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ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



93 



what is equivalent to that, in frames 

 prepared for the purpose, having from 

 fifteen to thirty queen cups in one 

 frame. About the eighth day after the 

 egg was laid, the queen cell is sealed 

 and needs no attention, and should re- 

 ceive none until the day before it is 

 to hatch out. If the cells aSte handled 

 during this time, the queens' are likely 

 to be either killed or dwarfed, and 

 most of the under sized queens, and 

 loss in mating, may be accounted for 

 in that way. Then comes the hard 

 part of the queen rearing business. If 

 the queens are allowed to emerge all 

 together, of course they will kill each 

 other. If they are placed in nursery 

 cages, the virgin queens are exceed- 

 ingly hard to introduce into mating 

 colonies unless those colonies contain 

 only a handful of bees, and such nuclei 

 mating colonies must be constantly 

 fed and the bees renewed, with these 

 exceptions, I have found baby nuclei 

 just as good for mating queens as 

 large colonies. 



With a large number of nursery 

 cages, a very large number of baby 

 nuclei containing two one-pound sec- 

 tions as brood frames, several twin- 

 mating boxes containing brood area 

 equal to one-half of a Langstroth 

 frame, several two-frame Danzenbaker 

 mating hives, and all my Danzenbaker 

 hives arranged so as to be readily 

 transformed into four mating compart- 

 ments, — I like best of all the four 

 compartment hives for mating pur- 

 poses because of the ease with which 

 they are prepared. The wood division 

 boards are made to fit the hives per- 

 fectly, even out to the ends above the 

 framed supports, and extending one- 

 eighth inch above the brood frames, 

 upright cleats are nailed on the ends 

 to make the proper spacing just as 

 on the regular hive follower. A Paroid 

 cover is made to fit over each com- 

 partment between the division boards. 

 The bee entrances into the compart- 

 ments are all made different, so that 

 the virgin queens can easily tell the 

 right place. An eleven-sixteenth inch 

 hole is bored through the top of a 

 frame in each compartment, and an 

 inch hole is made in the Paroid" cover 

 at the same place. 



The day before the young queens 

 are to emerge we prepare as many 

 compartments as we have ripe cells. 

 There will be an old queen in one 

 compartment and three queenless com- 

 partments in each hive. One ripe 



queen cell is then placed in the eleven- 

 sixteenth inch hole in the brood frame 

 of each queenless compartment. No 

 West cell protectors are necessary, as 

 these cells will never be torn down. 

 In about ten days the young queens 

 will be laying and may be removed 

 and other ripe cells inserted. You no- 

 tice that these cells are inserted with- 

 out removing the paroid covers, in 

 the same way they are examined the 

 second day to see whether they have 

 hatched. During a honey flow I have 

 frequently used queen excluding zinc 

 instead of Paroid, and all of the com- 

 partment bees worked in harmony in 

 the super. With baby nuclei boxes, 

 the holes are bored through the top 

 and between the frames, so that the 

 ripe queen cells are inserted without 

 opening the box. The two-frame mat- 

 ing hives are managed the same as a 

 compartment in a large hive. This 

 method I have found much more sim- 

 ple and much more certain than the 

 nursery case system or the dual 

 queen system. And while the dual 

 system gains two or three days each 

 time you mate a queen, the time is 

 more than counterbalanced by the ex- 

 tra work and the percentage of loss in 

 introducing. And since the queen sea- 

 son is so short, the gain in time only 

 amounts to two or three queens in a 

 season. 



Is It practical then and profitable 

 for the average bee-keeper to rear 

 prices? Let me say in general that it 

 is never practical in business to do 

 that which is not profitable. Does it 

 pay to rear queens to sell? Well, yes, 

 if you are willing to accept the pleas- 

 ure of an occupation as the pay for 

 your labor in it. It reminds one of the 

 prayer that is often heard in the 

 churches, that the Lord will give the 

 faithful pastor many souls for his hire. 

 But it takes money to live on. And 

 if the queen business is to be consid- 

 ered from the standpoint of dollars 

 and cents, then I think that I can 

 prove conclusively that it does not 

 pay. I have kept accurate accounts. 

 I have advertised by what is called 

 "Key Advertising" and so know abso- 

 lutely what results have come from 

 certain investments. My advertise- 

 ment in one paper has brought one far 

 better results than any other, and so I 

 will consider only the results from 

 that source. My equipment was am- 

 ple; one apiary of Golden Italian bees 

 containing about seventy full colonies 



