1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



573 



setts and a narrow border of New Hamp- 

 shire and Rhode Island. Both these moths 

 came from Europe, where they are held in 

 check by parasites, so that only in occasion- 

 al years do they work serious harm. As I 

 have already explained in Gleanings, these 

 parasites are being introduced here in the 

 hope that the devastation may be stayed. 

 In California we have a very effective quar- 

 antine, in expert hands, that we may keep 

 such evils from entering our State. Bee- 

 keepers, all of us who love trees and beau- 

 ty, are tremendously interested in this con- 

 test in Massachusetts, and should urge the 

 general government to aid the old Bay State 

 in the fight. It is a matter of vast national 

 importance. We all should also work for 

 more general information and quarantine, 

 that such evils may be kept from coming 

 among us. 

 Berlin, Prussia. 



REARING QUEENS FOR EARLY INCREASE. 



How to Utilize Upper Stories and Perforated 

 Zinc for Getting Several Queens Fertilized 

 from One Colony; a Scheme for Getting 

 a Large Amount of Brood ; a Valua- 

 ble and Seasonable Article. 



BY E. W. ALEXANDER. 



During the past few weeks I have receiv- 

 ed several letters requesting me to state 

 throuffh Gleanings just how we rear our 

 queens so as to have them lajing in time to 

 make a large increase early in the season. 



First, by way of explanation I will say 

 that, in order to do this, we stimulate our 

 bees by early feeding to early breeding, so 

 we have many strong colonies quite early in 

 the season; and in recommending this I am 

 well aware that some very good bee-keepers 

 prefer to have their colonies only of medium 

 strength until about the commencement of 

 their harvest for surplus. But as we handle 

 our bees quite differently in many ways from 

 some, we try hard to have all the strong 

 full colonies we can as early as possible, and 

 we seldom keep a queen after she is two 

 years old. We supersede them some time 

 during their third summer. This necessitates 

 killing about one third every year. 



Now, after taking them from their winter 

 quarters we walk along in front of our hives 

 and count how many we have that are two 

 years old This is very easily done, for the 

 little tin tag on the front of each hive tells 

 us at a glance the age of the queen in the 

 hive. These colon es we now give especial 



attention to, we feed them regularly, and 

 rather more at a time than we do the colo- 

 nies that have younger queens. We also 

 frequently give them frames of hatching 

 brood from other colonies, and at all times 

 try to keep them as warm as we can. In 

 this way we have no trouble in building them 

 up strong and full of brood early in May; 

 and while we are doing this we insert frames 

 of comb that have some drone comb in near 

 the middle of the two or three hives we wish 

 to rear drones from to mate with our early 

 queens. This should be done about ten days 

 before we start the rearing of queen- cells. 

 Then about May 15 we borrow the bees from 

 several of our strongest colonies for one 

 day to start our queen- cells, as is now prac- 

 ticed by Mr. Pratt, of Swarthmore, Pa , 

 which I consider the finest way to start the 

 rearing of choice queens of any thing I have 

 ever tried, as we have to use these bees only 

 one day, then we can give them their queen 

 and brood, which leaves them in about as 

 good condition as they were in before they 

 were disturbed. When we counted up our 

 old queens we found we had about 200 to be 

 superseded Now, this will require 400 young 

 queens if we divide each one; then we have 

 about 100 colonies that have younger queens 

 that we wish to divide. They will require 

 100 more, so we find that we shall need some 

 500 young queens to make our increase and 

 supersede our old queens. Then we should 

 allow about 50 for those that are lost, so we 

 will start the rearing of about 600 cells. We 

 would much rather have more cells and 

 queens than we can use than to be short on- 

 ly a few. As soon as this is done we go to 

 half the colonies that have two- year- old 

 queens and kill their queens, also destroy any 

 eggs or larvae they may have in any queen- 

 cells. Then we go to the boxes that have 

 our newly started cells in, and take out five 

 or six cells for each colony that has been 

 made queenless. These we insert near the 

 center of their brood, and they will soon build 

 them out into as nice cells as we ever saw. 

 Then about two days before these cells are 

 ready to hatch we kill the remaining old 

 queens; then we tier up with two bives of 

 combs all the queenless colonies we have. 

 But be sure you divide the combs of brood 

 and honey that are in the hive below about 

 equal so each one of the three will have some 

 brood and honey. Then insert one of these 

 nearly ripe queen cells into each one of the 

 hives as they stand on top of each other, 

 and put a queen-excluder between each two 

 hives; also have a separate entrance for each 

 hive that the queen may use when she goes 

 out to mate. You see, aside from the queen 

 the colony has access to each one of the 

 three hives through the excluders. In this 

 way you will soon have three nice young 

 laying queens in nearly every colony that 

 contained your old queens. Then to use up 

 our surplus queen- cells we form nuclei by 

 taking one or two frames of honey or brood 

 and about a. quart of bees, and put them in- 

 to an empty hive, and set Ihem near the 

 hive we take the brood and bees from so as 



