length of time to acquire the peculiar odor of the hive to which 
she is to be given; the bees are all at home when the queen is released, 
and thus all become thoroughly gorged with food and are well disposed 
toward the new queen. No robber-bees come about, and by morning 
all is in order. 
As queens mate only once (p. 19), and workers and drones live but a 
few weeks or at most a few months (p. 20), if an Italian, a Carniolan, 
or other choice queen mated to a drone of her own race, be introduced 
to a given colony the bees of this colony will soon be replaced by others 
of the same race as the queen introduced. All of the colonies of an 
apiary may thus be changed; or, from a single breeding queen the 
apiary may be supplied with young queens pure in blood, and, since 
these (even though mated to drones of another race) will produce 
drones of their own blood the apiary will soon be stocked with males 
of the desired race. 
ee 
