594 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



bees. Find the queen. Remove her and all 

 the brood. If there are no combs well 

 stocked with pollen and honey, then find 

 such in other colonies. If there are enough 

 bees leave a few on the combs of brood and 

 set those combs with queen and bees in a 

 closed hive near by. Now place one comb 

 of pollen and honey in the selected hive, 

 then place in all the prepared frames of 

 cells, and then the other comb of honey and 

 pollen. If it seems desirable, pour some 

 water into the vacant cells of one comb. 

 Put the cover on the hive and leave it till 

 Ihe next day. 



4. The following day pick out the comb 

 froin which the larvae are to be taken. Best 

 results follow if this selection has been fore- 

 .stalled by putting in a sheet of foundation 

 for the breeding queen to lay in, feeding 

 the breeding colony so that there will be a 

 fine lot of larvae of the right age. Take the 

 ready comb into a warm room which has a 

 moist atmosphere, and where there are no 

 drafts. 



5. The royal jelly, which must be ready 

 (and this can be obtained by removing the 

 queen from some colony four days before, 

 if one has no other source of supply), is now 

 diluted with distilled Avater or else saliva. 

 If saliva is used it is well to rinse the mouth 

 out well so that all foreigTi substances likely 

 to injure the larvae will be removed. Dilute 

 to the consistency of heavy cream. By 

 dipping a blunt stick into the jelly, place 

 a small drop into each cell. By this time 

 the distracted colony has worked more or 

 less over every cell cup, and it is ready for 

 a larva. 



6. The transferring of larvae takes time, 

 and there is danger of the royal jelly glaz- 

 ing over and the larvae being seriously in- 

 jured. One must work with celerity, and 

 much speed will be gained if the most prom- 

 ising portion of the comb containing the 

 young larvae is cut out, and shaved down so 

 that the picking up of an individual larva 

 is made very easy. It is well, in case two 

 frames are to be stocked, to do one and 

 place that in the colony before the other is 

 done. 



7. Put the stocked cells into the colony. 

 Feed each night for four days from one 

 pint to one quart of much-diluted honey, 

 unless there is a honey-flow. Do not feed 

 after the fourth day, for by that time every 

 cell is about to be capped, and feeding is 

 useless. There is one exception to this. If 

 there is a great dearth of honey on, it is 

 well to feed enough to keep the bees fat 

 and contented. 



8. On the tenth or the eleventh day, ac- 

 cording to the age of larvae you select, all 



cells must be removed and each given to a 

 nucleus, or eared for; for when those cells 

 are ripe the work may all be lost by the 

 emerging of queens and duelings. 



9. Most of the bees of the colony can be 

 used to build nuclei ; but if that is not neces- 

 sary, then replace the frames of brood, 

 young bees, and queen which now occupy 

 the hive which, ten days or so before, was 

 set near by. The colony will go on and 

 show practically no ill effects from its task 

 of rearing 100 queens. 



From its lengthy description one might 

 be staggered by this plan of rearing queens ; 

 but Avhen once tried he will find that the 

 method involves as little labor as any meth- 

 od in use, measured on the basis of the 

 number of queens obtained. Indeed, if in- 

 volves far less labor than most of the meth- 

 ods. There is no swarm-box nuisance at- 

 tached to it ; there is no need to shut bees 

 up to get them distressed ; there is no set 

 time to be followed in regard to the prep- 

 aration of the colony and the grafting — 

 anywhere from six to twenty-four hours 

 giving good results. 



If one needs from fifty to one hundred 

 queens he will find it very gratifying to get 

 those queens at the expense of but one 

 colony for ten days. And if he has no 

 nuclei to care for the cells and emerging 

 virgins, he can put them immediately into 

 the colonies which are to be requeened. It 

 is only necessary to remove the old queens 

 three days before the cells are* to mature. 

 If this is done at a well-selected time, say 

 just after the honey-flow, little if any loss 

 can follow, because the colonies are without 

 laying queens for some ten days or a fort- 

 night. Also, there is but a small percentage 

 of loss in wedding-flights Avhen virgins fly 

 from full colonies. 



I have never tried to see how many good 

 queens can be reared by this method. I 

 have said from fifty to one hundred ; but I 

 really believe that a powerful colony could 

 easily give two hundred or even more. It 

 would be no task at all for a colony to feed 

 8000 worker larvae for four or fi\'e days, and 

 it would not be unfair to assume that the 

 feeding of 300 queens would be equally 

 easy. In my opinion the number is limited 

 rather by the beekeeper's ability to get the 

 cells grafted with sufficient rapidity so that 

 they may be all equally cared for. 



One statement more is desirable before 

 closing. It will be observed that the ar- 

 rangement of frames and cell cups is such 

 that they lie bunched within the midst of a 

 gi'eat cluster of bees. Much of the secret 

 of success is in concentration. 



Norwichtown, Ct. ' 



