Nc. o. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 3S7 



the cells. Such cell cups are frequently started by the bees aud 

 never completed, and you may lind a number of them in almost any 

 colony. 



POST-CONSTRUCTED QUEEN-CELLS. 



If a queen be taken from a hive at a time of the year when she 

 is laying, the bees will proceed to rear a successor. A young larva 

 will be selected in a worker-cell, more commonly a number of them, 

 and fed lavishly what is called royal jell}'. Scientists tell us that 

 there is no difference whatever between an egg laid in a queen-cell 

 aud one laid in a worker-cell, also that the food fed to a worker- 

 larva during the first three days is the same as that fed to a queen 

 during the entire time of larval feeding. After the first three days 

 a worker-larva is ''weaned;" that is, it is fed a coarser food that is 

 not so fully digested, but the queen is fed throughout on the better 

 food, aud fed so lavishly that generally quite a bit of the royal jelly 

 is left in the cell after the young queen emerges. So the queeuless 

 bees feed the young worker-larva that they have gelected, on the 

 royal jelly throughout the entire feeding period, enlarge the cells 

 over them, and the result is that what would have been workers had 

 the queen not been removed now turn out to be queens. These 

 queen-cells that are constructed after the larvae are first started 

 in worker-cells are called post-constructed cells. 



It is not easy to distinguish a pye-constructed from a post-con- 

 structed cell by looking at it from the outside, but you can always dis- 

 tinguish them by tearing doAvn each cell and looking at its base. 

 The bottom of a pre-constructed cell (the kind always used for swarm- 

 ing or supersedi-Jigj is always smooth, like the inside bottom of a tea 

 cup, while the bottom of a post-constructed cell (the kind alwa^'S 

 built when bees have lost their queen) is three-cornered, the same 

 as the bottom of any worker-cell. The location of a post-constructed 

 cell may be on the edges of combs, but sometimes they may be found 

 right in the middle of a brood-comb, and in this case they may 

 ])roject so little above the surface of the comb as not to be seen 

 on a hasty examination, and yet from such an inconspicuous cell 

 there may emerge a nice, large queen. 



As to the quality of queens from ])ost-constructed cells. Taken 

 as a whole, they are far inferior to others. The best of queens are 

 reared only when weather and pasturage are at their best. You 

 cannot rear a good queen when weather is so cold that bees can fly 

 only every other day. Bees do not start queen-cells for swarming 

 or superseding when weather and pasturage are unfavorable. Some- 

 times they start queen-cells preparatory to swarming, and the 

 weather becomes very bad or the harvest ceases, upon which they 



