168 MONEY IN BEES IN AUSTEALASIA 



YOUNG QUEENS. 



Should a "just-fertilised" queen enter a hive while 

 supersedure is going on, she will almost certainly be 

 accepted. The "just-fertilised" queen will not always 

 be the best; the chances are that without the apiarist's 

 supervision, the accepted queen will be of the undeveloped 

 class described above. Lessened productiveness, loss of 

 size and stamina, and consequently honey, which is after 

 all, the principal objective of bee culture, is the invariable 

 result. With supersedure imcontroUed by the apiarist it 

 is just a question of time before the entire benefits of 

 scientific breeding must be lost completely. 



Editor Root says: — "In nature the best queens are 

 those that are reared either during swarming time or 

 when the bees are about to supersede an old queen soon to 

 fail. At such time we see large, beautiful queen-cells 

 reminding one of big pea-nuts," but he forgets to add 

 that sometimes the last cells are little larger than peas. 

 So it pays the bee-master to place a chalk-mark on the 

 superseding colonies to receive his immediate attention. 

 The foregoing is sufficient to prove want of discernment 

 on the part of the bees as to the best queen, and it behoves 

 the up-to-date culturist to attend to them systematically. 



GOOD CELL-BUILDERS. 



If he neglects to work this cell-building proclivity to 

 his own advantage the apiarist casts away many a golden 

 opportunity to rear the choicest queens; for, given a 

 strong force of bees and proficiency on the part of the 

 apiarist, these hives are the "ne plus ultra" of all 

 colonies for queen-rearing. A. I. Boot says he had a 

 supersedure colony that drew out about a hundred or so 

 cells and appeared willing to keep on doing so for an 

 indefinite period. Age is no criterion; supersedure has 

 taken place with queens only a few months old, and with 

 conditions distinctively unfavourable for queen-rearing. 

 (See Queen-Rearing, page 109). 



