224 



THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



methods know there is a great uncer- 

 tainty, too, as to the time when the 

 young are likely to emerge from cells 

 thus built. This is due in a great meas- 

 ure in not being positive as to the time 

 when the queen deposited the eggs. 



JBggs— time required to hatch them 



It requires three and a half days from 

 the time the egg is placed in the cell 

 for it to hatch or the minute larva to 

 appear. Well, now suppose a comb 

 containing eggs is given the bees to 

 rear queens from. That comb may 

 have more or less eggs in it that were 

 laid that day and other eggs that were 

 deposited three days previously. Bees 

 when forced to rear a queen never 

 select an egg, but always a larva if it is 

 to be found in the hive. As other larvae 

 are developed more cells are begun, and 

 so on for about four days in succession. 

 Thus it can be seen that when the young 

 queens begin to emerge they will con- 

 tinue to appear each day, for three days 

 in succession. This illustrates the im- 

 portance of removing the eggs each day 

 from the hive. After queen cells have 

 been capped several days, not even an 

 expert can tell in all cases from which 

 on.es the queens are most likely to come 

 first. Hence the uncertainty regarding 

 the time to look for the young queens. 

 Not only is the above a most serious 

 objection to rearing queens by the old 

 methods, but others equally as objec- 

 tionable can be advanced. 



Night work in queen-rearing. 



As stated on a previous page, thu 

 night work that is necessary in order to 

 save young queens from being destroyed 

 either before or after they leave the cell, 

 is more than a person can endure who 

 has worked hard during the day, and I 

 was actually compelled to devise some 

 better method for rearing queens. 



Before adopting the present plan now 

 practised in the Ikiy State Apiary for 

 rearing cjucens, I think I did more work 

 during the niglit than I did in the day- 

 time . The night work was to watch ijueen 



cells, and as soon as a queen emerged, 

 she was at once removed to prevent her 

 from destroying other queens, or the re- 

 maining cells. This work was neces- 

 sary from the fact that the cells were so 

 constructed that they could not be sep- 

 arated without destroying a large num- 

 ber of them. It really seemed as though 

 queen-bees could not be born except in 

 the night, as by far the largest per cent 

 of all I reared seemed to appear be- 

 tween sunset and sunrise. Such oper- 

 ations as watching queen cells at night 

 and removing cpieens are now numbered 

 with the things of the past. 



After practising all the known meth- 

 ods as given in many of the books de- 

 voted to bee culture and the methods 

 as recommended by the most prominent 

 apiarists of the world as published in the 

 several bee-publications, it occurred to 

 me that I had travelled in those old ruts 

 as long as necessary. 



How to avoid the night work was the 

 one thing that with advancing years I 

 must in some way overcome. Just how 

 it was to be done required not a little 

 study and considerable experimenting. 

 However, I succeeded in devising a plan 

 for compelling bees to construct queen 

 cells in such a way that all co\x\d be sep- 

 arated without injuring those adjoining. 



Those experiments were conducted 

 many years ago, yet nothing new on this 

 particular point of having queen cells 

 built in rows has been devised, while 

 in all other particulars connected with 

 queen- rearing, much advancement has 

 been made, as will be noticed as we 

 proceed. 



starting the cells. 

 The plan I shall describe for having 

 queen cells built in rows, as illustrated 

 farther on, was devised and first practised 

 in the Bay State Apiary some ten years 

 ago. Since it was made public, several 

 foreign queen dealers, of more or less 

 note, have adopted it and claim it as an 

 invention of their own. Some noted 

 English authors of bee-literature have 

 coolly informed their readers that they 

 do not auree with me in all I claim in 



