THE beekeepers' DIRECTORY. IIS 



trates what an easy matter it is to excite the bees at any time. 

 They are as ready to rear queens as they are to collect honey. 

 All they need is to be encouraged. 



Now let us suppose that the combs are full of brood and that 

 there are thousands of young bees in the strongest colonies. It 

 is an easy matter to put those bees in a condition to swarm. As 

 there is no natural forage for them to gather, something arti- 

 ficial must be prepared instead. The best food or stimulant for 

 such a purpose is water, sugar and honey. Take two quarts 

 of best granulated sugar, one quart of water and one quart of 

 honey. Heat the water to the boiling point and dissolve the su- 

 gar in it, and then add the honey. When cooled down to a tem- 

 perature of about 75° or 80° feed it to the strongest colony in 

 the apiary. Use about two quarts the first day and one pint in 

 the morning and another pint at night for about three more 

 days. 



Now if ten strong colonies be thus treated, nine of them will 

 be ready to rear queens. Should the combs be examined, cell- 

 cups (the foundation for queen-cells), each containing an egg, 

 would be found in nearly every hive. These cell-cups are usually 

 found on the edges and at the bottom of the combs. While 

 the presence of the cell- cups would indicate the readiness of the 

 bees to rear queens, or rather, their readiness to construct queen- 

 cells, not one colony in ten would rear any queens unless the 

 supply of food was kept up, nor would all the colonies even then 

 finish and seal the cells unless the cells had been started in some 

 other colony and worked on, at least fifteen hours. 



Certain conditions must always be present in any operation 

 about bees if one is to be successful. Well, now to make cell- 

 building a success by this method the bees must have the combs 

 and eggs prepared for them the same as they should be if the 

 queens were to be reared in queenless colonies, yet the eggs 

 must not be placed in the hive at once, but given to a queen- 

 less colony and in the course of twenty-four hours give the cell- 

 cups to the colonies having laying queens that are to finish them. 

 This is our method for providing cell-cups for the bees. 



How to start the oell-oups. 

 To start the cell-cups, it is necessary occasionally to deprive a 

 colony of its queen. Now, let me say that one strong colony when 

 first made queenless and treated as stated in the method for 



