220 AUSTRALASIAN 



being mated with drones of our own apiary, there should be 

 no other bees located nearer than one or two miles off. 



QUEEN NUESEKIES. 



When queen rearing is carried on extensively, that is, as a 

 special business, appliances termed queen nurseries are often 

 brought into requisition to aid the queen breeder. By the use 

 of these, as will be presently seen, much time is saved, and a 

 proportionately greater number of queens can be reared by 

 each colony so employed, as the queen cells may be taken 

 away from them after they have advanced a certain stage and 

 be brought to maturity in the nurseries, when the bees may 

 again be furnished with material for cell building, or have 

 fertile queens given to them. There are two descriptions of 

 nurseries in use. One is a kind of double cased hive without 

 a top — usually made of tin. The space between the inner and 

 outer cases, which extends all round the sides and bottom, is 

 about an inch wide. This space is filled with water, and a 

 small lamp is kept burning underneath ; regulated so as to 

 maintain a temperature within the nursery of about 90° — the 

 ordinary temperature of a hive when the colony is rearing 

 queens. They are usually made large enough to hold about 

 six frames conveniently, which can be suspended within them 

 in the same manner as in a hive. When queen cells are to be 

 matured in this nursery, they are removed from the colony in 

 which they were built, soon after being capped, and placed in 

 it, and the nursery covered. Several lots of cells can be 

 maturing in it at the same time, but great care must be taken 

 to keep the nursery at an even temperature or the embryo 

 queens will be destroyed. 



The other kind of nursery — so called — is a set of small 

 cages fitted into a frame ; the cells are placed in the cages and 

 the frame is suspended in a hive containing a strong colony, 

 which supplies the necessary heat for maturing them. Two 

 or even three frames of cages would not be too many for a 

 very strong colony. 



The nursery shown in Fig 103 is the invention of Mr. 

 Alley, and as I have had some experience with it I can answer 

 for its usefulness. One great advantage in making use of a 

 colony instead of the lamp nursery for maturing cells is that 



