THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



ony accomplishes in the natural course of 

 thinss and by native impulse, in common hives, 

 we must endeavor to secnre in movable comb 

 liives b}!- skilful iutcrference and judicious man- 

 agement. Hence, the primary requisite is that 

 the colony must immediately receive a young 

 and fertile queen ; and with such we can sup- 

 ply it artificially, much more expeditiously than 

 a colony, having sent forth a swarm, obtains 

 one by the natural process. Moreover, we pre- 

 vent swarming — thus maintaining the populous- 

 ness of the colony unimpaired, and enabling it 

 to take full advantage of the honey season, in 

 the gathering and accumulation of stores. Thus, 

 though a colony which sent forth a natural 

 swarm and lias in due course obtained a young 

 and fertile queen can accomplish much; another, 

 in a movable comb hive, which has, by proper 

 management, been placed and kept in similar 

 conditions, must and will, in an equally favora- 

 ble localit}^, unquestionably accomplish more ; 

 because it retains all its working force uninter- 

 uptedly, and is more speedily supplied with a 

 young fertile queen This certainly will be the 

 result, with proper management. But to pro- 

 vide a colony with a young queen, it becomes 

 necessary to remove the old one. This we pro- 

 ceed to do, as soon as the population has so 

 increased that the brood extends down almost 

 to the lower margin of the combs, and there is 

 reason to expect plenty of pasturage soon. We 

 must previously, however, have made arrange- 

 ments to have a supply of nearly mature queen 

 cells ready, on the day prior to the unqueeuing 

 of our colony. There are various methods of 

 effecting this. One of the simplest is to prepare 

 a nucleus colony for rearing queens, marking 

 the day when tlie queen cells are sealed, and 

 then removing them at the proper time. From 

 the time of the sealing of the cells to the emerg- 

 ing of the queen, seven days commonly elapse ; 

 but the cells are usually in the pioper condition 

 for removal on the fourth day after sealing. On 

 the second or third d»y after the sealing of the 

 queen cells in the nucleus, I remove the queen 

 from the old colony. In a populous colony it is 

 not always easj' to find her. In such case, I 

 proceed thus : I open the hive and lift out a 

 brood comb from near the middle of the brood- 

 ing space. If the queen is found on that comb, 

 all right ; the removal is quickly effected, and 

 there is no further trouble. But we are not 

 always so fortunate in our search, and if the 

 queen is not found on that comb, I lift out the 

 division board from between the brood combs 

 and the store comls, introduce the removed 

 comb there, and insert a frame with empty comb 

 in the place left vacant by the transfer. The 

 queen, in the course of her daily perambula- 

 tioHsin the hive, will find this empty comb, 

 and having already felt herself cramped tor 

 room to deposit her eges, at once takes posses- 

 sion ; and she will be the more active in sup- 

 plying the cells with eggs, as she has an instinct- 

 ive desire to fill up all vacancies in the brood- 

 ing space. Hence, on lifting out this comb 

 next day, the queen is almost invariably found 

 on it, or will be found there in th» course of an 

 hour or two. But before commencing the uu- 

 queening operation, I make some other required 



preliminary arrangements. I take a nucleus 

 hive adapted to rec ive four combs and place 

 therein two frames furnished with guide comb, 

 and one frame built one-half or nearly two- 

 thirds full, containing about two pounds of 

 honey in the cells. This leaves room for the 

 insertion of a fourth comb. I place this nucleus 

 hive in some convenient spot near the colony 

 to be unqueened. When I find the queen on 

 the inserted decoy comb, I remove from the 

 hive a comb containing brood nearly mature, 

 place the captured queen on it, and insert it 

 with all its adhering bees in the nucleus hive. 

 I now lift out several other frames from the 

 parent colony, brush off the bees from the 

 coml)s in front of the nucleus hive, and return 

 the frames to their place in the old hive. The 

 bees brushed off readily enter the nucleus hive, 

 and rejoin their queen. After having thus 

 obtained a sufficient stock of bees, I close the 

 entrance, and carry the nucleus hive to my cel- 

 lar, wlieie it is left folir or five daj'^s ; or I send 

 it to some distant place in the evening. On the 

 fifth day I return it to the apiary, giving it a new 

 location, and allowing the bees to fly. Some of 

 the older ones will return to their former quar- 

 ters, but the greater number will adhere to their 

 old queen and soon begin to work. On the day 

 after the unqueeuing I again open the parent 

 hive, lift out a comb containing brood, and 

 insert a queen cell in it, without brushing off 

 the bees. A queen CoU thus inserted in the 

 middle of the brood spacB is almost invariably 

 accepted— none have ever been destroyed for 

 me. But still, as we can never feel entirely 

 secure that the bees will not thwart our best 

 devised plans, I lilt out the comb again in the 

 evening or next morning, to assure myself that 

 the cell has been properly fastened, or to insert 

 another in case it has been destroyed'. I exam- 

 ine it again on the day on which, according to my 

 ir.emorandum, the young queen should emerge, 

 to see whether the cell has been regularly 

 opened, or whether the embryo queen has per- 

 ished or been destroyed. If the result has been 

 favorable the colony will thus have received a 

 new queen in three or four days, and we may 

 expect to find eggs and larvse in the cells within 

 two weeks from the day of unqueening ; where- 

 as a colony that sends forth a natural swarm 

 will not again have brood to nurse until after 

 the twenty-eighth day. If the requeeoed colony 

 were now left undisturbed, after-swarms would 

 almost certainly be produced by it. I therefore 

 open it again on 'he ninth day after the removal 

 of the queen and destroy all the queen cells I 

 can find. Should a swarm nevertheless issue — 

 that is, should the young queen leave, with a 

 portion of the workers, I simply return them, 

 and find no further trouble. During the period 

 when the unqueened colony has no brood to 

 nurse, and even for some days after the young 

 queen becomes fertile, all the honey gathered 

 by the workers will be stored up ; and, what la 

 of no small miportance, it will lor the most part 

 be stored and capped in the upper section of the 

 combs in the brooding apartment ; and so long 

 as honey can be obtained abroad, the bees will 

 not resort to this store of sealed honey —their 

 native instinct teaching them to use first the 



