ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 69 
we slide on a piece of folded tin so it makes a shoulder for the little 
frame to hang on. When we wish we can put a frame of these little 
frames in any standard hive, and have them filled with brood or 
honey; then the little frames can be put into weak nuclei if we wish, 
and at the close of the season these small combs with their bees, 
brood, and honey, can all be utilized in uniting with other colonies. 
I am sure that, if you will try this way of rearing surplus queens 
another season, you will be surprised to see how easy it is to have 
choice young queens on hand at a small expense, ever ready to use 
where occasion may require. If you expect to make a success of bee 
keeping you must be on the watch to take advantage of all these little 
things. 
December, 1906. 
SUPERSEDING OUR OLD QUEENS. 
DO NOT LET THE BEES DECIDE AS TO THE TIME FOR DOING THIS. 
To supersede our queens when two years old, or to leave it for the 
bees to attend to, is a question of far more importance than many 
realize, and one upon which I very decidedly differ with some of our 
best bee-keepers. Last fall we had 107 queens in our apiary that were 
2% years old. Therefore for many years we have superseded all our 
queens at 2 years of age; but as a part of these queens were some we had 
bought, and were of an extra good strain, their hives being well filled 
with honey, and as some writers on the subject had claimed that the 
bees knew better than we when to supersede their queens, I thought 
I would test this matter thoroughly on a large scale, even if it cost 
me the 107 colonies to do so. 
THE RESULT OF THE EXPERIMENT. 
We put our bees in the cellar about the middle of November. These 
colonies, with their queens 2% years old, were put in with the other 
colonies here and there all through the lot, and had exactly the same 
chance as those with younger queens. When we took them from the 
cellar about the middle of April we found only eleven that had super- 
seded their queens; and it had been done so late in the fall that six 
were drone-layers, and the other five were about as weak in bees as 
those with the old queen; and of the remaining 96, 3 were fairly good, 26 
were very weak in bees, and the other 67 were dead. 
In looking over our bees about Sept. 1 we noticed that these old 
queens had all stopped laying, and had but little brood compared with 
the young queens. This fact, undoubtedly, had much to do with the 
weak condition of the few that survived the winter. 
Of the other 603 colonies in the same cellar, that had queens 6 
months old and 1% years old, only 7 were lost. 
Now, my friends, can any of you say that it does not pay to keep 
track of the age of your queens, and attend to superseding them your- 
