218 THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



Improving Your Bees While Producing Honey. 



GEO. B. HOWE. 



(Contitmed from May number J) 



iBut I found that queens started from the egg would live four 

 years, or as long as swarm-cell queens. That one day as a zvorker- 

 larvae, or two or three days counted a year in the usefulness of said 

 queen. Who can tell the exact age of a larvae in all kinds of 

 weather, more especially in the fall or when we have cold nights? 

 I can guess and that is about all. 



I am not one who wants the easy method just because it is 

 cheap, for it is mighty dear in the end. Then why not rear the 

 very best queens we know how, for it is the foundation of our business. 



Take an old tough comb and put it in the center of your breed- 

 ing queen colony. If the comb is clean she will soon lay what 

 eggs you want in it for queens. Now we want a colony as near 

 the condition of a colony that is about to swarm as possible, so 

 we will prepare our colony for cell building. Take a' strong colony, 

 a hybrid preferred, as you can get more and larger cells. Italians 

 are not the best bees for queen rearing, I find. Now shake the 

 bees ofif the combs of unsealed larvae. Don't leave an open cell. 

 No, not one, for if you do you will have to look the combs over 

 and destroy them before the cells are ripe or ready to distribute 

 to nuclei. Take the queen away at the same time you do the 

 unsealed larvae. Trade the combs of unsealed brood with other 

 colonies. Now you have only removed one bee from that colony 

 and that is the queen. And you have lots of hatching bees and 

 no end of nurse bees. Unless there is a honey flow, put a feeder on 

 and every night feed a pint of half honey and water. Honey is what 

 you must have to raise good queens with. Sugar syrup zvill not do, 

 and the thinned honey is better than undiluted honey. 



WHEnr TO PREPARE THE COLONY. 



You prepare this colony about six to twelve hours before the 

 eggs are ready to hatch from that breeding queen. Now, then, 

 there is no guesswork about the age of those larvae if you looked 

 to see about when the breeding queen laid in the comb. You take 

 out one of the combs in your prepared colony and put the comb as 

 near the center of the broodnest as you can, or you could use a 

 dummy in the cell building colony if you prefer. Now I find I can 

 take the queen cells as the queen hatches out and with a little swab 

 and warm water clean them very quickly and better than the bees 

 will do for me. First I cut the cell down to about one-fourth of an 

 inch of the wooden cell cups. 



