334 A Modern Bee-Farm 
much as four weeks old. In fair weather, the rule is for 
them to be laying in ten or eleven days from hatching ; 
but through unfavorable weather, I have had a number of 
queens under the closest observation failing to mate until 
the twenty-eighth day, and then successfully, having seen 
them come in with the drone attachment and in due course 
produce properly capped brood. I have had many mated 
at 21 to 25 days, while I have on several occasions seen 
queens return more than once with evidence of a successful 
union with a drone.* 
However, when a queen gets much beyond fourteen 
days, it requires the most sunny and calm spell to enable 
her to become successful in securing a mate, though such 
days are, of course, always desirable. Young and vigorous 
queens will occasionally fly at an opportune moment, and 
become successful in somewhat windy weather. But the 
temperature must not be low. It is only under a high 
temperature with little or no wind that general success is 
attained where queens are reared on a large scale. 
Nuclei should be constantly renovated by the addition 
of fresh brood, whether they are to be soon united or not ; 
and they should always be in possession of stored combs, 
in preference to any form of daily feeding, other than 
Simmins) dry feeders, or frames of candy. 
The dry sugar feeder, with or without the flap, is the 
best thing to use in supplying candy, which is poured into 
the frame, after the back is first studded with small nails to 
prevent the candy falling. 
Eggs for Queen Raising 
are more readily obtained from our select queens if 
the latter are in small colonies, having not more than 
* These queens had full liberty meantime; but it is a fact that 
queens confined for three to four weeks, though subsequently 
meeting a drone, will produce only males. 
