Q. 



^ QUZSEST-RZiARirra. Every honey- 

 producer should know how to raise his own 

 queens. There are times when it is better 

 to buy them, and other times when it is cer- 

 tainly cheaper to rear them. Other things 

 being equal, a queen that has never been 

 compelled to go through the mails, shut up 

 in a mail-sack, to be bumped about in this 

 way and that for a period of two or three 

 days or perhaps that many weeks, ought to 

 live longer and give better results than one 

 that is compelled to undergo such treatment. 

 It very often happens that a queen which has 

 been doing excellent service for a year or so, 

 when introduced after being sent through 

 tlie mails, dies within a few days, for the 

 very probable reason that the journey was 

 too much for her. It would seem, then, that 

 every bee-keeper should himself rear the ma- 

 jority of the queens that he uses, baying only 

 just enough to renew his stock or to intro- 

 duce new strains. But before proceeding 

 further with this subject, the reader would 

 do well to read Qtjeens (found in its alpha- 

 betical order), as this furnishes the ground- 

 work of the subject we shall now discuss. 



CONDITIONS FAVORABLE AND UNFAVOR- 

 ABLE FOR REARING QUEENS. 



When a colony from some cause or other j 

 becomes queenless, the bees will set about 

 rearing another. 



In nature, the best queens are those that 



are reared either during tlie swarming-time 



or when the bees are about to supersede an ; 



old queen soon to fail. At such times we 



see large beautiful queen-cells, reminding 



, one of big peanuts, i)rojecting from the side 



\ of the comb. The larvae in such cells are 



I lavishly fed with royal jelly; and when the 



\queens finally hatch they are usually large 



and vigorous. 



We said tiiere is one class of cells that 

 bees rear when they are about to super- 

 sede an old queen. When a queen is 

 two or three years old she begins to show 

 signs of failing. The bees recognize the fact 

 that their own mother will soon die, or at 

 least need help from a daughter, and very 

 leisurely proceed to construct a number of 

 cells, all of which are sujiplied with larvae, 

 and fed in the same lavish way as tliose 

 reared ui:der the swarming impulse. 



But we can never determine in advance 

 when the bees will rear supersedure cells, 

 and it may be true that the queen about to 

 be superseded is not desirable stock from 

 which to rear. In this case such cells should 

 not be utilized. For a like reason, also, cells 

 reared under the swarming impulse should 

 be rejected; because it is certainly penny wise 

 and pound foolish to rear queens from any 

 thing but the very best select stock. But all 

 swarming-cells from good queens should be 

 reserved by placing them in West queen- 

 cell protectors; then hunt up queens two or , 

 three years old, pinch their heads off, and 

 repl ice them with one of these cells in each 

 colony. But perhaps you have good queens 

 even two or three years old. Perhaps; but 

 the majority of our honey-producers think it 

 protitable to replace all queens three years 

 old, while a good many make it a practice 

 to requeen all colonies having queens two 

 years and over, and of late years there is a 

 slight tendency on the part of a few to graft 

 every year. 



While these swarming-cells produce the 

 very best queens, yet it may not be conven- 

 ient to requeen during the swarming season, 

 which in some localities may be a very bad 

 season to do so, owing to the interruption 

 that it makes in the regular production of 

 honey; for it is well known that a good many 

 colonies will not do as well in honey-gather- 

 ing when they are queenless as when they 

 have a good queen in the hive. But such 

 cells can then be given to nuclei, for they 

 ought not to be wasted. 



Among the several systems of rearing 

 queens, the one first put out by Mr. Doolittle 

 many years ago forms the basis of some of 

 the best now in vogue, is very simple, requir- 

 ing no special tools more than one can im- 

 provise for himself. Thoroughly understand- 

 ing this, the reader will be in position to 

 carry out the more advanced ideas put forth 

 by Samuel Simmins, E. L. Pratt, Henry 

 xlUey, and others. 



THE DOOLITTLE IMETHOD OF REARING 

 QUEENS. 



While Mr. Doolittle's system is slightly 

 artificial yet he endeavors to make his 

 methods conform as nearly as possible to 



