173. Perhaps next to the danger of spreading diseases of bee larvae, the greatest loss will be of weak colonies or package bees only recently placed in the hive, and which you are attempting to build up into strong colonies.

These new colonies not yet strong in numbers nor well located are easy prey to the robber bees.

174. Bees that are persistently bothered by robbers become very cross and are sometimes very difficult for the beekeeper to control. They may even sting neighbors many yards away, or pitch onto a team or cattle in a nearby field. Therefore, for your own peace of mind in handling the bees and in avoiding injury to neighbors and their domestic animals, robbing again should be prevented.

175. It is possible, but not practical, to carry out the projects outlined in this book unless you are able to find and recognize a queen bee. Anyone who has read so far in this book has seen that the saving in time and labor and the increase in crops of honey, as well as the up-to-date care of bees, can only be accomplished in the movable frame hive, more frequently but incorrectly called the "patent" hive. It is useless for purposes of practical manipulation to attempt to find a queen bee except in a movable frame hive. It is usually easier to find queens of the Italian race than any other kind of bees. The queen is colored a bright russet or golden tint, giving her a greater contrast to the worker bees in her hive. Furthermore Italian bees usually are less excitable than cross bred or common black bees. The first step in finding a queen is to know what she looks like. Please note figure 1 and see the difference in appearance between the queen, the worker and the drone. The queen's body is longer than that of the worker and drone and quite pointed. Her wings are shorter than her body, differing entirely for either the worker or the drone. The queen, under normal conditions, is also larger than the worker and seldom takes wing from the combs after she has started laying, and usually moves slowly, perhaps majestically, over the combs.

176. The queen bee can usually be easily found by examination of the combs. If the queen has the run of more than one hive body, she will usually be found in the upper body unless a heavy honey flow is on, and a search for her may be handled as described in paragraph No. 127. See figure 29.

177. If she is not readily found by examination of the combs, proceed as follows: Set the hive bodies likely to contain her off the bottom board on to an inverted cover. Place an empty hive body on the bottom board with the queen excluder over the body as shown in illustration 59. Let the excluder extend over one side of the hive far enough so that on the other side space enough is left to insert one or two combs in the hive. Place an empty hive body squarely over the excluder. Shake the combs into the top hive body so the bees fall off these combs on to the excluder. Examine the combs carefully and look for the queen before placing them in the lower hive body, pushing them over in the body under the excluder. After all the combs have been shaken in the upper empty hive body, smoke the bees lightly that are in the now empty hive body above the excluder, so that they will pass through and into the hive below. The queen should be found struggling to get through the excluder. If she is not found on the excluder, examine the insides of the empty hive body carefully. If she is not found in the first body of your 2 story hive, repeat the operation with the second body. Then if she is not found, she has likely escaped your manipulation some way, and the best plan is to close up the hive, and repeat the operation another day.

178. Another point that often gives the beginner trouble is the successful introduction of queen bees. Remember that the queen is the mother bee, that it is only necessary to have her mate once during her lifetime and that always after that mating she is capable of laying fertilized eggs that will hatch into worker bees. Therefore when you purchase a mated queen bee from a breeder of bees, this queen comes to you to become the mother bee of the hive into which she is introduced. The bees in that hive will die off naturally in the course of the next few weeks, if it is in the working season, and the bees that hatch from the eggs laid by the introduced queen will rapidly take their place. This can be readily noticed where an Italian queen is introduced to a colony of black bees where in the height of the season most of the black bees will be worn out and die in 6 weeks and will have been entirely replaced by the yellow Italian bees before the end of th season.

179. The first thing to be sure of in attempting to introduce a queen is that the colony to which she is introduced is queenless. If the colony to which she is to be introduced still has its queen, that queen must first be killed. If the colony is already queenless, any queen cells that have been built must be destroyed, for so long as any queen cells remain in the hive the bees are very unlikely to accept another queen. If the colony has been queenless more than 3 weeks so that all the eggs laid by the previous queen have developed into bees and all of these have emerged, it is frequently advisable to give 2 or 3 frames of emerging brood from another colony, to the colony to which the queen is to be introduced. A normal colony during the honey flow will likely have a queen introduced to it most conveniently and most successfully by a method described on the under side of the address card that accompanies the queen when she comes to you by mail. When no honey is coming in and the tendency may be to rob extra precautions are necessary. It may then be advisable to make a cage of the type shown in illustration 60. Remove and destroy the old queen and any queen cells from the colony into which the queen is to be introduced. Remove a comb from that hive, being careful to pick out one on which the bees are emerging and shake all the bees off this comb. Place the wire screen cage on the comb over a few cells from which bees are emerging and also over a few cells of honey. Press the cage down into the comb. Make sure that no adult bees from the hive are under the cage. Remove the piece of metal screen from the hole in the end of the mailing cage the queen came in.