BREEDING BETTER BEES 127 



is made queenless and permitted to start queen 

 cells. From these a supply of royal jelly is 

 secured. Royal jelly is a milky, jelly-like, sub- 

 stance which the bees feed freely to queens in 

 the larval stage. This richer food and the 

 larger cell are sufficient to enable a young larva 

 from a worker cell to develop into a queen. 



The brood is now taken from this cell-start- 

 ing colony and given to another colony. The 

 object of removing the brood is to relieve the 

 nurse bees from brood rearing and to center all 

 their attention on the rearing of queens. The 

 beekeeper then takes a supply of the artificial 

 cells which are attached in rows to an empty 

 frame (Fig. 15). In each cell a small drop 

 of royal jelly taken from the naturally built 

 cell is placed. With a small instrument made 

 for the purpose, a newly hatched larva is re- 

 moved from a worker cell and placed in each 

 of the artificial cell cups. The larva should 

 not be more than twenty-four hours old, and 



