Tiil AMERICAN 



#'-^r * 



Apiculturist, 



A. Journal Devoted to Practical Beekeeping. 



VOL. X. 



APRIL, T892. 



No. 4. 



DO THK BEES BUILD CELL-CUPS 

 AROUND EGGS? 



In the Api, May, 1891, friend Alley 

 says that Mr. Vogel is wrong in his 

 statement, that bees will not build a 

 cell cup around an egg. He says "bees, 

 that swarm naturally, always build a cell- 

 cup around an egg and in all cases rear 

 queens from the egg." 



To tliis I can't fully agree with the 

 editor. It is true, that bees willing to 

 swarm naturally always rear queens from 

 the egg, but the first thing they do is to 

 build small cell-cups and the queen 

 lays eggs in them a/ferzaan/s. I have 

 more than once seen the queen laying 

 eggs into these small cell-cups and ev- 

 ery beekeeper can prove this by close 

 observation. We can find such small 

 cell-cups without an egg in colonies 

 preparing to swarm, and a day or more 

 afterwards we will find an egg depos- 

 ited into the same cell. 



By the way, I have to remark, that 

 some beekeepers are of the opinion 

 that these eggs are transferred % the 

 bees into the cell-cup. This is a mis- 

 take, and I do not believe that bees 

 ever transfer an egg into any cell. 



Quite the same thing can be observed 

 in colonies with laying workers. Such 

 co'onies sometimes build a great many 

 cell-cups and the laying workers de- 

 posit eggs in them afterwards. I must 

 say, I have never observed, that a cell- 

 cup is built around an already-laid <^i,\ 

 I said in my article in May, 1891, that 

 I am not sure about this, because it is 

 quite a different thing to'say I have ob- 

 served this or that and consequently it 



is a fact ; or to say, I have never seen 

 this, consequently it is not. While the 

 first conclusion is correct, the other one 

 may be wrong. 



Now the reader may say, by using 

 Alley's method of rearing queens, we 

 use eggs and the bees build cell-cups 

 around them. But do not be too hasty 

 in any conclusion. Alley recommends 

 to use eggs just three days old and 

 twenty-four hours afterwards we see the 

 cell cups started. You see, these eggs 

 are just at the age when they are hatch- 

 ing, and the question is now will the 

 bees btiild cell-cups before the young 

 larvae are out of the shells? Or do they 

 not? I examine such comb-strips very 

 closely to find out the truth and never 

 have seen a cell-cup started in this case 

 except the young larvje were out. If I 

 have given eggs not old enough, say 

 about two da)s old, the bees always re- 

 moved them from the downward cell 

 and I could not get a queen-cell. So 

 it seems to me very probable, that Mr. 

 Vogel is correct in saying that bees nev- 

 er build queen-cells over an egg. If 

 friend Alley has observed anything dif- 

 ferent, it would be interesting to know 

 it. 



Suppose all this is correct, it would 

 be wrong nevertheless to say, that us- 

 ing just three days' old eggs for queen- 

 rearing had no advantage. If the food 

 for queens and workers the first three 

 days is in any way different, the queens 

 reared by using eggs, will get the queen- 

 food from the start, while if larvae are used, 

 say only twenty-four hours old or even 

 younger, they have received some of the 



(49) 



