189'; 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



45 



(From American Bee Journal). 



QETTING QUEENS FERTILIZED AT 

 THE LEAST COST. 



BY W. Z HUTCHINSON. 



The greatest expense attending the 

 rearing of queens is in getting them 

 fertilized. I think it safe to say that 

 virgin queens could be reared for 10 

 cents each. As a rule a colony will 

 build a dozen queen cells at one batch 

 — they will, if rightly managed, and 

 the queens will be good ones too. The 

 colony will not be more than ten days 

 in doing it. A good colony can cer- 

 tainly average a dollar a week build- 

 ing queen cells. Of course a colony 

 can not go on week after week all 

 summer long building queen cells, but 

 it can build at least three good batch- 

 es, and then it can be dropped from 

 the list and another taken. In time 

 this colony can be used for cell build- 

 ing again. It could be used right 

 along by giving it plenty of young 

 bees or brood, but it is exactly as well 

 to give it a queen and let it rear itself 

 some more brood, and turn some other 

 colony to the work of cell building. 

 By employing proper methods to get 

 the cells built, and taking them away 

 when sealed over and the queens have 

 commenced to "color," and hatching 

 them out in a lamp nursery, there is 

 no trouble in rearing virgin queens at 

 10 cents each. I would like no better 

 job than that of rearing virgin queens 

 at that price. 



It will be readily seen that the cost 

 in queen rearing comes in getting them 

 fertilized and holding them until need- 

 ed if it should happen, as it frequent- 

 ly does, that there is not an immedi- 

 ate demand as soon as they begin lay- 

 ing. In queen rearing it is the usual 



plan to employ the same frames as are 

 in use in the apiary. This is an ad- 

 vantage in many ways. The same 

 kind and size of hives may be used, 

 and when the season is over there is 

 great convenience in uniting the nuc- 

 lei. If the nuclei gather much honey 

 it is easy to extract it if it is in the 

 regular size combs. All these are ad- 

 vantages that can not be denied, but 

 the great amount of bees that are used 

 to stock one nuclei makes the cost of 

 getting queens fertilized come pretty 

 high. Little combs four or five inch- 

 es square have been tried, using them 

 in little boxes of the right size, and 

 they work all right, except that such 

 small colonies are quite likely to 

 swarm out and follow the queen when 

 she takes her wedding flight. More 

 likely still are they to swarm out after 

 the queen has filled the combs with 

 eggs and there is no more room for her 

 to lay The latter difficulty is easily 

 remedied by placing a piece of queen 

 excluding zinc over the entrance after 

 the queen begins to lay. 



I have used with the best of results 

 the ordinary 4^x4|xl^ section boxes 

 for frames and the old style Heddon 

 super for a hive. I save the unfinish- 

 ed sections that are left at the end of 

 the fall season. These are about half 

 drawn out and partly filled with honey. 

 I use the regular bottom board of a 

 hive that has a rim of a bee space 

 height around three of its sides, put- 

 ting another strip at the end where the 

 entrance usually is. This makes a rim 

 all around it. Strips are then put 

 crosswise at such points that they will 

 meet the partitions in the case. 

 Strips are also nailed to the upper 

 edges of these partitions, bringing 

 them up flush with the top of the case. 



