38 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



before going to the office, placed cells in 

 their places, and on my return have found 

 the queens hatched, and doing "as well as 

 could be expected." Last year I used the 

 Peet cage almost exclusively, but the cage I 

 have been most successful in shipping in, 

 and I don't remember of having lost a (jueen 

 in it, is simply a block 2\:i-2\x\ with a two- 

 iiich hole bored nearly through, and covered 

 with wire cloth ; the food, "Good Candy," 

 nierely pressed into one side, a half-inch 

 hole bored in the opposite side as an entrance, 

 and covered with a small bit of tin. This is 

 not an introducing cage, but is safer for 

 shipping than the Peet, as the tin back to 

 tlie Peet cage is too cold for early shipping. 

 I have succeeded in rearing and shipping 

 queens by the above process, and hope to be 

 at it again this year in April and May. 

 Statebukg, S. C, Feb. 26, 1890. 



Getting Good Cells Early in the Season ; 

 Hints to be Heeded in Shipping. 



W. p. HENDEESON. 



IDpl IE published works of H. Alley and 

 (yfS\p G. M. Doolittle have left but little if 

 oM^ any ground uncovered, upon the sub- 

 ject of queen rearing. Some years 

 hence, perhaps, like the works of Mr. Langs- 

 troth, they may need revising, but for the 

 present they may be considered abreast of 

 the times. 



I use the Langstroth hive— eight and ten 

 frames— and the plan usually adopted by me 

 for obtaining cells is to select the most pop- 

 ulous colony, the brood" of which I do not 

 desire to rear queens from, and remove the 

 queen; sometimes starting a nucleus with her 

 with one or two frames of brood and adher- 

 ing worker bees. If she is very old or im- 

 purely mated, I pinch her head and throw 

 her away. 



Now, upon the stand of this queenless col- 

 ony I place a nucleus hive of the capacity of 

 only four or five frames, the two middle 

 frames of which contain unhatched brood, 

 larvie and eggs of my choicest mother queen, 

 the outer frames containing uncapped 

 lioney. The bees are shaken and brushed 

 from their own combs upon a board at the 

 entrance of this nucleus which they readily 

 enter and crowd to overflowing. 



The colony having had six or eight frames 

 of brood to attend and nurse, now have only 

 two; and, being queenless, the bees com- 

 mence at once, or within a few hours, the 

 construction of queen cells. If they are not 

 storing honey rapidly, I feed at sun down, 

 for three or four days, a small quantity of 

 honey or syrup. 



The frames of brood from which the bees 

 have been brushed I distribute to other col- 

 onies where most needed or better taken 

 care of. 



More cells are constructed upon uneven 

 and ragged combs than when they are smooth 

 and straight. Cutting small holes through 

 the comb wherever there is larva> in the 

 right stage tends greatly to encourage the 

 production of an increased number of queen 

 cells. 



When the bees, intending to swarm, begin 

 the construction of queen cells in a hive con- 

 taining a desirable queen, I remove the 

 queen and let them have their own way until 

 the first queen is hatched, and they swarm 

 out with her, which they will do almost 

 invariably if storing honey rapidly, and then 

 cut out the reiji lining cells, giving them to 

 queenless stocks, or else break up into 

 nuclei as my needs demand. 



I sometimes remove all the cells and the 

 brood comb, replacing with frames of brood 

 and larvifc of tlie right age and require the 

 stock to construct the second batch of cells, 

 and have frequently obtained more cells 

 from this second sitting than from the first. 



I have noticed there is more difference in 

 the form and shape of queen cells from a 

 colony swarming naturally than in the queens 

 themselves. 



Good queens cannot be produced in a low 

 temperature, with but few young bees and a 

 scant supply of honey. In fact, the few that 

 will be produced under such conditions will 

 be small and short lived. 



The requisites for rearing the best queens 

 are that the brood be from a mother that is 

 prolific — that the cells be produced in a 

 strong stock containing plenty of young Vjees 

 — that they have an abundance of honey and 

 fresh pollen, and that the weather be warm, 

 even hot. 



Without cuts, it is difficult to describe, in- 

 telligently, in a few words, so simple an 

 article as a shipping cage for queens, and I 

 will not attempt a pen "picture of the one I 

 use. 



For the successful transmission of queens 

 through the mails the weather should be 

 warm, the warmer the better. For a four or 

 five day's journey, the attendant bees need 

 number only ten or twelve, and these should 

 be young bees, and made to fill themselves 

 with honey before placing in the shipping 

 cage. The cage should be provisioned with 

 soft sugar candy or honey, simply enough 

 for the trip, and so arranged in the cage as 

 not to l^edaub the bees. 



Fewer casualities are attendant upon young 

 queens just commencing to lay, or that have 

 been laying only a few days, than an old 

 queen taken from a populous colony. If it 

 is desired to send by mail a queen occupying 

 six, eight or ten combs, in the height of the 

 breeding season, she should be removed and 

 placed in a nucleus for twenty-four or forty- 

 eight hours before shipping, for the reason, 

 which has been published time and again, 

 that she being so full of mature eggs, the 

 rough handling she receives in the mails per- 

 manently injures her, unless she has had a 

 chance to previously free herself of this bur- 

 den, which can be done in a nucleus. 



I am satisfied nine-tenths of the queens I 

 have lost through the mails, died either from 

 becoming chilled or from improper handling 

 before placing in the cage. I do not think 

 one in one hundred starved. 



As to making old bees which have contin- 

 uously, for days or weeks, flown from their 

 hive, stick to a new hive — nucleus — in the 

 immediate vicinity of their old home, is no 

 easy matter. The young ones that have 

 never left their hive, stick; make your nuclei 



