VOL. LIX— NO. 8 



HAMILTON, ILL., AUGUST, 1919 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YFAR 



WHOLESALE QUEEN-REARING 



Methods of a California Queen Breeder Who Rears Thousands of Queens for 



the Trade-By Frank C. Pellett 



THERE is no branch of beekeep- 

 ing that requires the exercise of 

 so much skill on the part of the 

 operator as queen-rearing. When 

 conducted on the large scale which 

 is necessary to make it commercially 

 profitable as a specialty, the prob- 

 lems are multiplied. To rear a few 

 queens during the honeyflow, when 

 everything is favorable, is a simple 

 matter, but to continue a uniform 

 production, week after week during 

 the entire season, is a different thing. 

 Under natural conditions, queen- 

 cells are only built in preparation for 

 swarming or to supersede a failing 

 queen. Swarming cells are to be ex- 

 pected only when nectar is coming 

 freely from the fields. The queen 

 breeder must imitate natural condi- 

 tions as far as it is possible to do so, 

 in order to induce the bees to con- 

 tinue cell-building. The queen-breed- 

 er who has a location where a light 

 flow of nectar continues for a long 

 period of time is fortunate. Lacking 

 the natural flow, the usual method is 

 to resort to artificial stimulation by 

 feeding a small quantity of thin 

 syrup, daily, to cell-starting and cell- 

 building colonies. 



Migratory Queen-Rearing 

 We hear much of migratory bee- 

 keeping and it is in California that 

 migratory beekeeping assumes such 

 proportions that it is the common 

 practice of big producers. It has re- 

 mained for a California queen 

 breeder to adapt the practice to his 

 own specialty, and migratory queen 

 rearing may. in time, become popular. 

 J. E. Wing, of San Jose, is one of 

 the most extensive queen breeders 

 on the Pacific Coast, and probably 

 the first to adopt migratory practice 

 to the queen business. With a sud- 

 den termination of the flow at the 

 home yard, he has found it possible 

 to move his outfit a distance of 75 

 miles, to a point where a honeyflow 



was in progress, and continue opera- 

 tions without interruption. On one 

 occasion, when the outfit was moved 

 as shown in the photograph, a batch 

 of 109 new cells had been given to 

 the cell builders the day previous, 

 yet 105 were nicely finished, in spite 

 of the 75-mile journey. 



M. G. Ward is the queen breeder 

 who has direct charge of the opera- 

 tions, under Mr. Wing's direction, 

 and Bevan Hugh, of British Colum- 

 bia, is an assistant. The photograph 

 shows Mr. and Mrs. Wing, Wing 

 junior with Mr. Ward and Mr. Hugh.' 



At the close of the season, last 

 year. Mr. Ward was turning out 

 1,800 queens per month, with 800 baby 



nuclei, mating better than an average 

 of two queens each month from each 

 nucleus. Since no queens are sent 

 out till they begin to lay, there is not 

 much time for replenishing bees, in 

 ihese small mating boxes, from the 

 new queens. This is provided for by 

 means of a reserve supply of colo- 

 nies in hives, with 17 baby frames. 

 Combs containing bees, brood or 

 honey are drawn from the reserve 

 hives, as needed, and given to the 

 nuclei. 



One of the worst objections to the 

 baby nuclei, for mating purposes, is 

 the difficulty of maintaining them. 

 During the honeyflow they do very 

 nicely, providing the queens are per- 



Mr. J. E. Wing and family in center. 



van Hugh at right, M. G. Ward at left 



