TOOLS AND TECHNIQUE 
45 
Fine embroidery or manicure scissors are excellent 
for cutting queens’ wings. With one wing cut, a 
queen bee cannot fly, and as the only times she flies 
are on her mating flight or when going out with a 
swarm, this measure tends to control swarming. 
The swarm may start out, but the queen falls on the 
alighting board at the entrance and cannot accom¬ 
pany the rest. Therefore since they must have her 
with them, the swarm returns to their hive. . . . 
Naturally, a queen’s wing is not clipped before mat¬ 
ing, since she only mates when in flight. 
The queen does not sting, so the operator catches 
her by the wings, and with thumb and finger holds 
her firmly but delicately on either side of the thorax 
while he deftly snips off part of one gauzy wing. 
Northern apiarists, whose bees have long, cold 
winters to endure, find it pays to protect them some¬ 
what from icy blasts by “packing” them. I set my 
hives inside big wooden packing boxes and packed 
dry leaves or chaff all about them, arranging a tun¬ 
nel to an outside entrance so they should be free 
to go out when weather permitted. In the South, 
packing precautions are less necessary. More im¬ 
portant than packing, in North, South, East, and 
West, is the surety that each colony has plenty of 
stores to tide them over periods of scarcity. 
