AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



781 



two miles until your queens are mated. 

 Later on, in another lesson, I will tell 

 you how to form nuclei. 



Now, this plan of queen-rearing is an 

 excellent plan to get a good lot of queens 

 without much trouble, and 25 to 50 

 queens can be reared at a very small 

 expense. 



If it transpires that you have no 

 swarms, and you desire a few queens 

 you can take out of one to two (or as 

 many as you choose) queens that seem to 

 be your poorest layers, and give a frame 

 of eggs and larva^ from your select 

 queens. A partly built-out new comb is 

 best, or a half sheet of foundation 

 placed in your breeders' hive until eggs 

 and small larvas are shown, then hang 

 this new comb in the center Of the hive 

 you have made queenless, giving a little 

 more space than common, so as to allow 

 the bees room to extend the cells. 



Then about the eighth or ninth day 

 you can pinch off all the short, dumpy 

 cells, and save none but the best or 

 largest ones; and on the tenth day 

 from the day you gave the frame, move 

 all the cells to the nuclei except one 

 that you will leave in the hive. Don't 

 forget to prepare the nuclei at least 

 three days before it is time to move the 

 cells. The cells built in this way will 

 likely hatch on the eleventh or twelfth 

 day, and about the ninth day after you 

 removed the queen from the cell-build- 

 ing hive, you had better go through and 

 tear down all the cells they have started 

 on their own combs and from their own 

 stock, else a queen may perchance 

 hatch out on the tenth day from the 

 time you removed the queen, and tear 

 your fine cells all down ; then you would 

 be in a fix. But by this plan you can 

 get good queens, and is to be used when 

 you have no chance to get natural cells. 



Now, dear reader, I propose to give 

 you the most complete lessons on queen- 

 rearing that ever appeared in print, and 

 to do this it will take time, patience and 

 work, as it cannot be told in a few 

 words. 



Now if you are of a speculative turn 

 of mind, you can try your hands at 

 grafting natural queen-cells, or what we 

 sometimes term "fooling the bees." This 

 can be done with any kind of bees that 

 are preparing to swarm. Should you 

 have a colony starting cells, or prepar- 

 ing to swarm, you can remove the little 

 larvaB from the cells they have started, 

 and place instead larvae from your 

 breeder. This can be performed with a 

 little short stick slightly bent on the 

 point (a broom-straw will do). Just 

 reach down under the larva and move 



it from the jelly, or if you take a little 

 jelly along with it, all the better. Let 

 it down into the cell after the one is 

 taken out that was there, and so on un- 

 til you graft all the cells they have 

 started, and if you are pretty steady- 

 handed, you will likely make the trans- 

 fer without losing many. Then, when 

 ready to move, treat as before, and you 

 will also get nice queens. 



All this you can do without being 

 much of a queen-rearer, as nature does 

 all after you make the transfer, and 

 nature will also tear all down if you 

 don't look out and get all cells moved 

 before any queen hatches. This I re- 

 peat lest you get careless, as this is the 

 main point where so many fail. 



Now the three ways I have just ex- 

 plained are good enough to get queens 

 for your own use, and possibly a few to 

 spare, and these plans will interfere but 

 little with the production of honey, and 

 to keep your bees up to the standard 

 and have good stock. Select good stock 

 to rear your queens from, also good 

 stock to get your drones from, and mate 

 the queens to nothing but select drones. 

 If you get drones from a different strain 

 of bees from the queens, all the better ; 

 but I would not be so particular about 

 this, as I have failed yet to find that a 

 regular line breeding runs the stock 

 down any. But it seems to be our na- 

 ture to keep down in-breeding in bees as 

 well as chickens, etc. 



I will try to explain in the next lesson 

 all about rearing queens on a large 

 scale, or for market, and have all good 

 queens — just as good as natural queens, 

 as I have failed to see any difference in 

 five years watching. 



Jennie Atchley. 

 (To be continued.) 



How to Keep Q,ueens When We Have 

 a Surplus. 



[The following was published in Glean- 

 ings for May I5th, but we take the 

 liberty of copying it into this depart- 

 ment unbeknown to Mrs. Atchley. Bro. 

 Root calls it "an excellent suggestion," 

 so we think Mrs. A. will not object to 

 our selecting it, and putting it in her 

 part of the Bee Journal. — Editor.] 



For the last two years I have not had 

 a chance to put in practice my plans ; 

 but I have tried them sufficiently to 

 know that it is an excellent way to keep 

 queens that we have no immediate use 



