22 QUEEN-REARING IN ENGLAND. 



then, when they are placed in the rearing colony, the inapei- 

 fectly started ones may be weeded out. 



Some colonies accept the larvK and rear the queens more 

 readily and better than others. Races also show a marked 

 difference in this respect. English black bees and hybrids 

 generally accept larvae more readily and pay more attention to 

 them than pure Italians. 



Other Methods of Rearing Queens in a Colony 

 Containing a Fertile Queen. — Several other methods are 

 mentioned by American writers. One of these is to cage the 

 queen in the hive from a few hours before the queen-cells are 

 started until they are sealed, when they in turn are caged. 



Another method is to place the queen-cells, as soon as they 

 are started, in a small cage made of queen-excluding zinc. I 

 do not consider this to be a good method, because in testing 

 it in my apiary I find that the queens are smaller, and take 

 rather longer in developing than those reared by the methods 

 already given. This is probably due to the queen-excluding 

 zinc preventing the bees from attending to the queen-cells and 

 larv» suflSciently. 



Recording Notes, — The date the batch is started, the 

 name of the queen bred from — I use letters of the alphabet 

 to denote my breeding queens — and the numbers of the hives 

 to which the larvae are given should be noted in a pocket-book 

 at the time. Should any cups be placed in new hives as the 

 result of the examination made on the next morning, the addi- 

 tional facts are duly noted in the book. 



Also, on the fourth day, or later, the cells are caged and 

 placed in a new colony to incubate, a note is made of the 

 number of the hive into which they have been moved. When 

 the cells are distributed to the nuclei this number is crossed 

 out. By consulting the book occasionally one need not be 

 afraid that one will leave a batch too long in a hive, and one 

 knows where to find it at once. Also, a record is preserved 

 of the parentage of all the queens bred. 



My system of numbering my hives may be worth mention- 

 ing, because it prevents serious confusion being caused by 

 moving the hi\es about the apiary. It is reallv the stands, 

 and not the hives, that are numbered. The apiary contains 

 five rows of permanent stands, each consisting of four bricks 



