318 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



emerges from its cell, of a beautiful golden color, and in about 

 seven days more she will become impregnated, if the weather is 

 favorable, and commence filling the empty combs with eggs. 

 Now remove and confine her in a queen cage. In removing, 

 seize her gently l)y the wings with the thvimb and fore-finger. 

 Great care should be used not to squeeze or injure her. She is 

 now ready to be introduced to a full swarm, and the queen- 

 raising hive is ready for raising another queen. 



" You should have your queen-raising apiary at least one and 

 one-half miles from all black or common bees, and have Italian 

 drones in abundance, or you will be troubled to keep the queens 

 pure. If your object ^is to raise them to their greatest perfec- 

 tion, remove the Italian queen from the parent stock at a time 

 when the bees are storing honey in abundance, and give her to 

 some other swarm, previously prepared to receive her. This 

 parent stock, now queenless, will start from five to twenty queen 

 cells. When these cells are nine or ten days old, with a sharp 

 knife, cut them out, leaving a piece of comb one inch square 

 with each cell to which it is attached. Great care should be 

 used in handling these colls, as a sudden jar or bruise is apt to 

 injure or destroy the young queen in the cell. Give these queen 

 cells to your miniature hives, one cell to each hive. It is sup- 

 posed that you have your hives all prepared to receive these cells, 

 by removing all uncapped brood several hours before you intro- 

 duce your capped queen cell. Introduce the cell by cutting a piece 

 of comb from one of your little frames, making a place just large 

 enough to receive the cell, with the small piece of comb to which 

 the cell is attached. The bees will accept it as theirs. 



" After removing all these queen cells from the parent stock, 

 or hive No. 1, give it the Italian queen, confined in a cage, 

 the same queen you removed nine or ten days previous to this ; 

 now the hive which you remove the queen from, or hive No. 

 2, will at once start from five to twenty queen cells, in the 

 same way as hive number one, or the parent hive, when you 

 first removed the queen from that. In using these two hives in 

 this way, by changing the queen from one hive to the other, in 

 nine or ten days you will get an abundance of queen cells and 

 a better class of queens than in any other way. Care should be 

 used in changing this queen. After removing all the queen 

 cells from one hive, give it the old queen, confined in a 



