272 QTJEEN BEARING. 



less and without brood for ten hours, Mr. Alley having no- 

 ticed that the eggs may be destroyed if given to a colony 

 just made queenless. 



This method is probably the most expeditious and the 

 cheapest that can be followed, for raising a large number of 

 queens ; but we would hardlj- advise Apiarists to use as 

 small nuclei as Mr. Alley does (5 combs, 4J inches square). 

 The stronger the colony in which a queen is raised, the better 

 the queen. 



529. As it happens very often, that more queen-cells 

 are raised than are needed immediately, and as the bees 

 usually destroy all after the first one has hatched. Apiarists 

 have devised queen-nurseries to preserve the supernumer- 

 ary cells until needed. It is not safe to leave the queen- 

 cells under the control of the bees after ten'days, as a queen 

 may hatch at any time. 



There are several ways to make queen-nurseries. Messrs. 

 Root, Hayhurst, Heddon and Hutchinson, warm their nur- 

 series with lamps, while the nurseries used by Messrs. Alley, 

 Demaree and others, are placed in well populated hives. 



630. The lamp-nursery is a doubled-walled tin box,* 

 of the right size to receive the breeding frames. The space 

 between the walls and the bottom is filled with water, and a 

 kerosene lamp is Hghted under it, with the flame about one 

 foot from the bottom of the box. The temperature of this 

 lamp-nursery is regulated by raising or lowering the flame, 

 and is kept between 90° and 100°. The combs containing 

 the sealed queen-cells are placed in this box, and if the 

 brood in the combs is all of the same age, every queen will 

 hatch, at least, five days before any of the workers. These 

 queen-cells have to be examined every few hours, for the 

 first queens hatched would destroy the others. 



The Alley queen-nursery is composed of a number of small 



* Mr. Hayhurst, of Kansas City, wlio is one of the most suocessfal WeBtem 

 qneen breeders, uses a galvanwed iron nnrsery, packed in a chaff case. 



