178 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Feb., 



you icill fail in every instance. Although it may 

 seem that all is yet to be done is merely to set 

 in the room a colony or nucleus with an unfertile 

 queen with plenty of drones and the work will 

 be done, I tell you this is not so, for you may 

 make the finest greenhouse in the world, and fill 

 it with all the honey-producing plants, even 

 though you have enough to produce honey suf- 

 ficient for ten or twelve strong colonies, and yet 

 you will fail to have queens fertilized therein. 

 And wliy? From the simple fact that the drone is 

 intimidated by the prese7ice of the fiery workers f 

 If you so arrange it that the drones and queen 

 can fly in and out, while the workers cannot, 

 you have it right. I know some of you have 

 already said it cannot be done. Well, we shall 

 see. 



2. In the first place, we never raise our 

 queens in little boxes, six or eight inches square. 

 We form our nucleus in our hives, four to a 

 hive, with three full sized brood frames to each, 

 by using division boards — letting the bees out 

 from one in front, from another at the back, and 

 one out at each end. Thus they do not conflict 

 with each other ; aad should you ou any occa- 

 sion let them fly in the air for fertilization, the 

 young queen will seldom get into the wrong 

 place when she returns. We raise our queen 

 cells in the full colony, discarding every cell 

 that is not capped over by the ninth day, and 

 especially all the small ones. We insert our 

 queen cells in our nucleus, and on the top of the 

 board that covers this nucleus, we paste a piece 

 of paper, on which we note the time when it 

 will hatch. We now make some fertilizing boxes 

 (so called). These are all made so that they 

 will receive two brood frames each. Let the 

 frames hang upon a small strip tacked on the 

 inside. Have your boxes wide enough that you 

 can easily get your finger and thumb between, 

 to handle the frames readily. Make the bottom 

 of these boxes i^ No. 10 or No. 12 wire cloth. 

 When the frames are hung in the boxes they 

 should not touch the wire bottom. Nail a strip 

 three-eighths of an inch square ou top ot the 

 wire cloth, all around the bottom of the box. 

 This is to hold the wire cloth up off the brood 

 frames, upon which we shall presently place it. 

 We now have several queens which have just 

 hatched. We go to a strong colony, o\)e\\ it, 

 and pick out two combs tJtat have plenty of ma- 

 turing workers with their heads sticking out of the 

 cells. They are making their first appearance. 

 We shake (not brush) all the bees oft"; if there 

 is only one left, we pick him off. Be sure not to 

 leave a single worker on these ttoo combs. We now 

 place these two combs in our wire-bottomed box. 

 (We forgot to say that we have a three-quarter 

 inch hole in one end of this box, near the bot- 

 tom, with a button over it). We then go to a 

 hive that has plenty of fine drones. We open it 

 and select (not an old drone that has been flying 

 in and out of the hive for weeks, but) those 

 that have light-colored heads. Tliey are young 

 drones, which have never yet seen the outer 

 world ; and when you turn tliem loose in the 

 house we llave built, they will not know but 

 that is the dimensions of the world in which 

 they are to play their part and die. But if you 



take an old fellow, he is like a spoiled child. 

 When you attempt to curb him he will laugh 

 and attempt to get out. We put these young 

 drones in our wire-bottom box, through the 

 three-quarter inch hole, for it will not do to take 

 oflf the cap of the box, as the young bees just 

 hatched would crawl out. We next go to our 

 nucleus hive and put in the young queen. Then 

 we place these boxes over the brood frames of a 

 strong colony, and let them remain there five or 

 six days. At the end of that time, we take oif 

 the boxes with the young unfertile queens, 

 drones, and young workers, and set them on the 

 floor of the fertilizing house which we built at 

 the beginning. 



3. Let us now see what we have in these 

 boxes. First, a young unfertile queen, six or 

 seven days old, anxious to meet the drone. She 

 passes in and out, three or four times a day. 

 Second, we have twenty or more drones, that 

 have never flown in the open air. They are not 

 conscious of a larger, brighter world abroad. 

 They fly around and around and are satisfied — 

 even glad to know that they have such a world 

 as this, free from the fiery old workei's. Here 

 they have it all to themselves. Third, we have 

 a fine lot of young workers, only six or seven days 

 old, too young by ten or fifteen days to leave the 

 combs, even for play. Do you now think we let 

 the queen and drones fly without the workers ? 



As soon as a queen begins to lay, we remove 

 the box, making up a colony from the frames 

 that were in them, and giving it the queen. If 

 not, we place these boxes out under a shed, set- 

 ting them on an old blanket or other woollen 

 cloth, until such time as we wish to use them. 



When we want moi"e queens feitilized, we 

 proceed as above. We never leave any of those 

 boxes in the fertilizing house till the workers 

 begin to fly out. Herein is the tohole secret of fer- 

 tilizing in confinement : Keep out the workers. 

 We know that when the queen meets the drone 

 on the wing naturally, the workers are jfar 

 beyond, at a distance, sipping nectar from the 

 flowers. During the month of June, when we 

 have thousa.nds of drones, if you wish to know 

 where the drone yard is, take the course that 

 your bees are flying from the apiary, and by the 

 time you have traveled six or eight hundred 

 yards, you will come to a place where the whole 

 atmosphere seems filled with bees. No man 

 ever heard more buzzing. Some would think 

 that a large colony of bees was passing over- 

 head. No, they are the drones from your apiary. 

 Here are tens of thousands of them. When 

 your young queen leaves the apiary, she takes 

 the same course, led by the luun of both workers 

 and drones. On and on she goes, and before 

 she is aware of it, she lia^ reached the desired 

 haven. But do you find any workers flying 

 around in this locality ? None, not one. They 

 are all far beyond, in the fields. 



Now, brother beekeepers, I fear I have wearied 

 you ; but it takes considerable space to explain 

 this non-flying fertilization, so as to make it 

 fully comprehended. Although I have been 

 very particular to describe it in detail, I doubt 

 not some will fail to understand it, for I know 

 that it is next to impossible for half a dozen men 



