THE BEE-KEEPERS" REVIEW 137 



while found an extra good queen among purchased stock, but with 

 me they have been merely the exceptions which prove the rule, and 

 I at present buy very few. 



I have also tried many ways of raising queens, even went so far 

 as to prepare for raising queens for sale at one time, but what to 

 do with the poor queens "sort o' bothered me," and I never went 

 any farther with it, and broke up most of my fixtures. I now never 

 sell a queen unless some one comes to my yard and picks out what 

 he wants himself. 



Of the many methods of raising queens, I like this best for a 

 busy man during a busy time: I first put an empty comb into my 

 breeding hive. Three days later I prepare- cells as follows: Take 

 out the comb with the eggs ready to hatch, and cut out strips one 

 row of cells wide, then cut through every other cell, and stick them 

 on or in the cell cups. Place in the cell bars and give to the bees 

 prepared for cell starting. I sometimes shake bees into a swarm box 

 and shut them in for six hours, according to the plan given by Dr. 

 Phillips in his bulletin, but more often I do it in this way: Go to a 

 strong colony and remove the super from over an excluder about 

 night. Set it away until the next morning with the swarm box 

 cover over it, prepare the cells as above and give to the bees. The 

 eggs should hatch during the day, and at night take the super back 

 to the hive from which it was taken, raise two frames of brood from 

 below^ and place the cell bars between them, over the excluder of 

 course. 



CARING FOR THE CEI.I.S. 



Now right here is where it seems to me that many of us have 

 often made a serious mistake. W'e know that a strong force of queen- 

 less bees will start a large batch of celh, and a strong colony will 

 build out after a fashion about all that are started, but how many 

 will be good for anything. I want a queen that I am going to use 

 in my yard to hatch out from a large fine cell, and I want to find a 

 good sized wad of royal jelly left in the bottom of it when she 

 comes out. The question is how to bring this about. Simply take 

 away all but from six to eight of the well started cells and place 

 them in other hives under the same conditions, and do this over the 

 next da}- after placing them on the original hive. Then look them 

 over before giving to nuclei or colonies to hatch, and reject all cells 

 not up to the standard in size and shape, and we may reasonably 

 expect very few "five-cent" queens as a result. 



Xow while this may seem to be a lot of fussing for nothing the 

 extra quality of all queens obtained, and the comparatively few poor 

 ones to be replaced later seem to me to be good pay for the extra 

 time and trouble. 



