196 DR. miller's 



you will do no harm to give quite a large number, say as many as 

 40; the bees themselves will do the limiting by destroying the 

 excess. 



Q. Why is it that queen-cells sometimes fail to hatch, even 

 when carefully protected by prepared cages? In any case, I in- 

 variably find that the larvae in the cells shriveled up at the 

 hatching end of the cell; this in spite of a plentiful supply of 

 "royal jelly," favorable climatic conditions, and during the honey- 

 flow. I have sometimes attributed the foregoing to the fact that 

 cells were made from a queen's first round of laying; but I have 

 recently noted the same results with a second-season queen's 

 brood. 



A. Swiss beekeepers, who are away up in matters pertaining 

 to queen-rearing, tell us that mere physical heat is not enough 

 to bring young queens safely to maturity; the bees must be 

 allowed to be in close contact with the cells, exercising some mys- 

 terious influence by their close contact with the occupants of the 

 cells. According to that it is a mistake to cage cells as soon as 

 they are sealed. In my own practice I leave the cells uncaged in 

 a strong colony, not caging them till there is danger of their 

 hatching. But there is one thing that looks as if another cause 

 was at the bottom of the trouble. You say you find the larva 

 ■'shriveled up at the hatching end of the cell." That looks as if 

 the combs had been shaken, thus throwing the larva out of its bed 

 of jelly. 



Q. I had one colony queenless and gave it a frame of 

 brood. The third day after, it had four queen-cells started. 

 The next time I looked they were capped. When they had been 

 capped about a week I looked into the hive again, intending to 

 cut them out, but found that the bees had torn them down before 

 it was time for them to hatch out. I also found two artificial 

 swarms with queen-cells had done the same thing. I gave one of 

 them another frame of brood. What is the matter with these 

 colonies ? 



A. The probabilit}' is that a young queen had emerged from 

 her cell. Her first care would be to see that all rivals were out 

 ot the wa\'. Possibly you may say that you are sure that could 

 not have been the case, for you looked the combs over very, very 

 carefully, and every queen-cell was torn open at the side, the end 

 oi the cell being entire, showing that no queen could have emerged 

 from it. In that case a virgin from elsewhere may have entered 

 the hive. Oftener than 3'ou might suppose, a virgin or laying 

 queen enters some other hive than her own. Sometimes, however, 

 bees take a notion to destroy cells with no apparent reason for it. 



