The Townsend Bee Book 79 
With the Alexander plan the queen-cells are all produced 
artificially, as explained above. By the way, the brood-nest above 
the excluder is one of the finest places to get cells finished after 
they have been started in the queenless colony. <A ten-day-old cell 
should be ready to give the brood four days before it is set on the 
permanent stand. In this way the young queen is ready to fly the 
first day after the division is made, and she becomes a laying queen 
in another week. 
We made up some winter losses by the Alexander plan of 
increase just at the commencement of the clover flow. In this case 
the brood-nests were all ready, some having honey where the bees 
had died before it was consumed. The queen and one frame of 
brood were put in the center of one of these sets of brood-combs, 
and a queen-excluder was put on top; then the brood and bees 
were set over this so that all were on the old stand. In one week 
a ripe cell was given the bees in the upper body, and on the elev- 
enth day this upper body was set on a stand of its own with a 
virgin queen ready to fly the first favorable day. This worked 
well, for all were in good shape for winter, there being no weak 
inferior colonies likely to be robbed out at any time. There was 
one objection, however—the plan was expensive. It can be seen 
that a set of brood-combs to be filled with brood and honey is 
equivalent to a set of frames containing the best clover or rasp- 
berry honey, and this amount of honey would be worth abcut 
$4.50. It is evident that we could go into the market and buy bees 
for less money than this. 
Our next plan was to wait until near the close of the clover 
season, when the honey-flow would last but a few days longer, it 
having already begun to slacken. At this time the plan just de- 
scribed was carried out, and it worked better, for it gave the 
advantage of the honey-flow in which to have the cells prepared 
and introduced, and it allowed also the colonies to get in a little 
honey so that they would be in very good shape, but of course 
short of stores, although they usuallly would have enough to last 
them until the time to feed up with sugar syrup for winter. 
While some of our winter loss is still made up on this last plan 
we have another plan that we like better. At the commencement 
of the honey-flow the division is made and the cell is given in four 
days, and the brood set off on its own stand on the eighth day 
after the division. At this time the brood is all capped so that 
there is no loss there. While this method takes three days more 
of hatching bees away from the colony that is left on the old stand, 
which is our honey-gatherer, we make two colonies from the brood 
