reared by a few bees, and also that the 

 queen should be started from the egg in 

 lieu of larvae 3 days old. In order to 

 comply with these conditions, there 

 must not be any larvae in the hive for 

 the bees to have access to. The combs 

 containing larvae should all be removed 

 from a colony, and their queen also, 

 when they should be given eggs only 

 from a selected queen. As the bees 

 have only these eggs to care for, they 

 will receive plenty of attention, and 

 large, fully developed queen cells will 

 be the result. If the eggs were all given 

 on one comb, they cannot be utilized as 

 readily as if the eggs had been dis- 

 tributed among several combs. This 

 could be done by cutting the comb con- 

 taining eggs into strips and joining it 

 on, or inserting it into the combs. If 

 25 queen cells are built, the first queen 

 that emerges will destroy all the rest, 

 if they are left in the hive. As it takes 

 16 days from the egg for a queen to 

 hatch, and the age of the eggs are 

 known, we can nearly tell the exact 

 time when a queen will hatch, and the 

 bees also gnaw off a part of the cover- 

 ing of the cell before she emerges. As 

 no queen hatches from a larva under 10 

 days, about that time is the best for cut- 

 ting out queen cells. If they are 

 younger they are easily injured. It is 

 much easier rearing queen cells than it 

 is to get them introduced to colonies 

 without getting them destroyed. In 

 our early days of bee-keeping, we used 

 to read, to form a nucleus by taking 2 

 combs of bees and brood and giving 

 them a sealed queen cell — and we inva- 

 riably had them destroyed, and the bees 

 would rear queens to suit themselves 

 from the eggs or larvae they had. If 

 the nucleus has been formed long 

 enough for them to have queen cells of 

 their own, and a cell ready to hatch is 

 given them; it will not be destroyed ; 

 or, if their cells are cut out, and another 

 inserted in its place, it will be respected. 

 A frame might be taken from the col- 

 ony, containing a queen cell upon it and 

 covered with bees and put into a hive, 

 where it would hatch. About the time 

 it hatches a frame containing unsealed 

 larvae should be given to it, to prevent 

 the bees leaving with their queen on 

 her " wedding excursion." 



In rearing queens, forming nuclei, 

 etc., it is much the best way to use a 

 hive of the same size as those in con- 

 stant use in the apiary, and restrict the 

 size by using division boards ; then at 

 any time a comb of honey or brood can 

 be given it, or it can be readily built up 

 into a strong colony by adding frames 

 of hatching brood. 



Peoria, 111. 



From the Prairie Farmer. 



How to Obtain Purely Mated Queens. 



W. M. KELLOGG. 



Since the introduction of Italian bees- 

 much effort has been put forth in the 

 endeavor to have the young Italian 

 queens mated with pure Italian drones, 

 resort being had to attempts at fertiliza- 

 tion in confinement, isolating the queen, 

 rearing colonies on islands and other 

 out-of-the-way places, and a common 

 plan being to dispose of as many of the 

 black queens and drones in the vicinity 

 as possible. Much money and labor 

 have been expended in these directions 

 with not always satisfactory results, 

 and it is out of the reach of a large ma- 

 jority of bee-keepers to obtain purely 

 mated queens in these ways ; hence, 

 they have to run their chances by rear- 

 ing as many pure drones as they can in 

 their own yard. This will go a great 

 ways toward the desired object, but we 

 can still add much more that is within 

 the reach of all bee-keepers. Let us be- 

 gin back at the start, and see how best 

 to accomplish this. 



The time taken to raise a queen from 

 the egg to hatching is 16 days, but they 

 are many times raised from eggs already 

 hatched as workers before the bees take 

 them to raise queens of: hence, some 

 queens are hatched in 11 or 12 days. 

 These young queens usually do not 

 make their fertilizing flight under 5 

 days old, and we should have had plenty 

 of drones flying from our best Italian 

 colonies by the time these young queens- 

 are ready for their bridal trip. lJrones 

 and young queens usually fly from 1 to 

 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Now we 

 want to get the start of these black and 

 hybrid drones if we can, so about 10:30 

 or 11:30 o'clock in the forenoon we will 

 go to our colonies containing young 

 queens of the right age, and also to our 

 pure Italian colonies from whose drones 

 we wish to breed, take off the caps of 

 the hives, then the quilt or honey board 

 and thoroughly sprinkle each colony 

 with very thin warm honey, or alike 

 mixture of sugar syrup and close the 

 hives at once. In a very few minutes 

 the air will be filled with bees, drones 

 and young queens (if of the right age} 

 rushing out of the. hives like a pack of 

 school boys at recess, and making about 

 as much noise, too, the worker bees to 

 hunt around for that inflow of warm 

 honey, thinking perhaps that the flowers- 

 have got tired of waiting for the tardy 

 bees, and are bringing it to the hives, 

 roots, plants, honey and all ; the drones 

 and young queens hearing the rumpus- 

 want to know what it is all about, and 



