182 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



REARING QUEEN IN "pUT-UP." 



It is not necessary to tell of all the plans that were 

 tried. One was finally hit upon that proved to 

 be quite satisfactory, so far as tried. When the 

 presence of well-advanced queen-cells showed that 

 a colony was bent on swarming-, all but one or 

 two frames of brood were taken from the hive and put 

 in another hive that was "put-up" on top, of course hav- 

 ing no communication with the bees below. In the old 

 hive below the old queen was sometimes left, and some- 

 times the bees were left without any queen ; but in either 

 case care was taken that no queen-cell was left below, 

 and ten days later search was made for queen-cells be- 

 low, or else the brood was exchanged for brood from a 

 colony where there was no danger of queen-cells, and 

 the old queen was removed. To the "put-up" was given, 

 at the time of putting up, a virgin queen or a ripe queen- 

 cell, and as soon as the young queen was laying the old 

 hive was taken away and the "put-up" hive was put 

 down in its place. Thus the whole force of the colony 

 was kept together, there was a young queen of the cur- 

 rent year's rearing, practically reared in the hive, and 

 that colony was past anxiety for the season. Some, 

 however, say that such a queen will swarm with them. 



GETTING BEES TO DESTROY CELLS. 



I said the brood was put up, but said nothing about 

 the bees or the queen-cells. No attention was paid to 

 the queen-cells, and about half the bees were shaken off 

 the combs — perhaps more than half. Just how many 

 bees to leave in the "put-up" hive was not an easy matter 

 to gauge. If too few there would be chilled brood. 

 If too many the young queen would leave with a swarm. 

 Of course the latter danger could be avoided by destroy- 



