1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



163 



Rearing the Best of Queens for 

 Yourself 



Read at the National by Jay Smith 



At the risk of being accused of 

 "harping," I am going to state that 

 few of us realize the importance of 

 having vigorous young queens at the 

 heads of all of our colonies. Elisha 

 Gallup said: "Around the queen cen- 

 ters all there is in apiculture." Doo- 

 little said: "Upon no other one thing 

 does the honey part of the apiary 

 depend so much as it does upon the 

 queen." Dr. Miller says : "The queen 

 being the very soul of the colony, I 

 hardly consider any pains too great 

 that will give better queens." Quinby 

 said: "Too much importance cannot 

 be attached to the necessity of keep- 

 ing each hive supplied with a good 

 queen." Dr. Phillips says : "Unless 

 the queen at the head of the colony is 

 a good one, it is useless to expect 

 that colony to be productive." 



We hear a good deal of discussion 

 as to the best strain of bees, and as 

 to the advisability of breeding from 

 the queen whose colony produced the 

 most honey. The question fre- 

 quently comes up, "Which are best, 

 the goldens, three-banded, or leather- 

 colored?" While all of these are im- 

 portant, yet I believe what is far 

 more important is how the queen is 

 reared. To rear the best queens it is 

 important that they must have the 

 best care from the time the larva 

 hatches from the egg until the queen 

 is mated and laying. 



The honey producer who raises his 

 own queens has some advantage over 

 the commercial queen-breeder in that 

 as he requires but a limited number, 

 he can choose the time of the year 

 when the honey flow is just right, and 

 he will usually find it practical to in- 

 troduce the queen-cell to the colony 

 instead of allowing the queen to be- 

 come mated from a nucleus hive, thus 

 saving the work and expense of nu- 

 cleus hives and the risk of introduc- 

 ing the laying queen. The disadvan- 

 tage of this system is that it is neces- 

 sary to keep the colony longer with- 

 out a laying queen. But if the cells 

 are produced as the honey flow is 

 coming on, the colony that is made 

 queenless will lose little for the 

 workers that would have hatched if 

 their laying queen had been left with 

 them would not become fielders till 

 after the honey flow was over. Then 

 again, if one should have European 

 foulbrood in the yard, this method 

 of re-queening would be the very 

 best method for eradicating the dis- 

 ease. 



I shall not attempt in this short ar- 

 ticle to give a complete description 

 of queen-rearing, but will dwell upon 

 some features that I believe should 

 be emphasized. For the one who 

 rears over 100 queens per year, I be- 

 lieve, when all things are considered, 

 that the grafting method is to be pre- 

 ferred. 



As the honey flow is coming on and 

 the stronger colonies begin to show 

 signs of swarming, and the combs be- 

 gin to drip nectar when shaken, it is 

 time to get busy at queen-rearing. 

 The method of getting the grafted 



cells accepted by the use of the 

 queenless and broodless colony is 

 good, but the swarm box has many 

 advantages, provided you have a good 

 cellar where the bees may be kept 

 warm on cool nights and be kept 

 cool on hot days. As most are famil- 

 iar with the process of grafting, I 

 will not dwell on that further than to 

 state that I believe much better re- 

 sults will be obtained by the use of 

 royal jelly. Some claim that they 

 get good results without using it, but 

 I never could. The jelly should be di- 

 luted with clear water till it is as thin 

 as royal jelly surrounding larva that 

 is just hatched. J. W. Ge rge, of El 

 Centro, Calif., informed us that royal 

 jelly can be bottled and kept from 

 one season to the next. I tried this 

 the last season and find it one of the 

 most convenient little tricks of the 

 trade. A shallow screw cap jar with 

 a wide mouth is suitable for storing 

 this jelly. If you have no such jar, 

 you might be able to find one if you 

 rummage around in your wife's mani- 

 curing outfit. They usually have 

 these little porcelain jars filled with 

 pink salve or freckle dope or some- 

 thing. You can clean this out and put 

 the contents into a tin can and pre- 

 sent same to your wife with your 

 compliments and make off with the 

 little jar. Sterilize it thoroughly by 

 boiling, for the bees seem to object 

 to the smell that comes with it. This 

 jar may be carried in the pocket, to- 

 gether with a jelly spoon, and when 

 you are working among your bees 

 and find any royal jelly, you just pull 

 this jar out of your pocket and can it 

 right there. From a colony that is 

 preparing to swarm you can get 

 enough to graft several hundred cells. 

 For filling the swarm box a tin funnel 

 is convenient. I prefer a swarm box 

 large enough to hold five frames, but 

 only two frames are used. These are 

 placed one at each side, leaving the 

 space in the center to accommodate 

 three grafted cell bars. In filling the 

 swarm box it is well to place it on 

 scales, so that the weight of bees may 

 be accurately known. Between four 



and five pounds of them should be 

 used. These must be taken from a 

 strong colony in order that the brood 

 left in the hive will not be neg- 

 lected. The frame containing the 

 queen is set at the side of the hive 

 and after the swarm box is filled she 

 is placed back into her hive again. 

 This box is filled just before noon and 

 the cells grafted about 4 p. m. Usu- 

 ally the bees confined in a swarm box 

 will not take sugar syrup, but if 

 honey diluted with one-fourth wa- 

 ter is given they take it readily. This 

 is given in a Mason jar with per- 

 forated cap and is placed in the hole 

 that was used for filling the box with 

 bees. A swarm box prepared in this 

 manner will accommodate sixty cells. 

 It has not been an uncommon occur- 

 rence to have every cell accepted and 

 every one finished into long, perfect 

 cells. As a rule, however, we get 

 about 55 accepted and when given to 

 a finishing colony, they usually find 

 one or two more that do not suit 

 them, and they tear them down. 



The bees should be left in the 

 swarm box till noon the next day, or 

 they may be released any time during 

 the afternoon of the following day. 

 In the cellar or basement the bees 

 should be kept in the dark. I had a 

 basement made of concrete, and we 

 stacked up extracting supers to the 

 ceiling to keep out the light. A room 

 was made in this way with the open- 

 ing facing the wall so that no direct 

 rays of light could enter. In this 

 "dungeon" the bees remained quiet 

 and kept right at the task in hand. 

 The best way to get cells completed 

 is over a queen-excluder in a two- 

 story hive with a good laying queen 

 in the lower hive. But in order to get 

 the best results, this hive must be 

 rousing strong. It is well to have 

 both hive bodies completely filled 

 with brood. Extracting supers may 

 be put on top of all. This will neces- 

 sitate some lifting at times, but it is 

 well worth it. One bar of from IS 

 to 20 cells is given to a colony to be 

 finished. The cells should be left 

 with this colony that finished them 



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Spring in Tennessee. 



