bearing evidences of the success of the 

 operation, I remove her, put in anotlier 

 drone, and open another cajje. If a queen 

 does not come up in a lialf liour or so, 1 con- 

 clude siie is not anxious, and sliut lier up to 

 try another time. If 1 liavegood lucl^ I can 

 get throuf^ii witli a dozen in an afternoon, 

 and with all in three days. But I have 

 neverdone quite so well as that. Ordinarily, 

 it takes 5 or 6 days to^et themostoi a batch 

 fertilized, and there will be some that seem 

 to get started wrong, and they have to be 

 put back several times, and finally starve to 

 death before theylare fertilized, or get too old 

 to care about it longer, and have to be thrown 

 away at last. Two or three times, when 1 

 have felt real lazy and had not much to do, 

 I have sat down and watched the process, 

 but one requires a good deal of patience to 

 do it. It is as bad as fishing. First, the 

 queen sits down on the side of tlie box and 

 rubs herself indefinitely. She has a little 

 honey on her likely. Finally, she begins 

 to get clean and she takes a fiy up toward 

 the glass. Just then the drone is exploring 

 the bottom of the box, or has gone down 

 into the cage and stays provokiugly. By 

 and by the queen gets tired of flying, and 

 settles on the bottom and rubs herself 

 again. Now the drone comes up, he crawls 

 around the bottom of the box, not deigning 

 to notice the queen. Then he stands still, 

 and she begins to tramp in a very excited 

 manner; but she seems to ignore the presence 

 of the drone, and he hers. But stop ! there, 

 she has found him. She caresses him, 

 walks over him back and forth, pushes him 

 around and pushes herself under him, and 

 you are all awake, thinking the critical 

 moment lias come; but there the unfeeling 

 brute stands, perfectly stupid and impassive, 

 and you feel like taking him out and pinch- 

 ing his head. By-and-by, he gets up and 

 flies to the glass for a little exercise, for var- 

 iety. Now the queen is at the bottom, still 

 further smoothing her exterior. You are 

 disgusted, and conclude you will go and 

 take a drink— of water, of course. After a 

 while you walk leisurely back- and there, as 

 sure as fate, lies the drone on the bottom 

 dead, and the queen is running about 

 wriggling and rubbing herself with the well- 

 known appendage attached, and the affair 

 is over. You probably call yourself a fool, 

 and resolve that the next time " you'll be in 

 at the death." 



You fix things again and watch, with a 

 repetition of former experiences, till, all at 

 once, you notice in one of the boxes a 

 queen and a drone flying at the same time, 

 now, again, you are all eagerness; but the 

 drone persists in flying toward one corner, 

 till he IS tired and settles. The queen con- 

 tinues flying a while longer and she settles, 

 just as the dioue is ready to rise again. So 

 the thing goes on till you begin to think 

 that it was all a matter of chance before, 

 and you don't believe it would happen 

 again in a month, when all at once they are 

 both up near the glass again. They turn 

 toward each other an instant— there is a 

 great commotion. They go dashing against 

 the top and the sides and the bottom of the 

 box, around and around— you can't see 

 them — you can only hear' — till suddenly the 

 drone lies dead, and the queen is running 



uneasily around, and the thing is accom- 

 plished. It all took place before your eyes^ 

 but you saw nothing. You cannot tell who- 

 began it, nor anything of the position, nor 

 how the queen tore herself loose. I've seen 

 the operation twice in a box, and once on a 

 window, but can answer none of these 

 questions. 



You will undoubtedly ask me if I con- 

 sider the plan perfectly practicable and 

 satisfactory. Well, sonietiiiies 1 do, and 

 sometimes I don't. Last fall I had such 

 excellent success with it, that I thought it 

 left nothing to be desired; but during t/iis 

 execrable season I have had so nmch 

 trouble and annoyance and loss with it, that 

 at one time I had concluded to abandon it 

 entirely, and go back to nuclei for raising 

 queens, and to try and perfect some method 

 of fertilization, if possible, in connectiou 

 with them. But aftersufferiiigmoretrouble 

 and annoyance and loss with the 7iuclei. I 

 concluded to try my cages once more, and 

 lately have had good success with them 

 with Cyprian queens. 



You ask. What is the trouble ? It begins 

 here. You have a lot of cells 9 days old. 

 You wish to let them get as old as possible 

 before putting them into the cages, and you 

 conclude you will risk them a couple of days 

 yet, keeping a strict watch over them in the 

 hieaiitime. Have you not noticed that such 

 a state of things was sure to bring on a cold 

 rain storm this summer, a week long, so 

 that you could not get into a hive even with 

 an umbrella ? And, of course, when the 

 rain clears off one queen has hatched and 

 all the other cells have a neat little hole in 

 the side, and your great expectations have 

 vanished. You start a lot more from larva, 

 all hatched the same day, so the queens will 

 come out all about the same time, and you 

 double and quadruple the number, and 

 start them in succession so that if you lose 

 most, some, at least, will come out between 

 storms— it can't rain all the time, even this 

 summer— and at last you have a supply of 

 cells for your cages. Now the young queens 

 are all hatched and just old enough for you 

 to begin to get them fertilized. This is 

 another condition of affairs which this year 

 has brought rain as certainly as 4th of July 

 used to do, when we were boys. It rains 

 and rains for 3 or 4 days, then it stops, and 

 is overcast for a couple' of days more, then 

 another storm cominences. and before you 

 get sun-light to bring your queens out, they 

 are all starved in the cages, or the few 

 remnants are too old to operate upon sucess- 

 fully. This thing has happened with me 

 over and over again the past season. 



Then, again, the queens are difficult to be 

 introduced. Within half an hour after they 

 are fertilized they may be taken out and 

 suffered to run into the entrance of any 

 queenless hive with perfect safety; but if 

 you cage them again, and keep them beyond 

 this time, it is almost impossible to intro- 

 duce them in any way that I know of. They 

 seem to be worse than virgins. I have 

 introduced virgin queens from the Jewell 

 Davis nursery cages, by the Mitchell plan,, 

 to nuclei, without a loss of more than 3 out 

 of 12; but by the same plan of introducing, 

 1 have, every time this summer that 1 have 

 tried, lost more than half, and out of one 



