60 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 



cells is of course prior to swarming in the spring. But, if the proper 

 conditions be brought about, there is no reason why good queens 

 cannot be produced earlier or later than this particular time of the 

 year. It is often advantageous in the economy of the up-to-date 

 apiary to rear young queens in large numbers prior to the swarm- 

 ing time, for use in the artificial swarming or in the control of 

 swarming spoken of at length in the following section, and for this 

 reason we consider the matter of rearing queens at this point in 

 our discussion. 



The first preparatory step to inaugurate the raising of queens 

 ib the dequeening of a good strong colony which has an abundant 

 supply of emerging bees. In twenty-four to forty-eight hours the 

 bees will have fully realized their queenless condition and be well 

 in the notion of starting cells. There are several ways of procedure 

 to prepare cells. One mode is to take a frame of young larvae less 

 than three days of age, since up to that time, it will be recalled, the 

 larvae have been fed upon only the rich secretion of the nurse bees, 

 and strip off narrow pieces each of a single row of cells in width. 

 The cells on one side may be shaved down nearly to the base, and 

 then the strip with the cells of the opposite side intact secured with 

 hot wax to the top bar of an empty frame. One or two additional 

 bars may be placed in the frame and strips fastened to them in a 

 similar manner. Then with a blunt sliver or match stick, two out 

 of every three larvae may be destroyed. This will give room for 

 the bees to build down the queen cells without joining them to 

 each other. Two or three frames so prepared or even four may be 

 given to the queenless colony. At the time they are inserted, all 

 unsealed brood should be removed and frames of emerging bees 

 inserted, if available. It will be seen that all the nurse bees will 

 then be able to give their whole attention to feeding and caring for 

 the prospective queens and that the numbers of emerging bees will 

 reenforce and swell the numbers and efficiency of the nurses, the 

 result being that a large amount of royal jelly will be allotted to 

 the queen larvae. To increase this secretion and also the secre- 

 tion of wax with which to build down the cells and to ease the 

 queenless condition of the colony generally, the bees may be stimu- 

 Inted by liberal feeding each day. In this way large well shaped 

 cells with well fed larvae will be obtained. 



Another method employed by some is to use a series of queen 



