QUEEN-REARING. 



348 



QUEEN-REARING. 



Nature's ways. The first thing of prime 

 importance in the rearing of queens is 

 to bring about conditions that will approach, 

 as nearly as possible, those that are pres- 

 ent during the swarming season at a time 

 when the bees supply the cell-cups lavish- 

 ly with royal food. One of the first requi- 

 sites, then, for cell-building is strong power- 

 ful colonies ; second, a light honey-flow, 

 or a condition almost analogous, viz., stim- 

 ulative feeding if the honey is not then 

 coming in. Queens reared during a dearth 

 of honey, or in nuclei, are apt to be small, 

 and the cells from which they come look 

 small and inferior. The mothers that do the 

 best work are those that are large, and ca- 

 pable of laying anywhere from 2000 to 3000 

 eggs per day. A queen that is incapable of 



' this should not be retained. For instance, a 

 colony with a good queen might earn for its 

 owner in a good season $5.00 in clean cash. 

 In the same season the same colony (or, per- 

 haps, to speak more exactly, the same hive 

 of bees), with a poorer queen, would bring 



/ in less than half that amount. A queen that 

 can lay 2000 or 3000 eggs a day at the right 

 time of the year, so that there will be a large 

 force of bees ready to begin on the honey 

 when it does come, is the kind of queen 

 that we need to rear. 



The old way of raising queens was to 

 make a colony or a nucleus queenlei-s; wnit 

 for the bees to build their own cells, then 

 distribute them to colonies made queenless 

 beforehand. This plan is very slow and 

 wasteful, and, worst of all, resu'ts in the 

 rearing of inferior queens. Mr. Doolittle 

 takes advantage of Nature's ways to such 

 an extent that he is enabled to rear a large 

 number of queens from some selected breed- 

 er, in that he makes it possible to increase 

 the number of cells ordinarily built; for the 

 prime requisite in queen-rearing is cells — 

 plenty of them— that will rear good strong 

 healthy queens. 



HOW TO MAKE DOOLITTLE CELL-CUPS. 



Many times, when an apiarist is going 

 through his yard he can cut out embryo 

 cell-cups, such as the bees make. These 

 can be utilized at some future time for the 

 purpose of grafting. But such cells, after 

 they are gathered, are exceedingly frail, ir- 

 regular in shape, will not bear much han- 

 dling ; and most of the time one can not 

 Hud enough. 



Mr. Doolittle was among the lirst who 

 conceived the idea of making artilicial cell- 

 cups that should not only be regular in 

 form but of such construction as to stand 



any reasonable amount of handling. Con 

 trary to what one might expect, such cells 

 are just as readily accepted by the bees as 

 those they make in the good old-fashioned 

 way; and, what is of consideralde impor- 

 tance, they can be made in any quantity by 

 one of ordinary intelligence. 



Mr. Doolittle takes a wooden rake-tooth, 

 and whittles and sandpapers the point so 

 that it is the size and shape of the bottom of 



the queen -cell (see illustration). Two or 

 three other sticks are then fashioned of the 

 same shape and jiattern. Preparatory to 

 forming the cells Mr. Doolittle has a little 

 pan of beeswax, kept hot by means of a 

 lamp ; also a cup of water. Seating himself 

 before a table he is now ready for work. 

 Taking one of these cell-foiming sticks he 

 dips it into water, after which he plunges 

 it about j**e of ^11 inch into the melted wax. 

 He then lifts it up and twirls it at an angle 

 (waxed end lower) in his fingers. When 

 cool he dips it again, but not quite so deep, 

 and twirls it as before. He proceeds thus 

 until the cup is dipped seven or eight times, 

 but each time dipping it less deep, within 

 3*2 inch of the previous dipping. The main 

 thing is to secure a cup having a thick heavy 

 bottom, but which will have a thin ;ind 

 delicate knife edge at the open top, or at that 

 point where the bees are supposed to as- 

 sume work. After the last dipping is cool- 

 ed, a slight pressure of the thumb loosens 

 the cell-cup slightly. It is then dipped once 

 more, and before cooling it is attached to a 

 comb or stick designed to receive it. 



GRAFTING CELLS. 



The next operation is to insert a small 

 particle of royal jelly in every queen-cell so 

 made. The amount in each should be about 

 equivalent in bulk to a double-B shot, says 

 Mr. Doolittle. But we have found that a 

 much less quantity will answer. Out of an 

 ordinary queen-cell well supplied with royal 

 jelly we get enough to supply 20 cups. If 

 we took a quantity equal in bulk to a BB 

 shot we would have to rob two or three cells 

 to supply that many. This royal jelly should 

 come from some queen-cell nearly ready to 

 S3al, as that will contain the most. It 

 should be stirred to bring all to about tlie 

 sime consistency, after which it may be dij)- 

 ped out of the cells by means of a stick whit- 

 tled like an ordinary ear-spoon, or a tooth- 

 pick bent to that shape. 



