CHAPTER V 

 Early Methods of Queen Rearing. 



Prior to the invention of the movable frame hive Httle 

 progress was made in the development of beekeeping. Com- 

 mercial queen rearing as now practiced has been developed 

 within the memory of our older beekeepers. As soon as his 

 invention of the loose frames made the control of conditions 

 within the hive possible, Langstroth began to experiment in 

 the hope of being able to control natural swarming, and make 

 necessary increase at his convenience. At that time the only 

 known method of securing additional queens, was by means 

 of depriving a colony of the queen. The queenless colony in 

 its anxiety to make sure of replacing the lost mother, would 

 usually prepare a number of cells and rear several more queens 

 than needed. The ripe cells were taken from the hive before 

 the emergence of the first queen, and given to nuclei or queen- 

 less colonies. As compared to present wholesale methods, this 

 plan was crude and unsatisfactory. However, a careful bee- 

 keeper could by this means make considerable increase artificial- 

 ly, or provide young queens to replace undesirable ones. 



In the first edition of his "Hive and the Honey-Bee," 

 Langstroth describes his method of queen rearing by means of 

 one queen in three hives. Two hives were deprived of their 

 queens which were used to make artificial swarms or nuclei, 

 at intervals of a week. When the first hive had been queenless 

 for nine days, there were several sealed queen cells, which were 

 counted, on the tenth day these were removed for use and a 

 laying queen was taken from a third hive, C, and given to the 

 first hive where she was permitted to lay a few days. In the 

 meantime the second hive had been made queenless and had 

 built cells. When these in turn were removed the queen which 

 had been taken from the third hive, C, and placed in the first 



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