QUEEN-REARING. 



35H 



QUEEN-REARING. 



continue so long as there is a surplus of 

 virgins. 



This is really high-pressure queen-rearing, 

 and should be practiced only when there is 

 a surplus of virgins, or when there are rush 

 orders for cheap queens. We say cheap 

 queens, because the queens introduced on 

 the dual plan may or may not be the equal 

 of those introduced in the regular way where 

 a single queen is introduced at a time and is 

 confined in a cage not more than a couple of 

 days. If the virgin is very young, just 

 hatched, and the nucleus has been queenless 

 a couple of days, she can be let loose into 

 the entrance of the hive without any caging; 

 but care should be taken not to allow her to 

 touch the hands, for the scent of the human 

 body sometimes causes the bees to attack 

 and kill her. 



WEST QUEEN- CELL PROTECTOR. 



Some queen breeders prefer to give ripe 

 queen-cells to their nuclei direct, claiming 

 that too many of the virgins that they intro- 

 duce anywhere from one to four and five 

 days old are lost. It is doubtless true, the 

 average beginner will succeed better with 

 cells than with virgins; but if cells be given 

 make sure that the nuclei are strong in bees. 

 In some cases it will be necessary to use 

 West queen-cell protectors to keep the bees 

 from gnawing holes into them. 



The long spiral cage shown at the right is 

 designed to slip under the queen-cell pro- 

 tector, and when the young queen hatches 

 out she will pass into the long cage, where 

 she can be held secure from bees or other 

 virgins in the colony that might kill her. 



BABY NUCLEI, AND HOW TO MATE QUEENS 

 IN LARGE NUMBERS. 



After securing a large lot of nice cells in 



the cages already shown and described, it is 



next in order for us to consider the mating 



box or hive. As already explained, one can 



12 



use one or two full-sized Langstroth frames 

 and put them in a three-frame box or hive, 

 or in a full-sized hive, by using a division- 

 board to reduce the space; or, better still, 

 take an eight-frame hive-body and divide it 

 off into three equal compartments by insert- 

 ing two tight-fitting division-boards length- 

 wise that will reach clear up to the cover. 

 Each compartment will then be just wide 

 enough to take two full-sized Langstroth 

 frames. The under side of this hive should 

 have a wire-cloth bottom, for reasons to 

 be given later. The two outside compart- 

 ments should each have an entrance, one on 

 each side of the hive along the center. The 

 center compartment should have one at the 

 rear of the hive-body. These entrances 

 should be made with a half-inch bit, and 

 have a cleat nailed just below, forming a 

 narrow doorstep. 



When complete we shall have an ordinary 

 eight-frame hive-body with wire-cloth bot- 

 tom, having three two-frame divisions with 

 an entrance on each side and one in the rear. 

 Each of these compartments is to receive 

 two frames of brood and bees, after which it 

 is set over a strong colony of bees. The heat 

 passing from the bees beneath will keep the 

 three clusters above perfectly warm, no mat- 



TWIN-NITCLEI FHA]ME. 



ter if the weather should be a little cool. 

 Queens or cells may be given to each one of 

 these nuclei, as already explained, and 

 queens will be mated from the iipper story 

 in the regular way. Where the climate is a 

 little uncertain and the season short, there 

 is nothing better than this divided-ofl upper 

 story. * 



But where one desires to secure the larg- 

 est number of queens possible from a given 

 force of bees, a twin-mating nucleus on a 

 much smaller scale is to be preferred. 



The illustration shows one the authors use. 

 It is just right so that one of its compart- 



