10 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



return. What can be done under the 

 circumstances? Why, every hive in 

 which queen- cells are being built must 

 be removed to a warm room, as it is im- 

 possible to do any work in the open air 

 when it is cold. Though it may seem 

 to the inexperienced beekeeper that 

 nothing can go wrong in the apiary of 

 an old beekeeper, yet the case is just 

 the opposite. It is seldom that any- 

 thing goes to suit the breeder of queens 

 on a large scale. A litUe bad spell of 

 weather, when no queens can mate, will 

 bring hundreds of letters, and though 

 only a few customers will really com- 

 plain, yet it is annoying and vexatious 

 in the extreme to be obliged to reply 

 to those mild complaints and say that 

 the weather has been so unfavorable 

 for bees that we have no queens to send. 

 This is just what happens nearly every 

 year. 



The first discouraging feature which 

 presents itself to the queen-rearer is 

 met at the start. If a watchful eye is 

 not kept upon the drone-rearing colony, 

 all the eady drone-brood will be de- 

 stroyed. Unless the season is a forward 

 one and the colonies very strong, it is 

 not a good plan to form a queenless nu- 

 cleus colony so early in the season as 

 the loth of May, to preserve the drone- 

 brood. I rather leave it in the kill col- 

 ony and feed liberally to encourage the 

 bees to nurse and preserve the drone- 

 brood. 



Rearing and preserving drones in the 

 months of July, Aug., Sept. and Oct. 



During the month of June, or at any 

 time when bees are gathering honey, 

 there is no special need of doing any- 

 thing to encourage a colony to rear 

 drones as the bees will take care of that 

 business themselves. However, just be- 

 fore the harvest closes, I have made it a 

 practice to get as many combs filled 

 with drone-brood as I had drone-comb 

 to use. In this way I secure thousands 

 of drones without much effort or trouble. 

 The empty drone-combs are inserted 

 in the drone-rearing colonies, and 

 as they are filled with unsealed brood, 



the combs are removed to queenless 

 colonies. 



Sometimes a queen may be found 

 that seems to take pleasure in depositing 

 all the drone eggs that she can find the 

 proper drone cells to drop the eggs into. 

 When I find a queen of this kind I 

 usually work her to her full capacity in 

 the line for which she seems to have 

 a special gift. As she fills a comb with 

 drone eggs it is removed to the queen- 

 less colony or to one rearing queens, and 

 another comb is inserted in its place. 

 Bearing drones from young queens. 

 It is said that young queens will not 

 deposit drone eggs the first year. This 

 is not true in any case unless the queen 

 was reared very late in the season ; even 

 then, I think by feeding, I could make 

 a queen deposit more or less drone eggs 

 before she is thirty days old. 



Now in case any queen-breeder gets 

 hard pushed for drones, or pinched for a 

 suitable queen from which to rear drones, 

 he can by adopting the following meth- 

 od get a good supply of drones from a 

 young queen. I have practised the 

 plan successfiilly for nearly thirty years. 

 In order to be successful with this 

 method there must be in the apiary a 

 strong colony of queenless bees. The 

 next move is to take all the bees from 

 a colony having a fertile queen and 

 in good condition in all respects. Af- 

 ter the bees and queen have been dis- 

 posed of, the next thing to do is to place 

 the queenless bees on the combs of 

 brood, and at the same time introduce a 

 smart, young, fertile queen ; if you please, 

 one that has never laid looo eggs. 



One of the combs should be removed 

 from the middle of the brood-nest and 

 a comb having more or less drone- 

 comb should be inserted in its place. 

 Three days later examine the drone- 

 comb and see if the cells do not con- 

 tain eggs. They certainly will; that 

 has been my experienced. 



Do the bees or queen decide what eggs 

 shall be laid? 



To me the above illustrates the fact 

 that the bees and not the queen, de- 



