QUEEN-REARING. 



352 



QUEEN-REARING. 



they are working on them. Alter the cells 

 are once accepted and started tliey may be 

 changed to the upper story of a strong colony, 

 where they will be completed and capped 

 over. 



The cells are now ready to be placed in 

 nursery cages, one of which is shown here- 

 with. This, it will be seen, is practically a 



wire cloth, providing a stimulus that they 

 can not receive from the queen candy in the 

 cage. After the virgins liave liatched they 

 should be transferred to Miller cages, and 

 introduced as soon after hatching as possible. 

 The younger the virgin, the more successful 



Cup 



NURSERY CAGE FOR CELLS AND VIRGINS. 



modified Alley cage. A surplus of cells 

 often occurs in queen-rearing — that is to 

 say, a lack of queenless nuclei or colonies to 

 take them. One should arrange to have 

 more than he will probably be able to use- 

 to provide for bad weather, when cells wir 

 be destroyed or young hatched virgins be 

 missing. At such a time, if one has extra 

 cells or virgins that he can take out of a 

 nursery, he can quickly make good the loss- 



The nursery cage here shown has a large 

 opening at the top to receive the wooden 

 cell cup: the small hole in the lower right- 

 hand corner is filled with queen-cage candy 

 to supply the young miss after she hatches. 

 Twenty-four of these cages, supplied with 

 cells that are capped over, can be put in a 

 nursery-frame having holders which may be 

 tilted on an angle so that any one cage can 

 be easily removed from a holder without dis- 

 turbing the rest. There are thiee of these 

 holders in each frame, pivoted at both ends 

 as shown. When the nursery-frame has 

 been tilled with cages, each containing a 

 capped cell, it should be put down in the 

 center of a strong colony. 



While various artificial-heat incubators 

 using kerosene-lamps have been devised i 

 experience has shown a majority of breed" 

 ers that nothing is quite so good as a strong 

 cluster of bees. What is still more, when 

 the young virgins hatch, some of the bees 

 will be inclined to feed them through the 



will be her introduction. After she becomes > 

 four or five days old, even if she be ac- 

 cepted by the bees they are likely to mis- 

 treat her so that her usefulness thereafter 

 will be greatly impaired. While it is possi- 

 be to introduce these virgins to full-sized 

 colonies it is not practicable. It is practi- 

 cable to introduce them to baby nuclei, if 

 not too old. See Introducing Virgin 

 Queens, under head of Introducing. 



DUAL PLAN OF INTRODUCING VIRGIN 

 QUEENS. 



It sometimes happens that a breeder will 

 have a great surplus of cells, or more virgins 

 than he has queenless nuclei or colonies. 

 In such cases we have found it practicable 

 to introduce two queens at a time. First a 

 virgin, the younger the better, is introduced 

 in a Miller cage to a baby nucleus. After 

 two or three days she should be released; in 

 about four days more, being seven days from 

 the time of caging the first queen, another 

 virgin may be caged among the same bees; 

 but the candy of the second cage through 

 which the bees liberate the queen must be 

 covered with a little strip of tin or the bees 

 will liberate her prematurely. In two days 

 more the first virgin will be mated, and with- 

 in two or three days will begin to lay if the 

 weather is favorable. Then she is removed 

 and sent out to fill an order; the strip of tin 

 covering the candy of the second cage is 

 opened to let the bees release virgin No. 2, 

 and, having already acquired the colony 

 odor, she will usually be accepted in less 

 than a day's time. In about seven days from 

 the time she was caged, a third queen, if 

 there is still a surplus of virgins, may be 

 put into the nucleus while No. 2 is taking 

 her mating-flight, and so the progress may 



