THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



39 



of these and give them only capped brood to 

 attend to, with plenty of honey, and contract 

 the entrance to avoid robbing for one or two 

 wet-ks. 



I have been "as brief and concise" as pos- 

 sible, at your request; have written nothing 

 probably that every queen breeder did not 

 know before, but it may be of interest to 

 beginners in the business. 



MuBFBEESBOKO, Tenn., Feb'y 22d, 1890. 



Selection of Stock ; Getting Cells ; Candy 

 and Cages. 



S. W. MOBBISON, M. D. 



§ ELECT good stock to breed from. I 

 do this through reliable agents located 

 in the land of the best stock, viz.: the 

 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. I order 

 their "selected" queens and after testing the 

 progeny of these queens I select those queers 

 the progeny of which combines all the most 

 desirable qualities. This testing requires 

 observation through a whole season. 1 first 

 observe the queen to see if she is of good 

 size and laying well. There is no use in 

 noting her color ; I care nothing for that. 

 When her progeny begins to hatch, as they 

 begin to fly I note their markings. Italian, 

 Cyprian, Syrian, Carniolau, each its distin- 

 guishing characteristics. As I am lireeding 

 Carniolan queens only. I must have bees 

 showing only steel gray — not rusty — body 

 with light gray or white bands. If I should 

 find "rusty" colored workers I should infer 

 the presence of a taint of the German race. 

 If yellow bands, a taint of the yellow banded 

 races. The workers should be large, and 

 when the honey gathering season comes they 

 should be noted for "early rising" and a 

 rapid filling of the surplus boxes. When the 

 honey flow ceases suddenly they should be 

 found on the alighting board watching to 

 take the first robber by the ear, and throw it 

 off. If the hive is opened, robber V)ees flying 

 thickly around should not throw them into a 

 panic, but every worker should stay quietly 

 in its place on the comb. The quality of 

 gentleness is then fairly observed. The 

 above are the points I wouldwishthe breeder 

 of queens to ol)serve most carefully : and 

 from such queens I would also desire him to 

 secure drones with which the young queens 

 may mate. To secure drones of this (luality 

 early in the season I would carry through the 

 winter a good, unfertile queen, and, l>y 

 means of contracted quarters and stimula- 

 tive feeding in February and March, an 

 abundance of good drones can be had early 

 in April, even further north than latitude 40°. 

 One season has passed and another April 

 has i^ome and drones are about to hatch 

 from the unfertile queen. Four days after 

 giving the selected queen an empty comb, 

 carry it filled with eggs, just hatching, into a 

 room of a temperature at or above 80°; cut 

 from this comb strips of cells of a single cell 

 in width and three inches in length. With a 

 sharp knife dipped in hot water shave ofif 

 the comb, making the cells of one side 



about one-half their natural depth. Dip the 

 other edge of the comb into a tin cup of 

 melted wax and quickly fasten it to the 

 lower edge of an empty comb, two thirds of 

 which has been cut out in a circular manner. 

 The piece of comb left in the frame is convex 

 upon its lower edge. It is then given to a 

 colony made very strong and from which 

 the queen has been removed nine days pre- 

 vious and all queen cells carefully destroy- 

 ed. On the tenth day, from fifteen to thirty 

 queen cells will be found and should be 

 taken into the lamp nursery from which the 

 queens are taken as they hatch and intro- 

 duced into queenless nuclei, where they will 

 be found laying on the tenth day. Other 

 cells are procured from the same colony 

 which is kept strong by frequent addition of 

 hatching brood. 



I send you three cuts illustrating the cage 

 I have made and used for two years past. A 

 is the space for the candy. This space 

 should have been shown as an almost en- 

 closed space. In 2 the candy has been put 

 in place and wire net tacked on, and 1 is a 

 case into which the cage is placed after 

 printed "directions for introducing" have 

 been wrapped around the cage. A small 

 piece of tin is seen turned in cut 2. Before 

 the wire screen is put on the cage a small 

 piece of queen excluder zinc is put on, and 

 over it the tin, both being held by a small 

 wire nail driven through them. The excel- 

 lence of this cage consist in: 



1st. It insures safe carriage through the 

 mails by its strength. 



2d. It has been examined and has the 

 approval of both the U. S. and Canadian 

 postal authorities. 



3d. For introducing queens, the zinc per- 

 foration allows the bees to enter and become 

 thoroughly acquainted with the queen. I 

 have never heard of one being stnng, attack- 

 ed or balled in the cage. After a few hours 

 the zinc may be turned — the hole plugged 

 with candy and the bees allowed to release 

 the queen. 



I do not make the candy I use but have it 

 made by my direction by a manufacturer of 

 candy. I take him honey and tell him sim- 

 ply to use it with sugar and no other ingre- 

 dient, by boiling to make me cream candy. 

 I do not think any candy has been made 

 equal to this, and any expert candy maker 

 can make it. It can be kept in a dry place 

 in a tin bucket indefinitely, and I accept all 

 orders for queens of fifteen or twenty days 

 journey, and have been mailing them in 

 these cages and with this candy for two years 

 past. 



OxFOED, Pa., Feb. 20, 1890. 



