io8 AUSTRALASIAN BEE MANUAL 



grounds that they are likely to produce queens whose 

 bees would have an abnormal propensity to swarm. 

 This, in my opinion is poor reasoning; they apparently 

 overlook the fact that to swarm is natural in all strains 

 of hive bees. Their apprehension could only correctly 

 apply to strains which already are prone to swarm, 

 and from which no sensible apiarist would breed in any 

 case. There certainly can be no reasonable objection 

 to making use of spare swarm cells from a good strain 

 of bees, using the same discretion in choosing^ them 

 that one should do in queen rearing. Such cells from 

 a strong colony produce the very finest of queens. 



WOOD BASES FOR QUEEN CELLS. 



There is no doubt that the wood bases to cells as 

 described, are a very great convenience, and it has 

 occurred' to me that some such bases might be attached 

 to the queen cells built on the Alley plan. If shallow 

 holes were bored into similar pieces of wood as is used 

 in the Doolittle plan, the Alley cells when built might be 

 glued to them with melted wax ; at all events, it is 

 worth trying. 



FEEDING IN QUEEN REARING. 



Though I have already mentioned this matter, I wish 

 to impress upon all who undertake queen rearing for the 

 first time, the importance of feeding in all stages of 

 queen rearing when no honey is being gathered, and the 

 same applies especially when introducing queens. I 

 shall give the formula for making sugar syrup later on. 



ANOTHER METHOD OF RAISING CELLS. 



The method I am about to describe was, I believe, 

 first tried and described by an Austrian bee-keeper, but 

 so far as I am aware, I was the first to give it a trial in 



