RAISING AND INTRODUCTION OF QUEENS. 335 
their proper relative distances, of necessity, so places 
the comb bearing the cage that the crown of the latter 
presses against the adjoining comb, so that the weight 
of the cluster gathering upon it does not drag it from 
its place. He recommends that the queen be liberated 
next day about sundown if the unfavourable indications 
above mentioned are absent. If present, the queen 
must be left twenty-four or forty-eight hours longer, 
when it will be necessary to look for and destroy 
any newly-formed queen-cells, as these commonly bar 
every effort at introduction by caging. It is also 
^IMr. Benton’s practice, upon freeing the queen, to 
drizzle diluted honey or sweetened water over both 
- bees and combs, and not to touch the hive for two or 
three days, lest the queen should be attacked. 
All dome cages, with the advantages that the queen 
' has both food and rest at command, have yet the 
defect that the stock must be disturbed, and the bees 
put into a suspicious temper, at the moment she is 
delivered over to their attentions. The Peet cage 
removes the latter objection, and retains the mentioned 
advantages. It much resembles the Alley without the 
mortise hole, but with one side only covered with wire 
cloth. The uncovered side is simply fixed over open 
honey-cells in the close neighbourhood of brood. The 
method of affixingr is both crude and uncertain. Tin 
tongues are pushed through the comb, and bent so as 
to form a kind of rivet. The comb is injured, and the 
cage cannot fail to occasionally slip, with fatal results 
to the queen ; but, if all goes well, the bees burrow, 
according to their wont, beneath the wood, making a 
bee space between it and their comb, and thus they 
