STATE bee-keepers' ASSOCIATION. 97 



to you for the reason that you can better afford to buy your 

 queens than to rear them yourselves. This, I believe, is a 

 mistake, as the honey-producer should properly inform him- 

 self as to the latest method of rearing queens so that he can 

 rear his own stock as a matter of economy. I hope to show 

 you, therefore, that you can afford to rear your own queens 

 to a very great extent after having purchased one or more 

 breeding queens, or having selected something from your 

 own stock which shows an unquestioned superiority over 

 other stock in the yard. 



The business has been developed to a very pretty science. 

 Indeed I know of nothing in all the realm of bee-culture that 

 is more interesting or more fascinating than watching the 

 baby queens develop into full-fledged mothers. 



It will not be necessary for me to explain how queen- 

 cells may be reared in wooden cell-cups in quantity, nor how 

 the eggs of one or two breeding queens may be used for all 

 the cell-building work. This part of the operation has been 

 usually regarded as simple and easy; but the problem of get- 

 ting the young hatched virgins mated — aye, there has been 

 the rub. I desire to show you a method whereby even this 

 part of the work can be accomplished simply and easily, and 

 at a trifling expense in bees and brood. 



Until within the last year or so, full-sized two and three 

 frame nuclei using standard Langstroth frames have been 

 employed for mating the virgins. To make such, it has been 

 necessary to break up a good many otherwise strong colonies 

 for honey-production. As a general rule, only three or four 

 nuclei could be made out of one colony. This made the 

 question of mating somewhat expensive. Mr. Pratt, Mr. 

 Laws, and others who have worked at this problem, have 

 now demonstrated that a small teacupful of bees and one or 

 two sections of comb will serve as good a purpose as a large 

 nucleus, with the added advantage that the queens can be 

 found instantly. 



I hold in my hand here one of Mr. Pratt's "baby" nucleus- 

 boxes. As you will see, it is a miniature hive made of quar- 

 ter-inch stuff with a small flight-hole in front. This has a tin 

 slide on the outside so that the hole can be closed, and a 

 perforated zinc slide on the inside. This latter can be re- 

 volved around, holding the queen after she is mated. The 

 little frames, as you will note, are secured to the cover, hav- 

 ing no ears nor projections. They are not made permanently 

 fast, but are secured by a staple bent at right angles, folded 

 over against the top-bar. When these little frames are filled 

 with comb and bees, the cover is turned bottom up, leaving 

 the frames standing upright. If the queens or the eggs are 

 not discovered on the two outside surfaces of the combs, a 

 sliding twist will remove one of the frames so that its inside 

 surface, as well as the inside surface of the other comb, can 

 be readily seen. If the queen is laying, the fact can be noted 

 at a glance. If she is to be caged and sent out through the 

 mails she can be located without hunting. We have gone so 

 far as to take every bee in the box and put it in the mailing- 



