1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



45 



FIG. 4— BEN G DAVIS' QUEEN REARING YARD 



full colonies. The nuclei in the yard 

 where the goldens are reared seemed 

 plenty strong to winter as they were. 

 Every effort is made to rear queens 

 under natural conditions. 



Colonies to be used for cell build- 

 ing are first built up until they are 



Fig 5 —All Cells are Built and Fin- 

 ished IN Veky Strong Colonies 



very strong. The queen and all the 

 brood is then taken away. The nurse 

 bees having no brood to care for will 

 accept big batches of cells and few 

 of them will fail. As soon as the 

 cells are well started they are taken 

 from the cell starting colonies and 

 given to a strong double story colony 

 where they are finished above an 

 excluder. As soon as the first lot is 

 taken from the cell building colony 

 another lot is given them. If the 

 same colony is used for cell building 

 for any length of time it is given 

 frames of sealed brood to supply it 

 with a large force of newly emerged 

 workers to act as nurses. Cell build- 

 ing colonies are not allowed unsealed 

 brood at any time, as the design is 



in every bit of the work will not usual- 

 ly last long in the queen rearing 

 game. The public is exacting In Its 

 demand.s and it is only a high class 

 product that will continue to bring 

 the repeated orders year after year 

 that make a qucon business pro- 

 fitable. While the increasing Inter- 

 est in the business of beekeeping and 

 the increasing number of beekeepers 

 who buy rather than rear their queens 

 insures the permanence of the queen 

 breeding business, the man who is 

 not regular in his habits, careful .as 

 to details and painstaking in all his 

 work will do better to stick to honey 

 production than to take up queen 

 breeding. On the other hand the 

 specialist who can meet the condi- 

 tions finds queen rearing a fascinat- 

 ing and profitable line of work. 



to center all their attention on the 

 building of queen cells. Fig 7 shows 

 37 nicely finished cells in one lot. 



I was somewhat surprised to find 

 both father and son following the 

 Alley plan, modified of course until 

 it really is the Davis plan. They long 

 ago tried the Doolittle cell cup meth- 

 od and abandoned it as unsatisfac- 

 tory with their system. They use 

 drone comb as a foundation for the 

 cells. The combs are cut down until 

 the cells are very shallow as prac- 

 ticed by Alley and the larvae grafted 

 into them as is usual with the other 

 methods. For grafting they use the 

 youngest larvae, never over twelve 

 hours old. 



Their cell block for holding the 

 ripe cells which are ready for the 

 nuclei is something not often seen In 

 queen yards. It is shown at figure 

 8. The block has two dozen cavities 

 which hold the cells right side up. 

 On the eleventh day the cells are 

 taken from the finishing colony and 

 cut apart with a sharp knife. Cells 

 built by the Alley plan are often 

 built so close together that some care 

 is necessary to cut them apart with- 

 out injuring the young queens. As 

 the cells are taken from the frame 

 they are placed right side up in the 

 cell block. This block is carried 

 from hive to hive and is always con- 

 venient. The cells are fastened to 

 the side of the center combs in the 

 nuclei where the young queens are 

 to be mated. 



Queen breeding is one of the most 

 exacting branches of the business of 

 beekeeping. It is necessary to plan 

 eleven days ahead all the time and 

 to avoid having queen cells ready to 

 transfer on Sundays or holidays when 

 one wishes to be away from the yard. 

 Stormy days will often make it dif- 

 dicult to transfer cells that are ready 

 or to graft new ones. To graft cells, 

 transfer them to nuclei, and cage 

 and mail eight to ten thousand queens 

 in a season is a mighty busy Job if 

 the work is properly done. The 

 breeder who does not use great care 



Fig, 6 The Cells are Finished Above 



AN Excluder With Queen Below 



Fig. 7.— a Batch of 37 Finished Cells 



