60 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the frames; your bees will not cluster up there, you will have to take 

 care of them until the period of hatching. If you take and spread the 

 combs and put the cell down between the combs, why, they cluster 

 there and care for it and keep it warmer than they would otherwise, 

 but I found in that case where I spread the frames a little bit like that, 

 and there is honey coming in, it will cause quite a good deal of trouble 

 when you take the cells out to put the combs back in place; if I could 

 do that I could get just about as good results with quite a good deal 

 less trouble. 



Mr. Seastream. — Under the head of re-queening, I have tried 

 that a number of years myself. The way I proceeded, I have not any 

 trouble about any combs. I simply take the queen cell and cell pro- 

 tector and put them in the center of the hive, the brood chanber. If 

 there are excluders, I put them below one of the excluers. I simply 

 jam the two frames together like they were before the queen hatches. 

 I can take those year out and year in, and I lose four or five per cent, 

 but I would not lose it if they raise a queen of their own in place of the 

 one I put in the hive. 



Mr. Dadant. — I though I had one or two suggestions, but similar 

 suggestions have been made by others. If you want to raise a large 

 number of queen cells, Dr. Miller's method is certainly the best. Pre- 

 vious to raising the queen cells he takes a frame in which he places 

 foundation that is cut in a zigzag way. He puts that in the hive where 

 the select queen is. The bees do not lengthen it much before she 

 fills it with eggs. When the first eggs hatch into larvae, take out this 

 comb and insert it in the queenless hive from which you intend to 

 rear queen cells. It is all young larvae or eggs and since the comb is 

 not fully built the bees will readily find room for their queen cells. On 

 a full comb of brood, on old comb, there is less room for them to rear 

 cells; but when you give them a comb only partly built and new, they 

 build cells on it readily. 



As to the time of introducing cells, it should be done on the tenth 

 day after the giving of brood to the queenless colony, for the queens 

 often begin to hatch on the tenth day, if they have been reared foom 

 larvae 3 days old and some of the finest queens that I ever raised 

 hatched on the tenth day. 



So if you make nuclei or swarms by division, you should prepare 

 them on the ninth day after starting your queen rearing. Then the 

 next day, the tenth, insert youi" queen cells. We place them in a V 

 shaped opening right in the center of a brood comb. 



The method of rearing queens in the super is the modern one and 

 I have never practiced it because I quit queen-rearing about 25 years 

 ago. 



I have not had any success in introducing virgin queens. Our 

 Dr. Miller says, where the question is asked him, that he is not any too 

 sure in introducing virgin queens and I say the same thing. I have 

 failed oftener than I have succeeded and I believe that introducing 

 them when they are less than 24 hours old is the best way. I would 

 rather introduce the queen just as she comes out, or a very short time 

 after, but I prefer to introduce queen cells. Introducing cells right 

 in the frame, right in the middle of the brood, I think is the best thing 



