96 REARING AND INTRODUCING qUEENS. 



When stocks are liberally fed early in the season, 

 drones will appear correspondingly early. And if 

 from a stock well supplied with drones, you remove 

 the queen, the workers will not destroy the drones 

 in that hive until they h^ve obtained another fertile 

 laying queen. With this idea in view, viz : — early 

 and liberal feeding to produce drones early, and de- 

 priving a populous stock (well supplied with drones) 

 of its queen the last of the season, we can have 

 drones sufficient for our purpose from early spring 

 until late in the fall. 



I have in several instances, for the purpose of 

 securing drones very early in the spring, deprived a 

 populous stock, containing a large number of drones, 

 of its queen, very late in the fall, and wintered them 

 queenless. In this manner the drones were permit- 

 ted by the bees to remain and winter with the 

 swarm. Early in the spring they were re-enforced 

 with hatching brood trom populous stocks, but were 

 permitted to rear no queens, in order that the 

 drones might be preserved. As soon as drones ap- 

 peared in the other stocks, this stock was furnished 

 with a laying queen and it was as prosperous as the 

 best. 



By this plan drones may be kept through the 

 winter, if their services are required very early in 

 the spring, before we can raise them from the best 

 stocks by judicious feeding, w^hich very rarely can 

 be done. The bees for rearing queens are usually 

 obtained from populous hives, such as will hardly 

 miss a pint or a quart from their numbers, great 

 care being exercised not to remove the queen. The 



