Fig. 64.—The Benton cage for transporting a queen and attendants by mail. (Original.)
Queens are now transported nearly always by mail, and sent to all parts of the United States, and even to distant foreign countries, the cage used almost exclusively being the one shown in [fig. 64] or some slightly modified form of the same. No attempt was ever made to patent this cage, and as the construction is obvious from the figure given here, anyone who desires can make and use it. The food usually employed in these cages by queen breeders is a soft candy recommended many years ago as bee food by the Rev. Mr. Scholz, of Germany. The Scholz candy is made by kneading fine sugar and honey together until a stiff dough has been formed. Some think it an improvement to heat the honey before adding the sugar. The Viallon shipping candy consists of four parts of brown sugar and twelve of white sugar, with two tablespoonfuls of honey and one of flour to each pound of the mixed sugars; these, with a little water added, form a batter, which is boiled until it commences to thicken, when it is poured into the food compartment of the mailing cage. Mr. I. R. Good recommended for 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.
Fig. 65.—Caging a queen for mailing. (Original—from photograph.)
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 transported 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 coming 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 any other. Fig. 66 shows a pipe-cover cage as made by the author, the size of which may be greater if circumstances require—that is, when it seems advisable, with a queen of great value, to include under the cage a number of cells containing emerging brood. Ordinarily the size here shown will suffice. The queen is caged before a closed window on a comb of honey with five or six recently emerged bees taken from the hive to which she is to be introduced. The comb holding the caged queen is to be placed in the center of the queenless colony, where the bees will cluster on it, yet with the end of the cage pressed firmly against the adjoining comb, so that the cage will remain in place even though a heavy cluster should gather on it. On the following day, just before dark, the queen should be released, provided that upon opening the hive the workers are not packed densely about the cage trying to sting her through it. In the latter case she should be left twenty-four or even forty-eight hours longer, and in the autumn it is generally advisable to keep her caged several days or even a whole week. If left longer than one day all queen cells should be hunted out and destroyed a few hours before releasing the queen. Feeding while the queen is caged is a good plan if gathering is not going on briskly. Upon freeing the queen, diluted honey drizzled down between the combs will serve to put the bees in a good humor for the reception of the new mother bee. The entrance of the hive should be contracted for a short time so that but a few bees can pass in or out at a time.