I907-] 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



REARING QUEENS AND FEELING NUCLEI. 



267 



C. W. DAYTON. 



THE ONLY remedy for the lack 

 of love for queen-rearing is 

 queen-rearing. We should rear 

 queens anyway. Rear them in spite 

 of yourself. Make it become a habit. 

 When the habit is formed it will be 

 transformed into love for queen-rear- 

 ing. Twenty-four years ago I began 

 to rear queens by the scientific method 

 devised by Mr. Alley. The previous 

 season I spent much time dippinc: 

 larvae into naturally constructed cell 

 cups with a toothpick. From that day 

 to this I have been adding to my 

 stock of knowledge. Just last year 

 I unearthed one of the finest nuggets 



colony I examined about one-half of 

 its brood was dead. Of about forty 

 colonies examined that day, there 

 were none that did not have a large 

 share of their brood dead. I noticed 

 also that, in the long rows of hives 

 every one which contained a full col- 

 ony had a cluster of bees on the front 

 of the hive the size of a man's hat. 

 It was so ev.ery day almost, regardless 

 of the weather. In my own apiary I 

 could not find one dead larva, and 

 there were not a quart of bees clus- 

 tering out. Yet my hives were only 

 one-half as large as his. When I re- 

 moved the covers to his supers there 



yet brought to light. I had realized, 

 or, I may say, almost dreamed that 

 the nugget was there — and it was ; 

 but I never had been in the right 

 position to make its discovery com- 

 plete. 



In the year A. D. 1901, I took the job 

 of Italianizing an apiary of 125 col- 

 onies for a neighbor. From tha* time 

 until igo6 they were allowed to do 

 their own requeening. The owner of 

 this apiary lives some fifty miles dis- 

 tant. At the beginning of the honey 

 harvest he wrote to me to visit his 

 apiary to see when he would need 

 to come to do the extracting. The first 



were only a few scattering bees 

 scampering about the combs in the 

 upper stories. The way the bees 

 scampered showed that conditions 

 were not right. They acted as if they 

 were there for a last look. The upper 

 stories of my hives were closely pack- 

 ed with bees which boiled over the 

 sides of the supers as soon as the 

 covers were taken oflf. 



It is my opinion that my neighbor's 

 bees clustered out on account of the 

 stench which the dead brood sent up. 

 Although they were started in pure 

 Italian stock in 1901, in igo6 there 

 was not one colony of pure Italian, 



