MAILING QUEENS — INTRODUCING QUEENS. 93 
use in queen cages a mixture of granulated sugar and extracted honey; 
hence this candy has since been known as the Good candy. The bees 
fed on it leave loose granules of sugar in the cage, and these becoming 
moist often daub the whole interior in such a way as to cause the death 
of queen and workers. It is therefore not adapted to long journeys. 
The food for the journey having been placed in the end opposite that 
containing the ventilating holes, a bit of comb foundation is pressed 
down over it to assist in retaining the moisture, the food compartment 
having also previously been coated with wax for the same purpose. 
The cover, with perhaps a bit of wire cloth between it and the bees to 
give greater security, together with the address and a 1-cent stamp, 
completes the arrangement for a queen and eight to twelve attendant 
workers to take a journey of 3,000 miles. A special postal regulation 
admits them to the mails at merchandise rates (I cent per ounce). For 
transportation to distant countries of the Pacific a larger cage and 
more care are necessary to success. A recent estimate by one of the 
apiarian journals places the number of queens sold and thus trans- 
ported in the United States annually at 20,000. 
INTRODUCING QUEENS. 
Most of the mailing cages are arranged so that when received the 
removal of the wooden lid and also of a small cork at one end will permit 
the bees to eat their way out when assisted by those of the hive to which 
the queen is to be given. The cage is laid, with the wire cloth down, 
on the frames of a colony that has previously been made queenless. 
In twenty-four to forty-eight hours the queen will usually have been 
liberated, but it is safer not to disturb the combs for four or five days 
lest the bees, on the watch for intruders when their combs are exposed, 
regard the new queen as such, and, crowding about her in a dense ball, 
sting her instantly or smother her. 
Colonies having only young bees accept queens readily, so that when 
a swarm has issued and the parent stock has been removed to a new 
stand the time for queen introduction is propitious. During a great 
honey flow queens are accepted without much question, if any at all. 
They may at such times nearly always be safely run in just at dark by 
lifting one corner of the cover or quilt of a queenless hive and driving 
the bees back with smoke. The new queen, having been kept without 
food and away from all other bees for a half hour previously, is then 
slipped in and the hive left undisturbed for several days. This and 
similar methods of direct introduction without cages, having been 
developed and advocated by Mr. Samuel Simmins, of England, are 
known as the Simmins methods of direct introduction of queens. 
In the fall and at all times when honey is not coining in freely, caging 
the queen for a few hours or days is desirable. A cage which permits 
the queen to remain directly on the comb itself is infinitely superior to 
