THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



[COPYKIGHT.] 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



By Henry Alley, 



QUEEN-REARING. 



{^Continued from page 177, Vol. vii.] 



Methods for rearing drones during 

 the warm months. 



Keaxing drones in the spring. 



The queen-breeder must have drones 

 in his apiary as early as the loth of 

 May. If a colony of bees is left to act 

 its pleasure in the matter of rearing 

 drones, the queen-breeder would often 

 find himself in a bad fix, as very few- 

 colonies would rear drones as early as 

 they are needed to mate the first queens 

 reared by artificial methods. Then 

 again the colony from which it is desira- 

 ble to rear the drones might not have any 

 drone brood-comb near the centre of the 

 brood-nest or may not be strong enough 

 in numbers to rear drones. In a case 

 like this, no drones would be reared un- 

 til quite late in the season, especially if 

 the drone-comb is on the outer frames. 

 I have sometimes found that at the be- 

 ginning of the honey season quite a small 

 colony would pass over a comb contain- 

 ing no brood and no drone-comb, in or- 

 der to reach some drone-cells for the 

 purpose of rearing drones. Many colo- 

 nies will not start drone-brood until 

 stimulated to do so by the early blossoms 

 and flowers. That will not do for the 

 queen-breeder. He must have drones at 

 the time the first flow of nectar comes. 



A metliod for getting early drones. 



The colonies from which the drones 

 are to be reared should be selected the 

 previous season. As there is more or 

 less loss of bees in winter, several col- 

 onies should be selected so that in case 

 one colony dies, there will be others in 

 the apiary to fall back upon for drones. 



We always have had good success in 



getting drones early in the season by 

 this method : One of the outside combs 

 is removed, and the other combs as far 

 as the centre of the brood-nest are re- 

 moved to the side of the hive, and then 

 a frame of nice, clean drone-comb is 

 placed directly in the centre of the brood- 

 nest. A syrup composed of at least one- 

 half honey, is then given the bees each 

 day until the drone-brood is capped. 

 Usually the supply of syrup is kept up 

 until the flowers yield some honey as it 

 is not safe to discontinue feeding until 

 the bees can gather natural forage. 



Feeding bees to induce drone-rearing. 



Some of the discouraging features 



of beekeeping. 



I have found it was not safe to dis- 

 continue feeding syrup for even one day. 

 How often have I been disappointed 

 and disgusted as well, on opening a hive 

 to find that a nice lot of drone-brood 

 had been destroyed I had spent my time 

 in feeding and nursing a colony in or- 

 der to encourage the bees to rear. 

 Those who keep bees, and more espec- 

 ially those who rear queens, are often 

 disappointed ; in fact, disappointment 

 with the latter class is in order all the 

 time. On some occasions I have been 

 so discouraged and disappointed I have 

 have declared I would never attempt 

 to rear another queen-bee. A few days 

 of unfavorable weather will often upset 

 the plans and labor of several weeks. 



Many times during the first month of 

 queen-rearing, and about the time the 

 first queens should emerge from the cells, 

 a long, cold rain storm has set in, last- 

 ing from a week to ten days. The tem- 

 perature would be so low that every bee 

 that left the hive would chill and neve 



