234 Care in ^ueen Rearing. 



readily at storing the material by dropping a little honey 

 on it. 



The best colony in the apiary— or if there are several 

 colonies of equal merit, one of these— should be stimulated 

 to the utmo.-t, by daily feeding with warm syrup, and by 

 increase of brood taken from other colonies. As this colony 

 becomes strong, a comb containing drone cells should be 

 placed in the center of the brood nest. Very soon drone 

 eggs will be laid. I have often had drones flying early in 

 May. As soon as the drones commence to appear, remove 

 the queen and all eggs and uncapped brood from some good, 

 strong colony, and replace it with eggs or brood just hatched 

 from the colony containing the queen from which it is 

 desired to breed. By having placed one or two bright, 

 new, empty combs in the midst of the brood nest of this 

 colony four days beforehand, we shall have in these combs 

 just such eggs and newly hatching brood as we desire, with 

 no brood that is too old. 



If we have more than one colony whose excellence war- 

 rants their use to breed from, then these eggs should be 

 taken from some other than the one which has produced 

 our drones. This will prevent the close in-breeding which 

 would necessarily occur if both queens and drones were 

 reared in the same colony; and which, though regarded as 

 deleterious in the breeding of all animals, should be prac- 

 ticed in case one single queen is of decided superiority to 

 all others of the apiary. The queen and the brood that 

 have been removed may be used in making a new colony, 

 in a manner soon to be described under "dividing or increas- 

 ing the number of colonies." This queenless colony will 

 immediately commence forming queen-cells (Fig. 03). 

 Sometimes these are formed to the number o£ fifteen or 

 twenty, and in case of the Syrian and Cyprian races fifty 

 or sixty, and they are started in a full, vigorous colony ; in 

 fact, under the most favorable conditions. Cutting off 

 edges of the comb, or cutting holes in the same where 

 there are eggs or larvae just hatched, will almost always 

 insure the starting of queen-cells in such places. It will 

 be noticed that our queens are started from eggs, or from 

 larvEB but just hatched, as we have given the bees no other, 



