THE REARING OF QUEEN BEES. 11 



this bulletin, but can say that all the methods described have been 

 tried successfull}' by him, either in the apiary of the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology or before entering- the service of that Bureau. The object in 

 writing- such a bulletin is that the successful methods may become 

 better known. In most cases the plans g-iven are somewhat moditied 

 and are not exactly as used by the originators of the various systems. 

 These modifications may not appear to everybody to be improvements, 

 but the}' are such as have seemed desirable either in the work of the 

 apiary of the Bureau, or in the expei'ience of other queen breeders. In 

 giving directions for each part of the work of queen rearing, several 

 methods are described; for it is realized that not all bee keepers can 

 conveniently use the same S3"stem. Where a particular appliance is 

 known commercially under a certain name, that name is used; for in 

 such cases no dispute as to originality can arise and no injustice can be 

 done. The author disclaims any responsibility in giving these names, 

 but emplo3^s those in current use in apicultural literature. None of 

 the appliances which are mentioned in this bulletin are patented and 

 any bee keeper is at libert3'to make them, either in the style described 

 or with any modifications which he sees fit to make. 



The use of some terms which are rather current in bee-keeping lit- 

 erature has been avoided, since several of the more common terms are 

 not only useless but misleading. If the writers on apiculture were to 

 be more careful in the nomenclature of the science, it would do much 

 toward making their descriptions clear, and at the same time apicul- 

 ture would be regarded with more respect by beginners and outsiders. 



An effort has also been made to exclude all discussion which does 

 not have a direct bearing on queen rearing. It is assumed that the 

 reader is familiar with the principles of beekeeping, and consequently 

 it has not seemed necessary to discuss other phases of the work of the 

 bee keeper. 



STARTING QUEEN CELLS. 



The queen cells used by various queen breeders vary greatlj^. 

 Natural queen cells are sometimes used in queen rearing by cutting 

 them from the comb and fastening them with wax to a bar the length 

 of the top bar of the hive. These cells already' stocked with royal 

 jelly, the food of the queen larvte, are ready to use by simply remov- 

 ing the larvffi alread}^ in them and replacing them with larv?e from 

 the breeding queen. There are, however, several objections to such 

 cells. They are far from uniform, and are not easily put into nursery 

 cages when sealed; they are supplied with more royal jell}^ than is 

 necessary; in most cases they are not easil}^ obtained in sufficient 

 number; and, finally, they can not be handled and removed, as can 

 artificial cells. Where such cells are used it is often customary to 

 allow the queens to emerge on the combs of the hive, but this necessi- 

 tates the hunting for young queens, which is a waste of time. 



