THOUSAND ANSWERS 185 



Put in the cellar the hives containing the drones and the young 

 queens. After it is too late in the day for other drones to fly, 

 take out the cellared hives, and incite them to fly by feeding. 

 You may be a little more sure of this if the cellaring has con- 

 tinued two or three days. You may also succeed by taking them 

 out in the morning, so as to get them to fly before other drones 

 are out. 



Q. I shall want to clip the queen's wing when she becomes 

 fertile. When should this be done? 



A. She is likely to begin laying when about ten days old, al- 

 though it may be a day or two less, and it may be several days 

 more. Do not clip her till you are sure that she is laying regu- 

 larly in the combs. 



Queen Nursery. — Q. I want to ask about the Stanley nursery 

 for queens. I have Dadant, Hutchinson and Root on bees, but 

 none of them has anything about it. I would like to know where 

 one can be procured or how made. I am anxious to have one. 



A. The essential part of a Stanley queen-nursery looks like 

 a cartridge shell for a gun. The shell is made of excluder-zinc, 

 and is 2 inches long, with an inside diameter of three-quarters of 

 an inch. The perforations of the zinc run transversely. It is 

 simply a piece of excluder-zinc 2.35 inches long and 2 inches wide, 

 rolled up into cylindrical form and soldered together. The two 

 ends are closed by common gun-wads. The workers have free 

 entrance to the cylinders, while no queen can enter to make an 

 attack. In the little experience I had with them I found that the 

 young queens were sometimes killed by getting caught in the 

 slots, but not often. They have, on the other hand, the advantage 

 over other nurseries that the workers can have free access to the 

 cells, and it is claimed, especially in Europe, that the close contact 

 of the workers has a very important influence on the occupants of 

 the cells. A number of these cartridges — I think 48 — may be con- 

 tained in an ordinary Langstroth brood-frame, and be put be- 

 tween the brood-combs in a hive. They can probably be had from 

 the inventor. 



Queens, Northern and Southern Bees. — Q. Would it do to 

 send to Texas, or other warm countries, for queens? Would they 

 stand the cold up here in New York state and be hardy? 



A. So far as I know, queens from the South do just as well as 

 those reared farther North, and are just as hardy. 



It is well known that, in general, each region has plants and 



