MANAGEMENT OF OUT-APIARIES 47 



the brooding colony at home, each one was placed in one of the West 

 cell-protectors, so that the bees would not destroy the queen by cutting 

 into the cell before they were aware that their old mother was gone. 

 Each cell-filled protector was partially imbedded in a sheet of cotton 

 wadding, cut to fit into the bottom of a paste-board thread-box, easily 

 obtained at any dry-goods store. Having the number required in the 

 box, another right-sized sheet of wadding is put over all, the cover to 

 the box put on, and a rubber cord sprung around the whole to keep all 

 in a secure position so that the cells can not roll around when the box 

 is handled. One end of the box is marked top, and the base of each 

 cell is placed toward this end of the box so that I may always know 

 that the cells point down when carrying the box in my inside vest pocket, 

 or pocket in my shirt, where cells are always carried at all times except 

 when used in the bee-yard where they are raised. 



A "ripe" cell is one from which the queen will emerge in from twenty 

 to thirty hours, and I have often carried such for from one to twelve hours, 

 in the way here given, without the loss or injury of a single queen. In 

 this work the wadding is far preferable to cotton batting, for the glazing 

 on the wadding keeps the cotton from sticking to the cell or cell-protector, 

 as it is otherwise liable to do. 



After killing the queen the frames are all put back in the hive, when 

 two of the center ones are pried apart enough so that the cell-protector 

 will go down just under the top-bar to the frame, when the frames are 

 brought back in place again, this imbedding the protector into the comb 

 so it is securely fastened there until removed by the apiarist. As this 

 is the season of the year when the bees do most of their superseding of 

 queens (it seems so natural to them), my loss in using this plan will 

 not average more than one queen-cell out of twenty given. So small a 

 loss will not pay for a special visit to the apiary to ascertain whether 

 colonies so treated obtain lajdng queens or not — especially as the colony 

 which will occasionally destroy a cell or kill the just-emerged virgin 

 queen has brood of its own from which to rear a queen, so the loss 

 is never very great, should an occasional cell be destroyed. Of course, 

 there is a chance that the young queen may be lost when going out to 

 meet the drone, in which case that colony is doomed unless rescued by the 

 apiarist. In such a case as this the observing apiarist will easily discover 

 this loss by an outside diagnosis of such colonies at a later visit to the 

 apiary. This requeening at this time is so easily done that there is no 

 excuse for having poor queens at the out-apiary. 



The reader may think that what is here ^ven conflicts with what 

 I have written in the past about allowing the bees to take care of the 

 superseding of their queens themselves. With the small and contracted 

 brood-chamber, 1 still hold that the bees will take care of that matter fully 

 as well as the apiarist can; but with this system of working, and that 

 with ten-frame Langstroth hives, a queen will lay nearly as many eggs 

 in two years as she would under the contraction system in three or four 

 years; so that any queen which is more than two years old is almost sure 

 to be played out; therefore I make it, a practice with this plan to supersede 

 all queens which are two years old at this time, and in the way given 

 above. This plan is one of strenuousness all the way through, by which 

 we get a multitude of bees in the field at all times during the honey 

 harvests; and even when ordinary colonies are doing nothing, or securing 



