Drone and queen trap at hive entrance
It is often important to locate the queen. If you wish to clip her wings, find her you must. She is usually near the middle of the hive, surrounded by her court, a rosette of workers. She is quite different in shape from the workers. It is well to study her picture before going to look for her. A queen's wings are not much to cut, but you will need a steady nerve if you do it free hand. Many devices are to be had to make the operation less difficult and to insure safety to the rest of the queen. The danger is all to her, for although she is armed she will not sting you. She reserves her sting for some rival in her own class.
Harvesting any crop has interesting features, but nothing has the peculiar charm of taking off honey. Loosen the cover, puff in a little smoke, lift the cover, then the whole super off. Put on a new super and replace the cover. Have your bee brush ready and as you lift the fitted sections out of the super, brush the bees that cling to them down to the entrance to the hive. This is the old way and is fraught with dangers. Moreover, the bees may regard one robbery as sufficient excuse for another. Robbery is a serious matter in the apiary. The modern way is to use the Porter bee-escape. This device obviates all the difficulties and once you have "got the hang of it," you will have no further trouble getting honey from your hives.
STINGS: PREVENTION AND CURE
The bee mittens, the veil, and the smoker are all preventive measures. A good deal depends on the way you behave when working with bees. If you are nervous and anxious you probably will act that way and the bees have a way of understanding and are likely to find you.
Remove the sting by a scraping motion with a knife blade or some hive tool you happen to have handy. If you use the thumb and finger you squeeze the tiny bulb at the outer end of the sting, and inject the poison into your blood.
Experts have little or no faith in cures which are rubbed on. They underestimate the comfort one gets "doing something" for a spot that hurts so mighty bad. So go ahead and put on alcohol or baking soda or ammonia; you can't do a bit of harm that way. In the meantime nature is busy neutralizing the acid the bee punished you with.
Mrs. Comstock, in "How to Keep Bees," gives these maxims for opening the hive:
Have the smoker ready to give forth a good volume of smoke.