60 DADANT SYSTEM OP BEEKEEPING 



harvest, we make a good colony queenless and exchange its 

 brood for a less number of combs of brood from one of these best 

 queens. By giving them a less number than they had of their 

 own, we make sure that the queen-cells reared will be well 

 cared for. 



To secure a large number of fine queen-cells, we might 

 follow the Alley plan, or the Dolittle plan, but these belong to 

 "commercial queen-rearing and we will not describe them. They 

 are described in the Hive & Honey Bee and also in Pellet's 

 Practical Queen Rearing. A very good method is to supply our 

 breeding queens, 3 or 4 days ahead, with new combs or comb 

 foundation cut with rounding edges at intervals, for the easy 

 production of queen-cells by the bees. When these combs are 

 full of eggs and young larvae less than 3 days old, they are just 

 right for our queen-rearing. 



Queen-cells hang downward fron the combs. For that 

 reason, the bees, for greater ease, build them at the lower edge 

 of the combs, or in open spots among the brood. If we supply 

 the queenless hive with young brood, less than 3 days old, 

 and eggs, in combs that are fresh and only partly built, there 

 are numerous opportunities for the building of queen-cells in 

 the empty spaces. So a much greater number of queen-cells are 

 built upon such combs. It is nothing rare to have as many as 

 50 or 60 queen-cells on one or two frames of such comb. 



The queenless colony to which these combs are given, 

 immediately builds queen-cells, especially if it is fed with 

 very thin sugar syrup, in case the crop is not yielding. Upon 

 the ninth day, after the insertion of the combs, the cells should 

 be counted and as many divisions of other colonies may be made 

 as the number of cells that may be cut apart, save one which is 

 to remain in the queenless colony. We often divide the queenless 

 colony itself into 3 or 4 parts, closing up the parts that are 

 to be placed on a new spot, in new hives, often carrying them to 

 a cellar or to some cool place, till the next day. We take good 

 care to leave more young bees in the portions removed to new 

 hives and new spots than in the hive on the old stand. We 

 confine them to the space actually occupied, with division 



