[ 16 ] All stranger queens, introduced into a stock or swarm, are secured and detained in this manner by the workers, but whether they dispatch them, or this is a means adopted to incite them to a deadly conflict, writers do not agree, and I shall not attempt a decision, as I never saw the bees voluntarily release a queen thus confined. But I have seen queens, when no bees interfered, rush together in a fatal rencounter, and one of them was soon left a fallen victim of the contest. 'Tis said it never happens that both are killed in these battles,--perhaps not. As I never saw quite all of these royal combats, of course I cannot decide.
[ 17 ] I was so well pleased with my success, especially with small families, that I detailed the most important points in a communication to the Dollar Newspaper, Philadelphia, published November, 1848.
[ 18 ] As an additional proof that this method of inverting hives in the house for winter is valuable, I would say that Mr. Miner, author of the American Bee-Keeper's Manual, seems fully to appreciate it. In. the fall of 1850, I communicated to him this method; giving my reasons for preferring it to the cold method recommended in his Manual. The trial of one winter, it appears, satisfied him of its superiority, so much so that within a year from that time he published an essay recommending it; but advised confining the bees with muslin, &c.
[ 19 ] It is presumed that the inexperienced will soon learn to distinguish such bees, as die from old age or natural causes, from those affected by the cold.
[ 20 ] Vide other causes of loss, a few pages back.