the cover is removed (without smoking 

 the bees) and the bees will enter the 

 new hives readily, and in the course of 

 an hour, queen-cells ^ inch long may 

 be found. The strongest colony should 

 not be permitted to rear over 25 queens. 

 The more they rear the poorer will be 

 the queens. In 12 days from the time 

 the queen-cells are started the young 

 queens will commence to hatch ; that 

 will make 16 days from the time the 

 eggs were deposited. No 8 or 10 day 

 queens can be raised by this plan, as is 

 the case when the queen is removed 

 from a full colony and the bees allowed 

 to select the eggs themselves. Under 

 such circumstances the bees will select 

 anything, from the hatching egg to a 

 larva? 3 days old, to make a queen of. 

 By my plan the cells are all made in a 

 bunch, and cannot be separated with a 

 knife. I use no lamp nursery or other 

 artificial apparatus for hatching queens 

 —hatching boxes, with glass in 2 sides 

 are used. The combs having the cells 

 are placed in them and bees enough to 

 keep up the natural heat are put in with 

 them. A young queen can be seen 

 readily when she emerges from the cell, 

 as they are nearly white when first 

 hatched out. The frame is removed 

 and a sponge used for the queen to run 

 on. She is then placed in a cage or 

 nucleus that has been queenless 3 or 4 

 days. I never handle queens just 

 hatched, by their wings. In the course 

 of 24 hours all the cells will be hatched 

 out. 



What will you do with the bees that 

 have just made the cells ? I do this ; 

 more cells .are wanted, but these bees 

 will not do to rear them, they can be 

 used for this purpose, but the queens 

 would hardly be worth $1.00 each. Now 

 I go through the same process again 

 that I did in the first place. Another 

 strong colony is selected and all the 

 bees brushed off the combs into the 

 wire box. The combs are replaced in 

 the hive just as they came out. The hive 

 is then placed on the spot where the 

 queens were reared, the bees in the 

 queen-rearing hive are then shaken 

 from the combs in front of the new hive, 

 and a queen, or rather the queen taken 

 from the full hive given them. By this 

 method all the large colonies are kept 

 full of brood as they are never queen- 

 less. As soon as the cells are sealed 

 they are removed to strong nuclei and 

 from there they are removed to the 

 hatching boxes when the cells are ready 

 to hatch. The reader will notice that 

 while the bees are rearing queens they 

 have no brood % to care for, except that 

 given them to rear queens from. All 

 their forces are directed to queen-rear- 



ing. While forage is abundant no feed- 

 ing need be done. When the flelda 

 furnish none, the bees must be fed until 

 the cells are sealed. When the combs 

 are full of syrup ami scaled or ready to 

 be sealed, they are given to the bees in 

 nuclei, or the bees in fertilizing boxes. 

 I do not keep my breeding queens in 

 full colonies. I could not run my queen- 

 rearing business easily and conveniently 

 if I was obliged to open a full hive 

 every time I wanted a few eggs to start 

 queens. They are kept in small hives 

 which have the 1% inch frame ; I'we of 

 these frames are used. The middle one 

 is drawn out twice a week, or every day 

 if needed, dated and placed in some 

 other hive for the eggs to hatch. I 

 know just when to look for eggs that 

 are ready for my queenless bees, when 

 I want to rear queens. Larva; over 12 

 hours old should never be given bees 

 to rear queens from ; queens reared in 

 such manner, will hatch in 8 to 10 days 

 and be rather shortlived and this is the 

 case where too many are reared in one 

 hive; even though they are 16 days from 

 the egg, they do not live so long as 

 queens that are reared in hives where 

 only a small number are reared at one 

 time. 



The price or color of the queens does 

 not make the quality. My opinion is 

 that a pint of bees will rear as good 

 queens as are reared under natural 

 swarming, provided, they rear but one 

 at a time, but the difficulty is to fix the 

 brood so that they will rear or make 

 only one cell. I have experimented 

 very much on this one thing, sometimes 

 with success and sometimes with 

 failure. I can place one egg in a hive, 

 but the bees do not like it at all. Some- 

 times they will make a fine cell and 

 then again none. • If I could meet with 

 good success every time I would rear 

 queens in no other way. 



The year 1879 will long be remembered 

 by me. I never received so many 

 orders for queens, and never had such 

 hard work to get them fertilized. From 

 June 1 to 20 there was not a favorable 

 dav for queens to fly. From that time 

 to "July 4, the weather was tine, hut 

 from then till October it was very un- 

 favorable, all the time. To perfect 

 1,000 queens I had to rear 2,000. My 

 expenses were heavy, and on the final 

 wind-up, I found that I was many dol- 

 lars out of pocket. I commenced last 

 fall to get ready to make a success, the 

 present season, and am bound to do it. 



I have written the above for the bene- 

 fit of those who have sent to me for my 

 method of rearing queens. 



Although I have not advertised any 

 since September last, nearly 1,000 bee- 



