THOUSAND ANSWERS 191 



locality that probably means that the bees should not start to 

 build queen-cells until white clover begins to yield, or any time 

 later; and, of course, the empty frame must be given to your best 

 colony a week or so earlier. 



Q. Is the nature, quality, color, etc., of queens affected by the 

 bees that rear them frpm the egg? That is, if I give a cross 

 colony eggs from a queen whose workers are gentle, to rear a 

 queen, will the workers of the queen reared be gentle if she is 

 fertilized by a drone from a gentle colony? 



A. It is held by some that the character of a queen is ma- 

 terially affected by the nature of the nurse-bees that rear her. It 

 is certain that a young queen poorly fed will not be so good as 

 one that has a bountiful supply of best food. That is, perhaps, 

 the chief reason why the attempt to rear queens very early in the 

 season is generally a failure. But take two royal larvae, one fed 

 by nurse-bees of the most vicious temper, the other by the 

 gentlest of all bees, each being alike lavishly fed, and it is hard 

 to understand that there should be any great difference in temper 

 of the young queens, if both had the same mother. 



Queens and Swarms. — Q. When a first swarm issues, how long 

 is it before the young queen emerges in the hive? 



A. The first afterswarm issues about 8 days after the prime 

 swarm (perhaps sooner, perhaps later), and the young queen 

 probably emerges the day before that, say about a week after the 

 prime swarm. 



Q. Is a queen on the outside or inside of a swarm which is 

 clustered on a limb? 



A. She may be anywhere in the cluster, and sometimes the 

 bees will cluster and the queen not with them at all. 



Queens, Shipping. — Q. Do you think that queens that come 

 through the mails are as good as those not caged? 



A. Certainly it would not be safe to suppose that a queen 

 will be improved by a journey through the mails. She may not be 

 injured at all by such a journey, and the injury may be serious. 

 Even in a case where a queen is greatly injured by being mailed, 

 she may be a very profitable investment. Suppose you have a 

 strain of very poor bees, and you order a queen of a strain of bees 

 that will store double as much as your bees. She is so badly in- 

 jured in the mails that she is slow about beginning to lay, lays 

 very sparingly, and gives up the ghost before you have had her a 

 month. All the honey stored by her progeny, if sold at a high 

 price will not amount to as much as you paid for the queen. It 



