THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



93 



swarm comes off the day the queen- 

 cells are sealed nearly every cell would 

 be destroyed if meddled with on that or 

 on any succeeding day before the cells 

 had been sealed at least six or seven 

 days. This has been my experience. 



A frame on which there are a number 

 of queen-cells may be removed from 

 one hive to another if carefully done, 

 and no injury will result. But if an 

 attempt be made to cut the cells from 

 the comb before the expiration of seven 

 days after the cells are sealed most 

 likely a majority of the queens would 

 be destroyed. When the cells are first 

 made the walls are very thin and soft. 

 The nymph has not spun the thin silken 

 lining (cocoon) that protects it in the 

 cell while the nymph is maturing. Im- 

 mediately after the cell is sealed the 

 cocoon is formed and the bees each 

 day add wax to the outer walls, and 

 by the time the queen is ready to 

 emerge the walls of the cell at the base 

 are sometimes nearly or quite an eighth 

 of an inch thick. This heavy wax coat- 

 ing protects the unhatclied queen from 

 injury before she leaves the cell. I 

 can give no other explanation than this 

 of the reasons why it is that the walls of 

 a queen-cell are made so heavy. Yet I 

 do not see the wisdom of this nor why 

 it shouki be so, since the bees do not 

 and cannot know that the cells are likely 

 to be handled or are in anyway subject 

 to injury except from the queen. Of 

 course the thicker the walls of the cells, 

 the longer it will take a queen to gnaw 

 through them in order to sting the im- 

 mature queen. 



Exposure of queen-cells to heat and cold. 

 When handling queen-cells in a warm 

 room or even in the open air, none of 

 them should be exposed to the sun, or 

 a very high temperature for a moment. 

 Remember that the unhatched queen is 

 in an almost air-tight case, and if the 

 temperature is raised above eighty de- 

 grees only for a few minutes, it is almost 

 sure death to the queen. Under no 

 consijderation should the cells be exposed 

 unnecessarily. If the temperature of the 



bee-room is between seventy and eighty 

 degrees, it is full warm for such operations 

 as transferring-cells, starting queens, etc. 



On the other hand, no unhatched 

 queen will be injured if the cells are ex- 

 posed for a long time to a temperature 

 below fifty degrees. By a long time I 

 do not wish any one to understand that 

 the cells would not be injured if ex- 

 posed an unreasonable time. No harm 

 will be done if the cells are left for 

 several hours in a room where the tem- 

 perature is as low as fifty degrees. 



I once accidentally left a cell on the 

 ground over night ; the temperature 

 the next morning was about forty de- 

 grees above zero. Prompted by curi- 

 osity, and as an experiment, I placed 

 the cell in a colony to see what the re- 

 sult would be, and to see whether the 

 queen would be of any value. The 

 queen came out all right, was promptly 

 fertilized and proved to be a good one. 



When the eggs of hens are placed in 

 an incubator, the temperature is not 

 permitted to go above 103 degrees. If 

 it goes above 105 degrees or up to 106 

 degrees and is maintained for a short 

 time only, many of the embryo chicks 

 will perish. I have had no experience 

 in the hen business, but from what I 

 know about bees I am quite sure that 

 many poultry breeders have often had 

 their hopes blasted by a too high tem- 

 perature in the incubator. 



Surplus queens, how to preserve and care 

 for them. 



At the season of swarming many bee- 

 keepers have more or less queen-cells 

 and sometimes young queens they 

 would like to preserve if it were conve- 

 nient and the proper fixtures were at 

 hand to aid them in carrying out their 

 desires. At just that time several 

 cages, such as are described on a 

 previous page and are used in the 

 queen nursery, would be the right thing 

 to have. Remove the cells from the 

 hive at the proper time, place them in 

 the nursery-cages and after supplying 

 each cage with food sufficient for a 

 week, or longer, place the nursery in 



