FIFTY YEAES AMONG THE BEES 243 



it. She may be imperfect as to her legs, and, what is still 

 worse, her wings may be so deficient that she never can fly. If 

 she can not fly she can never be fertilized, and so is worthless. 

 Indeed she is worse than worthless, for she is wasting the time 

 of the nucleus. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that the occu- 

 pant of the queen-cell is dead. All of this is avoided by having 

 the virgins hatch out in a nursery. If a cell is cut into, and 

 is given to a nucleus, the bees will at once destroy it, but in the 

 nursery it will hatch out all right. 



One may have a lot of queen-cells on hand with no immedi- 

 ate use for them. It will not do to leave them without cutting 

 out beyond a certain time, for the hatching out of the first one 

 means the death of all the rest. But if they are put in a nursery 

 they are safe, and may be left stored in the nursery for some 

 days after hatching out. 



Over against these advantages stands the one disadvantage 

 that in the nursery the bees are not allowed to come in immedi- 

 ate bodily contact with the cells, nor with the young queen after 

 she issues from the cell. Some think this so serious a disad- 

 vantage as to overbalance all the advantages of the nursery. It 

 is claimed that the clustering of the bees about the cells and the 

 young queens does more than merely to keep up the temperatu re 

 to a certain point, and that when this close contact is lacking 

 something will be lacking in the resulting queens. Also that 

 the young queens thus isolated and imprisoned are in a fright- 

 ened condition, and that a young queen reared in such an atmos- 

 phere is not the same as one that has the feeling that she is all 

 the while closely surrounded by friends. 



So whether it be wise to use a nursery or not, it will cer- 

 tainly be wise not to put cells into it before it is necessary for 

 their safety, nor to leave a virgin in a nursery any longer than 

 necessity demands. 



QUALITY OP QUEENS. 



The question has been raised whether queens reared in the 

 way I have described are as good as those reared by the latest 

 methods. I think I can judge pretty well as to the character of 

 a queen after watching her work for a year or two; I have 

 kept closely in touch with what improvements have been made 



