INTRODUCING 
541 
cleus-stancl and those that have emerged 
in the interim. These, of course, all being 
young, will accept their new mother, with¬ 
out any trouble.* 
DIRECT METHOD OF INTRODUCTION. 
Where it is desired to introduce a queen 
from a nucleus to a queenless colony, both 
in the same yard, the operation can usually 
be performed with safety and with very 
little labor, as follows: The colony to re¬ 
ceive the queen should be made broodless a 
few hours in advance. Go to the nucleus 
and lift out two frames, bees and all, with 
the queen in between. Put these down in 
the center of the queenless colony; close up 
the hive and don’t go near it for several 
days. The bees that have been queenless 
and broodless are crying for a mother. 
When she is given them with a large force 
of her own subjects, she seems to be pro¬ 
tected, even if she does not have the odor 
of the new colony which, by the way, has 
been modified by the bees and brood given 
them from the other hive. 
This is a modification of the Simmins 
direct method of introducing. It could not 
be used in the case of a queen sent thru 
the mails. 
THE SIMMINS FASTING METHOD. 
While this has been discussed to a great¬ 
er or less extent in the bee journals, the 
plan, while very simple, is not one that the 
author would recommend in the case of a 
valuable queen, or in any event to a begin¬ 
ner. It is as follows.: The queen to be 
introduced should be fmt in a cage at night 
without attendants and without food. She 
should thus be confined for 30 minutes 
when she must be released at dusk over 
the frames of the queenless colony. The 
hive is not to be opened again for 48 hours, 
DUAL PLAN OF INTRODUCING. 
Another plan is to introduce two virgins 
or laying queens at one operation to save 
the necessary time it takes for the bees to 
get acquainted with the queen. This is 
described in detail under the head of 
Queen-rearing, to which the reader is 
directed. 
* I've used the same plan with a full colons'. Set 
the colony on a new stand, leaving on the old stand 
a hive with a frame of brood to catch the fielders. 
After introduction the hive may be returned. C. C. 
Mili.er. 
HOW SOON WILL AN INTRODUCED QUEEN 
BEGIN TO LAY. 
As a general thing, she may be expected 
to begin laying in two days; but some¬ 
times, if the queen has been a long time 
prevented from laying, as in the case of an 
imported queen, she may not lay for three 
or four days, or even a week. If intro¬ 
duced in the fall, she may not commence 
laying until early spring, unless the colony 
is fed regularly every day for a week or 
more. This will usually start a queen that 
is good for anything if the weather is 
warm enough. 
HOW TO TELL WHETHER A COLONY IS 
QUEENLESS OR NOT. 
Having discussed mailing and introduc¬ 
ing cages, it may be pertinent at this point 
to give one of the prime essentials in suc¬ 
cessful introducing. The very first thing 
to be determined before an attempt to in¬ 
troduce is made, is to determine that the 
colony is certainly queenless. The fact that 
there may be no eggs nor larvae in the hive, 
and that the queen cannot be found, is not 
sufficient evidence that she is absent, altho 
such a condition points that way. But 
during the earlier part of the summer 
there should be either brood or eggs of 
some kind if a queen is present. Yes, there 
should be eggs or brood clear up until the 
latter part of summer. In the fall in the 
northern States, or after the main honey 
flow is over, old queens generally stop lay¬ 
ing, and shrivel up in size so that a begin¬ 
ner might conclude that the colony is queen¬ 
less,, and therefore he must buy a queen. 
In attempting to introduce the new queen, 
of course he meets with failure, as she is 
stung to death, in all probability, and car¬ 
ried out at the hive-entrance. If eggs or 
larvae cannot be found at any season of 
the year when other stocks are breeding, 
and the supposedly queenless colony builds 
cells on a frame of unsealed larvae given 
them, it may be concluded as a general rule 
that the colony is probably queenless, and 
it will be safe to introduce a new queen. 
But when eggs, larvae, and sealed worker 
brood are found, the presence of queen- 
cells simply indicates that the bees are 
either preparing to supersede their queen 
or making ready to swarm. See Swarm¬ 
ing. 
