8 QUEEN-REARING IN ENGLAND. 



To rear the queens young worker larvae of the strain 

 that it is desired to propagate are placed in artificial cups, 

 and are given to a colony from which the queeii has been 

 removed, or in which she is failing, or to one in 

 which some of the symptoms of loss or failure 

 of the queen have been artificially produced. 



Preparing the Cups. — Doolittle appears to 

 have been the first to have made and used artificial 

 cells for the purpose of commercial queen-rearing. 

 His cell -cup is made and fixed in the following 

 manner : — 



The tip of a wooden stick (Fig. 5) that has 

 been whittled and sandpapered to the shape and 

 size of the inside of a queen-cell is moistened with 

 water and then dipped into beeswax heated slightly 

 above the melting point, to a depth of about -Hn., 

 six or seven times. The wax is allowed to solidify 

 between each dip, and each time the stick is dipped 

 a shorter distance. Thus a cup with a thin edge 

 and heavy base is produced. The inside diameter 

 at the mouth of the cup should be barely fin. 

 It is important that the inside surface of the cup 

 should be smooth and round. About a dozen of 

 these cups are fastened by means of drops of 

 melted wax about lin. apart on a bar of wood 

 |in. thick and Jin. wide. The bar is fixed hori- 

 zontally in the lower part of a standard frame, 



three or four inches 

 from the bottom 

 (Fig. 6), Comb or 

 a block of wood fills 

 the upper part of the 

 frame. 



By placing the cups 

 slightly zigzag, a 

 larger number can be 

 fixed on the bar than 

 by placing them in a 

 straight line. The 

 wax at the point of attachment should be thick, so that 

 when the queen-cells are cut off the bar to be distributed 

 to the nuclei the knife will not enter them. 



Fig,. 5. 

 Forming 

 stick and 

 wax cup. 



Fig. 6. 

 Frame of cups (early style). 



