164 MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 



the meal. I much question, after some years of experiment, if 

 it ever pays to give the bees a substitute for pollen. 



The colony under consideration, should be given frames con- 

 taining bee-bread which was stored the previous year. At 

 the same time, March or April, commence stimulative feeding. 

 If you have another colony equally good with the first, also give 

 that the pollen, and commence giving it honey or syrup, but only 

 •worker-comb should be in the brood-chamber. This will pre- 

 vent the close in- breeding which would of necessity occur if 

 both queens and drones were reared in the same colony ; and 

 which, though regarded as deleterious in the breeding of all 

 -animals, should be practiced in case one single queen is of ' 

 ■decided superiority to all others of the apiary. 



Very likely in April, drone-eggs will be laid in drone-comb. 

 I have had drones flying on the first of May. As soon as the 

 drones commence to hatch out, remove the queen and all eggs 

 and uncapped brood from some good, strong colony, and 

 replace it with eggs or brood just hatched from the colony 

 that is being fed, or if two equally good colonies have been 

 stimulated, from the one in which no drone-comb was placed. 

 The queen which has been removed may be used in making 

 a new colony, in manner soon to be described under "dividing 

 ■or increasing the number of colonies." This queenless colony 

 will immediately commence forming queen-cells (Fig. 56). 

 :Sometimes these are formed to the number of fifteen or 

 twenty, and they are started, too, in a full, vigorous colony, 

 in fact, under the most :favorable conditions. Cutting off 

 edges of the comb, or cutting holes in the same where there 

 are eggs or iarvse just hatched, will almost always insure the 

 starting of queen-cells in such places. It will be noticed, too, 

 that our queens are started from eggs or from larvae but just 

 hatched, as we have given the bees no other, and so are fed 

 the royal pabulum from the first. Thus, we have met every 

 possible requisite to secure the most superior queens. By 

 removal of the queen we also secure a large number of cells, 

 ■while if we waited for the bees to start the cells preparatory 

 to natural swarming, in which case we secure the two desirable 

 conditions named above, we shall probably fail to secure so 

 many cells, and may have to wait longer than we can afford. 



Even the apiarist who keeps black bees and desires no 



