104 Texas Department of Agriculture. 



QUEEN BEARING. 



The simplest method of queen rearing is to select queen cells from 

 colonies that are preparing to swarm, and place these in colonies, or 

 nuclei, in which they may hatch and the young queens become mated. 

 During the swarming season, many superior queens may be reared 

 by selecting choice queen cells from colonies that have swarmed, and 

 it is advisable for beginners to do this at that time. 



Queen cells are built under two different conditions. When bees 

 are preparing to either swarm or supersede their queen, cell cups are 

 started and the queen deposits eggs in these. When bees are deprived 

 of their queen and they are forced to rear another from the eggs or 

 young larvae at hand, they are compelled to build the cells about the 

 worker eggs, or larvae already in the cells, by tearing down the cell 

 walls. Queens reared from supersedure cells are just as good as those 

 from swarming cells, and it is possible to obtain a large number of 

 choice cells from a colony by removing them promptly and forcing 

 the bees to produce more cells in their effort to supersede their queen. 



Various artificial methods are employed by which superior queen 

 cells may be obtained. One of the best has already been described 

 under the heading of "Making Rapid Increase." Bight combs of 

 hatching brood and honey are placed in a ten frame hive and spaced 

 apart somewhat wider in the center than regularly for a ninth comb 

 with select eggs, from which the queen cells will be built out. The 

 wider space permits a larger number of feeding nurse bees to cluster 

 on the comb with the developing queen cells, and also allows freer 

 removal of the comb without injury to the extending delicate queen 

 cells. 



An improvement in preparing the larvae for queen cell building is 

 known as the "Alley Plan," in which the worker comb containing the 

 eggs are cut into strips and attached to the lower edge of a comb, 

 after a few inches of the lower part of it is cut away. From these 

 the bees then construct the cells. The strips have a single row of c^lls 

 containing eggs on one side, while the damaged cells on the other side 

 are cut down to within one-eighth of an inch of their bottoms. This 

 side of the strips is then dipped in melted wax and stuck on to the 

 lower edge of the prepared comb, or upon bars, which are then fas- 

 tened in a frame in such a way that the cells containing the eggs will 

 hang downward. The egg in every alternate cell is destroyed by 

 twisting a sulphur match into the base of the cell. This frame of pre- 

 pared cells is given to bees which have been made queenless about six 

 hours previously. The cells are started and completed in the queen 

 rearing colony, and when ripe may be cut off and used wherever 

 wanted. Some queen, rearers of experience place these cells in little 

 nursery cages, a large number of which fit into a frame, and the 

 young queens are allowed to emerge from the cells. From these cages 

 the queens are introduced into nuclei. Virgin queens just emerged can 

 be liberated in nuclei without being destroyed. After they are about 

 five days old, however, tobacco smoke should be used in introducing 

 them. 



