34 



the center of the brood nest to get best results, but never put 

 two frames next to each other. If the work is well done, the 

 majority of the larvae are usually carried through to maturity 

 and from twenty to fifty good queens may be looked for. 

 From the time the frames are put into the hive, care should 

 be taken to see that a queen does not emerge from a cell that 

 has by chance been overlooked in tearing down the natural 

 queen cells, as such a queen would destroy all the artificial 

 queens, breaking open their cells and eating the larvae- In 

 six days examine the frame of queen cells and find out how 

 many are good. If they are to take the place of old queens, 

 destroy the old queens at once and on the ninth day distribute 

 the cells where needed. If increase is desired, nuclei should 

 be prepared on the sixth or seventh day after budding and the 

 cells distributed on the ninth day. In any case the cells must 

 be distributed, caged or destroyed on the ninth day, as the 

 first queen will emerge on the tenth day and all other queens 

 will then be destroyed. 



In following the above directions in any extensive continu- 

 ous breeding work one will immediately see the necessity of 

 keeping accurate record of all operations, and any system of 

 keeping records will involve the use of indubitable marks on 

 boxes and of a book for recording all the data connected with 

 the different operations necessary to procure queens. 



It is needless to say, however, that paramount to all the 

 care and painstaking work involved in rearing queens to 

 maturity is the necessity of experience and judgment in the 

 selection of the breeding stock. The qualities of the queen 

 will depend on its heredity, and since this can be determined 

 from but one side, greater skill is demanded in the matter of 

 selection. In this regard, however, criteria differ, some laying 

 stress on the capacity of the bees for work, on their gentle- 

 ness, or in a_ word, on "utility" characters ; others again on 

 color, size, vigor, etc. In a large apiary it is often possible 

 to combine all these attributes in one queen or strain of bees. 

 With any queen breeding system established in good running 

 order it is possible to re-queen all the hives in the different 

 apiaries frequently with first-class queens, and since the pro- 

 ductivity of the hive depends so much on the queen it is 

 almost essential that this be done once a year or at least 

 every second year, either before or after the heavy flow of 

 nectar. 



Often in industrial beekeeping where low grade honeys 

 are pnncipally handled, the wax production becomes extreme- 

 ly important. This has brought about a practise known as 



