90 Farmers’ Bulletin 1216. 
beginning of the buckwheat honey-flow, for there is not room in a 
single 10-frame Langstroth hive to provide for the adequate devel- 
opment of the colony population and at the same time leave with the 
bees the requisite stores for full brood-rearing. 
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SUPPLYING YOUNG QUEENS. 
It is impossible in the space of this bulletin to give full directions 
for queen-rearing, but these directions are given in the various books 
on beekeeping, to which the reader must be referred. The beekeeper 
in the buckwheat region can not well afford to depend on the pur- 
chase of queens from queen-breeders for requeening all of his colo- 
nies, nor can he get the full honey-crop unless he requeens his 
colonies from good Italian stock reared in his own apiaries every 
year. Even though it were possible, the beekeeper could not afford 
to requeen before June 1, for that would interfere with the rearing 
of the large amount of brood necessary for combating European 
foulbrood. He must also not interrupt the rearing of brood after 
August 15, as this would interfere with the development of the 
winter colony. He is therefore limited to the period between June 
1 and August 15, and will choose the particular time during this 
period when the stoppage of egg-laying will interfere the least with 
the development of the full colony for the buckwheat harvest. As 
has been stated previously, to accomplish this the young queens 
should be laying by June 15 to 20, and this determines the time when 
the colonies should be requeened. 
To have these queens on hand at the proper time for dividing the 
colonies as described, the most economical method is to rear a large 
number of queencells and to introduce these just before emergence, 
thus utilizing the colonies for mating purposes instead of making 
many nuclei for this purpose. It will be desirable to make enough 
nuclei to replace those queens which are lost during mating (about 
20 per cent). The number lost may be reduced by a proper arrange- 
ment of the apiary to avoid confusion of the returning young queens 
after their mating flights. These nuclei may be united with the 
colonies whose queens fail to mate, their queens thus being given 
them at the same time. 
UNITING PORTIONS OF ORIGINAL COLONIES. 
If permanent increase in the number of colonies is not desired, the 
expense of rearing the winter bees in half the colonies may be saved 
by uniting the portions of the original colonies now placed on ad- 
jacent stands by the system here outlined. About August 15 (eight 
weeks before brood-rearing ceases), place the supers of the colony 
having the old queen on top of the one on the adjacent hive (having 
