17 



queenless colony. The queen cells which develop on the other 

 frames are destroyed leaving only the queen cells on the selected 

 frame tojdevelop. It is best to use frames of brood containing larvae 

 two or three days old, as the bees will select larvae in preference 

 to eggs from which to raise their queens, thus saving them from 

 three to five days. When introduced frames are given to 

 colonies they should be marked so that the queen cells will not 

 be destroyed when the beekeeper is cutting out the other queen 

 cells in the colony into which the selected brood has been in- 

 troduced. When the cells are capped over the frames can be 

 removed from the brood chamber and placed in the supers 

 provided there are plenty of bees to keep the cells warm so that 

 the young queens will not be retarded in their growth. Then 

 their old queen may Ise introduced into the brood chamber provid- 

 ed there is a queen excluder between it and the super. If no 

 excluder is used the queen will go up into the super and destroy 

 all the cells. A few days before the young queens are to come 

 forth they must be caged, for if one of them should hatch she 

 would at once kill all the others. The young virgin queens are 

 then given to queenless. colonies or to nuclei. 



Many beginners in apiculture increase the number of colonies 

 too rapidly the first year, which is a mistake. It only weakens 

 the colonies, the brood is poor, and the queens raised are 

 undesirable. It is best to obtain the first increase by natural 

 swarming, or by raising queen cells from the best, and strongest 

 colonies, giving these queen cells to nuclei prepared from other 

 colonies. Another mistake often made is the raisingjof queen cells 

 in nuclei." This should not be practised as queens raised in this 

 way are inferior to those raised at swarming time or in strong 

 queenless colonies. Nuclei do not have the strong queen raising 

 inclination as do colonies, thus the queens raised are small. 

 Small queens, as a rule, do not live as long and do not have the 

 laying capacity of large queens. The amount of honey produced 

 by a hive depends primarily upon the laying capacity of the 

 queen; therefore, they should be bred from colonies which 

 produce the most honey. Most any queen will produce a box 

 of bees, but not every queen <wi\\ raise sufficient bees to produce 

 a surplus of honey, which is the apiarist's profit. 



The increase of colonies by artificial means may be practised 

 in this climate to a far greater extent than in countries where 

 the bees have to lay up a surplus for the winter months. Even 

 under our conditions, however, one should be careful not to take 

 away too much brood from the queen at any one time, to make 

 nuclei, thus reducing the brood comb and cramping the queen. 

 If this is done often it tends to discourage queens. 



Some bee-keepers have been troubled because their queens 

 would not lay. This is probably caused by too much black blood 

 in the colony. It has been observed that it is very diflicult to obtain 

 much honey from a colony which has a black queen whose mother 

 was also black and which had swarmed out leaving her as the queen 

 of the old hive. The first and second crosses of blackbees with 



