78 The Townsend Bee Book 
the exception of one or two in the center of the hive. In this sp. 
in the center, place bars containing empty cell cups, in order t’ 
these may be cleaned and made ready by the queenless bees for ° 
larve to be transferred later. The first day after the bees h: 
been made broodless and queenless they will be anxious to ; 
brood to start cells with. 
‘We are now ready to transfer the larve from some of { 
best queens to the cells which have been cleaned out by the que: 
less bees. A transferring-needle, jelly-spoon, plenty of queen-ce 
containing royal jelly, etc., will be needed. There is enough roy 
jelly in an ordinary queen-cell to prepare ten cells for larve. 
is important to get the larve transferred to the jelly in the p: 
pared cells so nicely that the bees are hardly able to tell it fri 
their own work. The cell-bars containing the transferred lar 
are now placed in the queenless colony to be started; and after th 
have been accepted, in a day or two they are taken from the quee 
less colony and placed in the second story of a powerful colo: 
above a queen-excluder, where they may be finished. Two fram 
of brood should be lifted up from the lower story, and placed o 
on each side of the cell-bars in order to make sure that the be 
do not leave the cells and go below, which might happen on a co 
night. With the two frames of unsealed brood it is quite certa 
that the cells will be well taken care of. I am sure that the wo 
will succeed better if the cells are started in a queenless colony 
the way described, rather than in an upper story over an exclude 
Of course, after the cells are started they can be transferred 
such an upper story over an excluder to be finished. 
For the honey-producer who raises only the queens that | 
needs to make up winter loss and increase, and when the regul: 
brood-frame is used, no tools except those that I have mention 
will be necessary. These are so few, and thir advantages so grea 
that no one can afford to be without them. In this way a quee 
can be supplied any time during the season. 
THE ALEXANDER METHOD OF MAKING INCREASE 
This is a very good system, for, as in the Somerford metho 
the brood is left with the full force of bees until it is all cappe 
This, of course, means a saving of all the unsealed brood, and th 
can not be said of some of the other methods which are being use 
where the unsealed brood is moved to a new location from whic 
many of the bees that were taken with it go back to the old loci 
tion, leaving the brood to take care of itself. 
