234 Care in Queen Rearing. 
readily at storing the material by dropping a little honey 
on it. 
The best colony in the apiary—or if there are several 
colonies of equal merit, one of these—should be stimulated 
to the utmost, by daily feeding with warm syrup, and by 
increase of brood taken from other colonies. As this colony 
becomes strong, a comb containing drone cells should be 
placed in the center of the brood nest. Very soon drone 
eggs will be laid. I have often had drones flying early in 
May. Assoonas the drones commence to appear, 1emove 
the queen and all eggs and uncapped brood from some good, 
strong colony, and replace it with eggs or brood just hatched 
from the colony containing the queen from which it is 
desired to breed. By having placed one or two bright, 
new, empty combs in the midst of the brood nest of this 
colony four days beforehand, we shall have in these combs 
just such eggs and newly hatching brood as we desire, with 
no brood that is too old. 
If we have more than one colony ie excellence war- 
rants their use to breed from, then these eggs should be 
taken from some other than the one which has produced 
our drones. This will prevent the close in-breeding which 
would necessarily occur if both queens and drones were 
reared in the same colony; and which, though regarded as 
deleterious in the breeding of all animals, should be prac- 
ticed in case one single queen is of decided superiority to 
all others of the apiary. The queen and the brood that 
have been removed may be used in making a new colony, 
in amanner soon to be described under “dividing or increas- 
ing the number of colonies.” This queenless colony will 
immediately commence forming qucen-cells (Fig. 93). 
Sometimes these are formed to the number of fifteen or 
twenty, and in case of the Syrian aul Cyprian races fifty 
or sixty, and they are started in a full, vigorous colony; in 
fact, under the most favorable conditions. Cutting off 
edges of the comb, or cutting holes in the same where 
there are eggs or larvae just hatched, will almost always 
insure the starting of queen-cells in ‘such places. It will 
be noticed that our queens are started from eggs, or from 
larve but just hatched, as we have given the bees no other, 
