138 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



on the other side a tin door or 

 slide runs in grooves, the same as 

 in a mailing cage we devised sev- 

 eral years ago, and is now des- 

 cribed on page 6, of A. I. Root's 

 circular. We do not exactly like 

 the metal door, but such an ar- 

 rangement is so convenient and 

 handy withal, that it was adopted. 

 This is used as a nursery cage, for 

 introducing or for shipping queens. 

 Now, while all beekeepers will not 

 need a full nursery, there is no 

 apiarist but what will have use for 

 a few such cages sometime during 

 the year. 



in the apiary ; remove a frame of 

 brood and adhering bees from a 

 strong colony (without the queen) 

 and place it in the box. Confine 

 the bees in the hive two days un- 

 less they are carried one mile from 

 their former location when one 

 day's confinement will do. While 

 confined in the box, keep the bees 

 in a cool place and see that they 

 have plenty of food and water 

 as well as air. At the end of three 

 days, insert at the bottom of the 

 frame a cage containing one of the 

 young queens, placing it so that 

 the bees can remove the susfar 



Fig. 2. Queen Nursery. 



Suppose the apiarist desires to 

 cage a queen for some purpose, — as 

 is quite often the case — how nicely 

 it can be done, and the queen pre- 

 served for weeks if the right kind 

 of a cage is used. What bee- 

 keeper does not sometimes have 

 some fine queen cells he would like 

 to preserve had he at hand the 

 conveniences for so doing? How 

 nicely and quickly the cells could 

 be transferred to the nursery cages 

 and then the cages inserted in one 

 of the brood combs where the 

 queens would hatch out. Now, all 

 this work could be done in a few 

 moments. The novice says : 

 "What shall we do with the queens 

 when they have hatched ?" Why, 

 simply make a few small boxes, 

 say one for each queen to take 

 any frame the size of those used 



food and thus release the queen. 

 Now, you have made a nucleus and 

 successfully introduced the new 

 (lueen. Any one, however inex- 

 perienced he may be in beekeeping, 

 can successfully introduce a virgin 

 or any other queen by the above 

 method which is the same as given 

 in the May number. Now we will 

 suppose that some one has twenty- 

 four queen cells and desires to pre- 

 serve them all. It can be done as 

 easily and as quickly with twenty- 

 four cells as with one. But with 

 that number of cells, I would ad- 

 vise one to remove the queen 

 from some full colony of bees and 

 insert the nursery between two 

 combs of brood. Take a small 

 instrument and make an aperture 

 through the wire cloth just large 

 enough for a bee to pass through 



