The zinc excluder, of course, must be thoroughly applied to prevent the queen obtaining access to the super.
The super can be left until the day previous to that on which the first young queen is due to leave the cell. It must then be removed, with all the bees in it, and it should either be split up or each queen caged in its cell.
After the super is split up, the bee-keeper should try to procure a swarm to divide amongst each part of the super—first running it through a queen excluder to catch the queen. These divisions should be given a separate hive if possible, but if it is necessary that they should occupy one large hive care must be taken thoroughly to separate each section and to have the entrances as far apart as possible. It is advisable, too, that the entrances should be of a different colour to ensure the young queens entering their own section, for should they by chance enter another a battle is sure to ensue with fatal results.
Re-queening the Hive.—As already stated, the method of working the hive with standard frames as a super necessitates re-queening every two years. There are several ways of doing this. One is to find the old queen and kill her, and allow the bees to install one of the young queens. This method, however, has many disadvantages. First of all, there is the disturbance to the hive in the search for the queen; secondly, if the queen be found and killed, there is a loss of nearly three weeks in the height of summer when no eggs are laid in the hive.
Another method is to allow the hive to swarm and to return the swarm to its hive after destroying the queen. But this plan, too, has the disadvantage of checking the supply of eggs.
The best method for all practical purposes is to re-queen after the honey-flow, either with a home-reared queen or one purchased from a reliable breeder. The old queen, together with any queen cells in the combs, must be removed three or four days before the new queen is introduced.
The easiest way to accomplish the introduction is by means of a queen-cage. These are usually made of wood with three compartments, in the inner two of which the queen is imprisoned. The other is filled with soft candy. This cage is placed over the frames in the hive and the queen is liberated by the bees eating a way through the candy. By the time this is accomplished the queen will have acquired the scent of the hive and will be accepted as ruler by the community.
The hive should not be disturbed for at least four days after the introduction of the new queen.
"Shaking" a Swarm