222 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



Upon a hive containing a colony liad been piled four stories 

 of empty combs for safe keeping. To make sure that the bees 

 would not neglect the care of the most distant combs, I put a 

 frame of brood in the upper story. A few weeks later I found 

 a laying queen in the upper story with the old queen still below. 

 The bees that had gone up to that frame of brood were so far 

 from the queen that they had reared a queen of their own. A 

 hole in the upper story had allowed the flight of the young 

 queen without invading the domains of her mother. For those 

 who ijroduce extracted honey this plan might be used to ad- 

 vantage. 



UNQUEENING COLONY TO START CELLS. 



I have reared good queens by the old and simple plan of 

 taking away the queen of a strong colony. Of course this must 

 be a choice cjueen. Previous to the removal of the queen the 

 colony is strengthened. Frames of well-advanced brood are 

 from time to time given from other colonies until it has two — 

 perhaps three — stories of brood. None of this brood, however, 

 is given less than five or six days before the removal of the 

 queen. The queen is taken with two frames of brood and ad- 

 hering bees and put on a new stand in an empty hi^-e, an empty 

 comb and one with some honey being added. 



TIME TO START NUCLEI. 



In nine or ten days from the removal of the queen it is 

 time to break up the q\ieenless colony into nuclei. It might 

 geiieially be lelt till a day or two later before a young queen 

 would come out to destroy her baby sisters in their cradles, but 

 it is best to take no chances. If it were true, as formerly be- 

 lieved, that queenless bees are in such haste to rear a queen that 

 they will select a larva too old for the purpose, then it would 

 hardly do to wait even nine days. A queen is matured in fifteen 

 days from the time the egg is laid, and is fed throughout her 

 larval lifetime on the same food that is gi\-en to a worker-larva 

 during the first three days of its larval existence. So a worker- 

 lar\ a more than three days old, or more than six days from 

 llie laying of the egg, would be too old for a good queen. If, 



