BEES. 
495 
- thft working season, ready for such emergencies. Queen rearing can be carried 
on without building up, and one frame of comb answers for the queen to lay 
in, until it is convenient to add more. 
♦ INTRODUCING QUEENS. 
« There are various methods of introducing queens. Whatever method ia 
adopted, four things must be carefully attended to : 1. The hive must contain 
no queen or queen-cells. 2. The bees must be made to fill themselves with 
honey. Smoke will usually do this, but some bee-keepers also sprinkle them 
with liquid honey or syrup. 3. The queen must be pervaded by the same 
odor as the bees to which she is introduced. Some add to the syrup or honey 
sprinkled on them an essence, such as peppermint or the like. Others de- 
CAGE FOR SHIPPING OR INTRODUCING QUEENS. 
pend on smoke, using tobacco which must not be strong enough to stupefy 
them. 4. The queen must not be introduced hastily, or she will be treated 
as an intruder, and speedily killed. Covering the queen with honey or syrup 
when she is put among the bees is usually sufficient. By the time they have 
licked her clean, which they will at once proceed to do, they will be willing to 
accept her. Many use a cage for introducing queens. She is confined in this 
for a time, inside the hive, until the bees become used to her. Such a cage ia 
also used for shipping queens to a distance. 
EXTRACTING COMB HONEY. 
“As soon as the brood chamber begins to get crowded with honey, which 
seldom occurs before w'hite clover blooms, the extractor must be used. Quiet 
the bees with smoke, draw out the combs, shake and brush off the bees, carry 
the combs to the extracting-rooui (which may be a movable-box or tent), with 
honey-knife shave off the capping of the cells, extract the honey, return the 
combs to their places, close up the hive, and proceed in the same way with 
Vi 
