QUEEN KEYRING AND INTRODUCTION. 168n 



300f. Hanagement of the Queen Cells.— The cells, or cups, with 

 their larvae and jell y, are now atta ched to the laths alternately in 

 double lines, thus— j •■•.•.•.•. ] — cells being fastened with hot 

 wax, and cell-cups by means of their nail points, or flanges (30Cc), 

 and one of the laths is inserted in the centre of a frame of comb, 

 the lower half of the comb having been cut out to admit it ; or, 

 two or three laths may be set into one frame (Fig. looc. g), 

 with a strip of foundation above the uppermost lath. The cells 

 should be given to the nursing stock, without delay, and it is most 

 important that they be kept warm during all the operations. Tc 

 obtain the best results, the nursing stock should be one that is very 

 strong in bees — twenty standard frames of bees will not be too many — 

 from which the queen and one frame of brood and two of honey, 

 with the adhering bees, have been removed to a nucleus hive (285) 

 three days earlier, for, after three days' queenlessness the bees will 

 be ready to receive the queen cells, which should be given in the 

 centre of the brood nest. Liquid food should be supplied regularly 

 if honey is not coming in freely. The extra-strong nursing stock 

 may be used for the purpose until the cells given to It have been 

 sealed, after which the cells may be distributed among other stocks 

 to continue the hatching of the young queens. The queens should 

 hatch out in about n or 12 days from the transfer of the larvse. If 

 the date of transfer of the larvse be marked upon the frame-top, 

 one will know when to expect the queens. This stock may be kept 

 nursing relays of queen larvse if hatching brood be supplied to it from 

 time to time ; otherwise, after one or two lots had been reared, there 

 would be no young nurse bees in the hive, and nursing by older bees 

 is never satisfactory in its results. When the stock is no longer 

 required for nursing, its queen, and the bees and frames with her in 

 the nucleus hive, may be returned to it. An objection to the 

 above plan is that the nursing colony must be kept queenless, and 

 is of little use for any other purpose while so engaged. If better, 

 or even equal results could be obtained by using full colonies for 

 queen nursing and honey production at the same time, the ad- 

 vantage would be great. Doolittle discovered that this can be 

 accomplished. We select a strong stock, remove two frames of 

 hatching brood to an upper story, supplying their places with two 

 frames of foundation, set a queen excluder upon the lower frames 

 and the upper story on it, adding frames of hatching brood from 

 other colonies, or frames of foundation, or of drawn comb, on either 

 side of the two frames of brood, and our frame of cell-cups between 

 the latter. The bees coming up through the excluder, having no 

 queen in the upper story, will raise, and will continue to raise, 

 queens there in our cell-cups throughout the season, without any loss 

 in honey production and brood rearing, while fresh frames of cell- 

 cups may be given above at intervals of three or four days, and with 

 the best results if a frame of sealed brood be given in the upper 

 story every ten days. 



300g. Protecting the Young Queens. — It must be noted that if one 

 queen be allowed to emerge from her cell and to have access to the 



