160 



THE BEE-KEEPERS REVl 



different colored stamps on the cages of 

 varying sizes; the putting of thein into a 

 basket; the two-miles walk through pas- 

 tures, lanes and forest Ho the post office, 

 the filling of the basket with blackberries 

 on the way home, then the three pairs of 

 litlle feet that came pattering down the 

 road to " meet papa. " But this isn't queen 

 rearing. I thank Mr. .Jones, however, for 

 the plea-<aiit memories ha has awakened, 

 and my readers for their patience in wait- 

 ing so long before being given an opportu- 

 nity to begin on his readable article. Here 

 it is at last. 



^' Friend Root -.—XJudiBT separate cover I 

 am forwari,tm^ you photos illustrating re- 

 sults achieVfd by the ' new-fangled plan ' 

 of qiieeu-rai^ing tiiat you wrote unfavora- 

 bly of in Gleauiugs, July 1, and Aug. 1, 

 189.0. I felt sure that some of your leading 

 breeders would take exceptions to your 

 evident retrogression in going back to the 

 'good old-fashoned way;' but if silence 

 gives consent they must all indorse what you 

 have said, wliich is indeed quite incompre- 

 hensible to me unless conditions for queen- 

 rearing are not identical in our respective 

 countries. 



Your first objection, that the cell-cups 

 are too expensive to make, is soon dispen- 

 sed with-, since there is no necessity for 

 making the caps, as a strip of drone comb, 

 which can be prepared and attached in a 

 couple of minutes, is preferable. I have 

 not made a cell-cup for years, but have 

 raised thousands of qneens on the drone- 

 comb pritici[)le, as per Fitr. 1. In the lower 

 frame you will notice 17 fine large cells 

 completed out of 19 furnished; in the center 

 frame, 17 out of 18 have been accepted; 

 while in the too frame all the cells are in 

 a fairway to success. Could you, by the 

 'good oldfishioued method,' average 

 the same number of flue available cells? 



One big advantage of the ' new-fangled 

 plan ' is that you know that all queens are 

 started from young lar\{e. and will, there- 

 fore, be fully developed. You cai. also tell 

 to within a few hours when the queens will 

 hatch, if yon have been careful to utilize 

 larvpe of only the right age, and experience 

 will soon teach you this. By the method 

 you follow, of allowing the bees to build 

 their own cells as they wish in colonies 

 from which you have removed breeders, 

 the cells must, to make a sure thing of it, 

 be cut out on the tenth day, and will then 

 contiime to hatch up to the sixtf-enth. In- 

 stead of the lot in al>ont ll^o da\s, and yon 

 can figure out what a vast difference in the 

 net results this variation in time must make 

 where over ITOO per annum are raised. 

 Then, again, these drone-cell cui)3, by be- 

 ing built all together in one compact clus- 

 ter, require fewer bees to maintain the 

 requsite temperature; the cells are not join- 

 ed together so that they cannot be separated 

 without destroying one or more cells, and 

 there is no mutilation of brood combs. 



Another good feature about these cells is 

 the ease with which they all fit into the West 

 cell-protectors, just as if they were built to 

 order; and I may mention that I would 

 just as soon think of producing extracted 

 honey with an old one-frame honey-slinger 

 as to raise queens in quanity without the aid 

 of cell-{)rotectors and cages. I give a ripe 

 cell in one of these cages at the same time 

 that I remove the reigning queen; but when 

 sending off young queens that nave been 

 laying only a few days I usually giv& a vir- 

 gin queen from one to three days old, liber- 

 ating her right on the combs at the same 

 time, and have very few destroyed. Look 

 at the lower row of cells in Fig. 1, which 

 are within 2 1 hours of Ijatching, and you will 

 notice that they are so much surrounded 

 with coinli that only the points of the cells 

 are visible: and I find that, when used with- 

 out protectors, they ari less liable to be torn 

 down than the ordinary cells, as the thick 

 incrustation of comb protects them. In re- 

 moving these cells from the bar I place my 

 queen-cell knife on the hot barrel of the 

 smoker for a few seconds, and then cut off 

 the whole row of cells as easily as cutting 

 butter; the warm knife is then slipped be- 

 tween each cell, dividing them ready for the 

 cages. I can assure you that it is a pleas- 

 ure to handle these cells after those built 

 hap-hazard on the combs. I don't know 

 whether you have ever tried this drone-cell 

 plan; but in any case I will describe briefly 

 the modufi operandi. 



Toward the e d of winter I select several 

 of my finest colonies as drone- producers, 

 and, after removing the lids, place an empty 

 super on each, and then cover the frames 

 with good thick cushions stuffed with cotton, 

 and then on top of each super I lay a sheet 

 of glass. We usually have bright cloudless 

 days, and the increased warmth thus gen- 

 erated induces the bees to breed more rap- 

 idly, and I thus manage to secure thousands 

 of fine dro'tes much earlier that I otherwise 

 should. When the weather becomes warmer, 

 and the strength of the colony will admit 

 of it, the glass is dispensed with. A zinc 

 honey- board is placed on, and the bees in- 

 duced to work in the upper story, and are 

 then devoted to '•orapleting cells as per 

 photo. Sometimes I place the prepared cells 

 at once into these upper stories, but usually 

 place them in a s'rong queenless colony for 

 a couple of days before placing them in the 

 upper story, by which method very few 

 cells will be refused, and results identical 

 with those shown in the photo will be 

 achieved. 



To prepare these cells I cut off a row of 

 drone-ceils, and then cut them down to 

 about J4 iiicli in depth, after wiiich I attach 

 them to the bar with melted wax. A little 

 royal jelly is then placed in each cell nice- 

 ly, at the bottom. Next I obtain a frame 

 containing newly hatched larvse from one 

 of my choice breeders, and then, seating 

 myself in a chair in front of a strong light, 

 I place a sheet of paper on my knees, and 

 on this lay the frame of brood, and transfer 

 the larvie as per fig. 2. The center bar be- 

 ing secured by one nail only at each end, is 



