and its Economic Management. 



143 



CHAPTER XV. 



QUEEN REARING. 



IT should be understood that when a colony is deprived of 

 its queen the bees are soon aware of the loss, and forth- 

 with special cells are constructed upon larvae that may be from 

 one to three or four days old, but very seldom are eggs selected 

 in such a case of emergency. In due tirne a queen is hatched 

 from one of such cells, and though she may have enjoyed the 

 usual quantity of royal jelly, it frequently happens that the 

 first to emerge from her cradle is one that is not well developed, 

 as the oldest larvae would naturally come soonest to maturity. 

 Thus those which had been selected from the egg, or one or 

 two days after hatching therefrom, and would have received 

 only the royal food- from the first day of their existence, and 

 consequently are destined to be perfect in formation, are 

 sacrificed to a dwarfed and ill-formed queen. 



As already shewn, only one of the queens, is reserved, 

 though several may be raised. There are two points, therefore, 

 -of importance to the bee-keeper who wishes to obtain a number 

 of queens. The colony that is to produce them must either be 

 made- queenless, or be maintained at a swarming condition ; 

 and then he is to guard against the destruction of the sur- 

 plus queens. 



The Plan often Recommended, 



and that only recently in the British Bee jfournal, of simply 

 removing a queen from a colony in normal condition and then 



