116 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



combs, will make it an easy job. Please to take note 

 of It, and inquire into these double-queen stocks, 

 and see if the bees from them won't take a queen 

 quicker than others do. I know that the two-queen 

 strain is not hard to establish. I know of 4 queens, 

 daughters of one I owned in '78, that, during- the 

 past season, would furnish young' queens if left to 

 themselves. One thing more: Last year you was 

 fast on artificial queen-cells, and G. M. D. infers that 

 a queen-cell built by old bees is of not much worth; 

 also you infer, in the notes connected thereto, that 

 if we could get the queen to lay in queen-cells, we 

 might get better queens. It's no trouble togt't them 

 to do that. My trouble is to stop their laying in 

 them. If you think queens from the eggs laid in 

 queen-cells are best, we can just try the difference 

 this season. What do you say to that? 



H. L. Jeffrey. 

 Woodbury, Litchfield Co., Ct., Jan. 21, 1880. 



I think you are on the right track, friend 

 J., and I have no doubt but that we may be 

 able, in a very little time, to produce queens 

 whose progeny will gather honey many times 

 when our present bees do not, and which will 

 also rear extra queens in their hives, that we 

 may have no colonies queenless for queen- 

 rearing. Still farther, — and, from my own 

 experiments, I feel more sure of this last 

 point than of either of the others, — I think 

 we may have stocks that will receive almost 

 any queen at almost any time, without any 

 introducing at all. Simply take out one 

 queen and put in another, as often as it may 

 be desirable. Every summer we find colo- 

 nies whose bees will not injure any queen. 



SELECT QUEEN REARING. NO. 2. 



fjjIRST, it may be well to know when to begin. If 

 one is in special need of queens, it might be 

 desirable to commence stimulative feeding as 

 early as March or April; but, ordinarily, to raise 

 good, vigorous queens, I would not commence oper- 

 ations until the bees are gathering plenty of honey. 



Secondly, when the good time comes, remove the 

 queen, eggs, and all uncapped brood from the colo- 

 nies which you purpose to employ in queen raising. 

 These queens you may utilize in starting new colo- 

 nies. Then furnish eggs or newly hatched larva? 

 from your select queens,— either a frame, or a strip 

 of comb an inch wide and 3 or 4 inches long, contain- 

 ing the eggs or newly hatched larvae, to insert in 

 your queenless colonies. Care should be taken that 

 the inserted larvae are not too old. If 4 or 5 days old 

 when started in the queen cells, you may have 

 queens hatching in 9 or 10 days, that may be worse 

 than useless, being half queens and half workers. 

 Perhaps they will become fertilized, and lay eggs a 

 short time; perhaps they will never lay, but will re- 

 main in the hive all summer, if permitted, and will 

 not allow any other queen to be introduced, and 

 tear down all the queen cells you insert. Have you 

 ever been troubled with one of these pests? I know 

 who has, and I also know that it is difficult to find 

 them. To avoid this trouble, get eggs or recently 

 hatched larvas into your breeding hives. In about 

 13 days, your queen cells arc ready to be distributed 

 in your nucleus hives. 



Now we may suppose you have a goodly number 

 of queen cells, and as many little hives each adapted 

 to hold two or three of the ordinary sized frames of 



your apiary. Then go to a strong colony from which 

 to make 4 or 5 nucleus colonies. You want first to 

 find the queen. Examine carefully each frame that 

 you take out; if you do not And her, place the frame 

 in a nucleus hive, and examine the next frame, 

 placing each frame in a separate little hive. Pro- 

 ceed thus until you have found the queen. Put her, 

 with the comb she is on, into an empty hive. Then 

 you can proceed to insert a queen cell in each of the 

 other combs, plaoing each one in a separate nucleus 

 hive (or in your ordinary hive contracted with divi- 

 sion board), with some hatching brood, bees, and 

 honey. It may be well to insert the queen cell near 

 the center of the frame, as there may not be enough 

 bees to cover the whole comb, consequently queen 

 cells on the outer edges might become chilled, and 

 hatching be prevented. 



Care should be taken in cutting out and inserting 

 queen cells, not to indent them in any way, and also 

 to have the pieces fit nicely. If not done neatly, the 

 bees may become dissatisfied with your awkward 

 work and tear it down. Novice, whose head is full 

 of good thoughts on apiculture, speaks of a little 

 cake cutter with sharpened edge to mark the shape 

 and size of the piece to be cut out, and its counter- 

 part to be inserted. The operation should be per- 

 formed with a sharp pen-knife, having a thin narrow 

 blade. In 2 or 3 days, you may look out for a batch 

 of extra good queens. This operation may be ex- 

 tended to the utmost capacity of your choice queens, 

 and your strong colonies to bo divided into nuclei. 

 The queenless colonies that you employ to start 

 queen cells must be kept strong, by giving them 

 capped brood occasionally. 



If this mode of queen raising, which is perhaps the 

 most generally adopted by experts, does not meet 

 your demands, then we would refer you to the arti- 

 ficial method which you may find described in the 

 A B C of Bee Culture, under the head of "Lamp 

 Nursery." J. Ashwouth. 



Lansing, Mich., Feb. 5, 1880. 



Now, friend A., I have a little fault to find, 

 not with your directions, and perhaps not 

 with you at all. It is this: Some of you 

 folks at Lansing, Mich., our friend Cook 

 particularly, have condemned dollar queens, 

 in the strongest terms. Well, when you pro- 

 posed to write some directions for queen 

 rearing, as you hailed from Lansing, Mich., 

 I congratulated myself upon the prospect of 

 being told just how to raise queens worth $4 

 or $5 apiece, and, after reading your direc- 

 tions through very carefully, I am disap- 

 pointed to find that it is exactly as we do 

 raise queens, and precisely the plan I have 

 given in the ABC. We can raise queens 

 on that plan not only for a dollar, but, for 

 orders by the hundred, for 60c, without any 

 trouble at all. The lamp nursery in no way 

 changes the result, for it takes only capped 

 cells. There are a few who still insist that 

 we cannot raise good queens for a dollar. 

 Well, what more should we do, if we were 

 going to raise $5.00 queens? Doolittle has 

 given one idea on the subject, in saying that 

 we must get cells from some colony that has 

 produced them under the natural swarming 

 impulse, without being queenless. Such 

 queens, without doubt, will cost more, but 

 has it been proved that they are any better 

 than those raised by the plan just given, af- 

 ter all? 



