112 A Modern Bee-Farm 



the mouth of worker cells, is really more simple than practical. 

 In the first place, one cell only is never large enough to form the 

 base of a queen cell ; two at least are thrown into one, but more 

 often three ; and where the bees have unlimited material at hand 

 a queen cell will not be built upon one in fifty of such enlarged 

 cells. I have had the proof of this assertion in my own apiary, 

 and where Ligurians are concerned very often only two or three 

 cells are started. 



Again, why waste the time of the entire colony when a fourth 

 of the bees can be made to raise finer queens, because with no 

 other brood to attend to their whole energies are directed to the 

 queen cells they are made to build. 



My own Plan 



is to remove the queen and all the brood combs with adhering 

 bees from a crowded hive, and place them in a new situation, with 

 the exception of those shaken from two combs into the old hive 

 when with the flying bees a fair swarm will be obtained. Next, go 

 to the hive containing the queen you desire to breed from and 

 look up the comb of eggs, or such just hatching by preference, 

 and in a warm room cut the comb asunder from end to end, 

 horizontally at about one-third of its depth from the top bar. Now 

 along each side of the lower edge of the 

 septum make vertical incisions with the 

 point of a penknife, cutting away the cell 

 walls in the shape of the letter V inverted. 

 Do not cut so close to the base as to 



displace the eggs, and let the incisions Comb prepared for Queen 

 be made about ;|-inch apart. Our cells ^^"^' 



will generally be built from these hollow spaces, and though not 

 perfectly regular it is seldom that any two are joined together. 



The Reader may be tempted to put the whole comb in just as 

 he takes it from the hive, or simply as sliced asunder, but only 

 to find that he will not get one cell in five, and those not so 

 regular as with the V-cuts. The remainder of the comb may be 

 cut into strips and fastened into other frames in like manner, but 



