THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



181 



and the next night comb contain- 

 ing eggs, ^jrepared the same as de- 

 scribed in the tliird edition of the 

 " Handy Book," was given the 

 bees. One or two cells were built 

 from the eggs in the comb tlie 

 queen had laid before being re- 

 moved ; but most of the cells were 

 built on the little strips of pre- 

 pared comb given them. Well, a 

 beekeeper who has but few bees 

 can rear quite a number of queens 

 in his full colonies and no colony 

 need be queenless over five days. 

 It can be done thus : remove the 

 queen, as above stated, and the 

 next night prepare the eggs by 

 destroying those in every alternate 

 cell, and then place the strip of comb 

 in small frames, both sides of which 

 are covered with perforated metal 

 as shown in Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2 illustrates the frame with 

 the zinc removed from one side. 

 This shows the top piece of wood, 

 which is convex. The strip con- 

 taining eggs for queen cells are 

 fastened to the curved or convex 

 piece by hot beeswax and rosin, 

 all of which is done in less than 



half a minute. The bees will 

 build the cells just where the eggs 

 are put. When the cells are 

 sealed or nearly so, the perforated 

 zinc door may be placed in posi- 

 tion on the frame and a laying 

 queen immediately introduced. It 

 will not matter whether the cells 

 built on the brood-combs outside 



the small frame are destroyed or 

 not, as the queen introduced will 

 do so. The queen can not destroy 

 the cells enclosed in the small 

 cages as they are protected by the 

 metal doors, through which the 

 queen cannot pass and the bees 

 will not destroy the cells. When 

 the cells have been sealed seven 

 days, transfer to nuclei or to the 

 queen nursery. By this method 

 one can rear a line lot of cells 

 and not in the least damage the 

 colonies used for such a purpose, 

 and there is not the least danger 

 in introducing a queen to a colony 

 that has just completed a lot of 

 queen-cells. 



We can give several other meth- 

 ods for rearing queens or rather 

 for arranging the comb containing 

 eggs for cells, but the above will 

 suggest different ways fordoing so 

 and any intelligent beekeeper can 

 put them into practical use. 



One word of advice to the nov- 

 ice : do not practise any method 

 for rearing a large number of 

 queens per colony, but try to rear 

 the best and largest queens. Let 

 your motto be : better, not cheaper 

 queens. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



QUESTIONS BY S. CUSHMAN. 



CONTRACTING BROOD-CHAMBER AND 



USING DUMMIES DUraNG SWARMING 



TIME. 



1. If a number of colonies hi ten- 

 frame hives have six combs full of 

 brood with honey in the rest and are 

 gaining in stores- and will soon be at 

 work on white clover, which is the 

 better plan after removing tlie fonr 

 combs of honey from each? To fill up 

 space with dummies and put on sec- 

 tions, or to double up brood, leaving 

 each hive Avith ten frames of brood 

 and immediately give enough boxes to 

 take all the bees when they hatch? 



Do you consider either plan a good 

 one, or is there a better way?' 



