230 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



to let the light fall into the deep worker- 

 cells it may be necessary to tip up slightly 

 the brood-comb (board and all). I then se- 

 lect a larva of proper age or size, insert the 

 little brush into the cell containing it, and, 

 by a twisting motion, pick up the larva 

 which adheres to the tip of the brush. It 

 is then transferred to one of the artificial 

 cups by my side. With a twisting motion 

 the brush is quickly withdrawn and the 

 job is done. Each cup is thus stocked up. 

 The comb of brood is then returned to the 

 colony it was taken from. 



A colony which is making preparations 

 to swarm is well suited to build our cells, 

 or, in other words, rear our queens; but in 

 order to be on the sure side I always re- 

 move the queen from such a one, and also 

 several of the brood combs. Those that are 

 left have to be looked over for cells once or 

 twice, till the danger of cells being started 

 on them is past. Immediately after the 

 queen has been removed, a vacant place for 

 one comb is made in the center of the brood- 

 nest. A brood-frame is so fitted by cutting 

 notches in the end-bars on the inside as 

 to admit the insertion of three or even four 

 bars parallel with the top-bar, the first one 

 being about fi inch below the top-bar, the 

 next one 2 inches below the first one, the 

 third one 2 inches lower than the second, etc. 

 These middle bars, as I call them, are pro- 

 vided their whole length with narrow strips 

 of comb, and to these are glued artificial 

 queen-cups (from 15 to 18). The strip of 

 comb is used in order that the queen-cells, 

 when ripe, may be easily cut from their 

 bars without any risk of injuring the cells. 

 Only one bar with its 15 or 18 cells is given 

 to the prepared colony at this time or at one 

 time. These cups have been provided witli 

 a little jelly before they were stocked up 

 with young larva;. The queenless bees are 

 very apt to accept about every larva given, 

 and will at once proceed to lengthen out the 

 cells and feed the larvje. 



If a great many cells are wanted as 

 quickly as possible, such accepted cells 

 may be given to any other colony to finish. 

 Said colony should have brood in an upper 

 story with queen-excluder between lower 

 and upper, and queen in the lower. The 

 colony from which the accepted cells are 

 taken must then be supplied with a second 

 set of newly stocked-up cups, which, when 

 accepted, may be removed and finished by 

 another colony, etc. Ordinarily I make the 

 queenless colonj' not only start but also fin- 

 ish the cells. In this case a new set of 

 stocked-up cups are given every third day, 

 so that, after a while, there will be cells of 

 various ages in this one hive. It is very 

 necessary that a careful record be kept of 

 these cells; and as soon as they have come 

 near maturity they must be removed. 



The arrangement, as I have described it, 

 makes this removal very easy. All we have 

 to do is to slip out the bar with cells at- 

 tached; and, if we are ready for it, insert 

 another in its place with fresh queen-cups, 

 as spoken of several times before. A colo- 



ny may be kept at building cells in this 

 way for a long time, providing a comb of 

 brood is given it from time to time. It goes 

 without saying that these combs must also 

 be kept track of, for it is not impossible 

 that cells may be started on them by the 

 bees in addition to those we give them. 



On the eighth or ninth day after giving a 

 comb of brood the same is looked over, and 

 what cells may have been started are re- 

 moved. It is, however, rare that any are 

 found. The bees seem to be satisfied with 

 those artificial cells we give them from 

 time to time. 



We have now gotten as far as to have the 

 cells, some of them, near maturity. After 

 having had some experience in the matter 

 of selecting larvas for queen-rearing we 

 shall be able to select such as are of prop- 

 er and uniform age, and we shall also be 

 able to determine very nearly when each 

 set of cells will hatch. We all know the 

 raising or producing of the cells is the most 

 inexpensive part of the business. The ex- 

 pensive part is having our young queens 

 fertilized. I was once very enthusiastic on 

 the Doolittle plan of getting the queens fer- 

 tilized from upper stories with full normal 

 colonies below. Now, while I have not been 

 successful practically in this I will relate 

 briefly how I proceeded. It may prevent 

 some one going over the same ground, and 

 be saving money and time; or some one may 

 be able to tell me or suggest why I have 

 failed, and give the remedy. 



The upper stories, as I i»sed them, were 

 made as follows: They were half-storj' 

 bodies, divided into three compartments by 

 wood division - boards nailed in solidly. 

 Each division or chamber was sufficient to 

 hold two or three combs. Each wood di- 

 vision-board had a piece of queen-exclud- 

 ing zinc inserted. There was also a zinc 

 excluder nailed under each story, so there 

 was a connection, vertically, between the 

 brood-chamber and these apartments above 

 as well as laterally between the apart- 

 ments. For the sake of experiment, some 

 of the upper stories had the centriil cham- 

 ber on/y connected by zinc with the brood- 

 nest below. Wire screen was used to pre- 

 vent any direct connection between the out- 

 side chambers above and the brood-nest be- 

 low. By not putting a queen into these 

 central chambers you can readily see a 

 queen can in no way meet another queen 

 except by having fine-meshed wire screen 

 between them. I had great faith in this 

 last arrangement if not in the other. In 

 addition to this I also tried these queen-fer- 

 tilizing chambers on colonies that had cast 

 swarms, so that there were on/y young 

 queens in the hive. I stocked up a number 

 of these chambers. Some I placed on top 

 of supers where bees were working in sec- 

 tions. While I succeeded in getting a few 

 queens fertilized, on the whole it was a fail- 

 ure, and for years I have made no use of 

 the fertilizing stories or bodies. In fact, I 

 have not hit on any plan {//le Swarthmore 

 included) by which to get queens fertilized, 



