190 DR. miller's 



swarm, go to the hive each evening after the bees have quieted 

 down, put your ear to the side of the hive and listen for the pip- 

 ing of the young queen, which you will hear as soon as she issues 

 from her cell. You will have no difficulty distinguishing her sharp, 

 clear tones, even if you have never heard a queen pipe before. 

 The other virgins in their cells will quahk in reply. Xow go to 

 the hive next morning and cut out all cells, but look sharp 

 that none of the virgins escape which have gnawed open the cap- 

 ping of the cell, but are kept prisoners by the workers. In "Fifty 

 Years Among the Bees" I have very fully detailed the way in 

 which I rear queens for my own use, a plan I would use if I had 

 only half a dozen colonies. I think it might pay you well to get 

 the book just for that part alone. 



Q. Is there a better way of rearing queens for an amateur 

 without queen-rearing tools, when queens are wanted before the 

 swarming season? If so, please explain. (Iowa.) 



A. You don't need any special queen-rearing outfit for ten 

 queens a year, nor for 100. I'll tell you how you can rear just as 

 good queens as can be reared from your stock, with no other 

 outfit than what every beekeeper is supposed to have on hand. 



Take a frame out of the hive containing your best queen, and 

 put in its place a frame with a starter an inch or so deep. A week 

 or so later you will find the bees have filled the frame three-quar- 

 ters full, more or less, with new comb, with larvae well advanced 

 down to eggs around the outside edge. Trim ofif the outer edge 

 that contains only eggs, leaving the larvae. It isn't easy to be 

 exact about this, and it isn't very particular, only don't cut away 

 any of the larvs ; no harm if you leave some of the eggs. Indeed, 

 i*^ is not absolutely necessary to cut off any of the comb; only 

 that outer margin is in the bees' way. Now put your prepared 

 comb in the middle of a strong colony from which you have re- 

 moved the queen, and in nine or ten days cut out the cells and 

 give them to nuclei. In about two weeks later you ought to find 

 most of them changed into laA'ing queens. You see, it isn't a 

 very complicated matter, and needs no special outfit. 



You note that I give no date as to when you are to do these 

 things. I can't, because it may be three weeks later one year than 

 another. But be sure not to begin too early. In your locality, if 

 you were to begin in March you wouldn't get one good queen out 

 of twenty. Figure so as to give the brood to the queenless colony 

 when the bees are working prosperously in the fields. In your 



