THE REARING OF QUEEN BEES. li 
The comb area is small enough in this hive for the queen to be very 
quickly found, and, unless too many bees are put in, this part of the 
manipulation is very simple. The original cosl oi the hive is consid- 
erably more than that of tin* smallest sized nuclei, but the body i- 
much more durable, and the cost as compared with that of the full- 
sized hive, which some breeders use, i- small. This mating box was 
designed by Mr. Frank Benton, of the Bureau of Entomology. It i- 
not intended that the inference shall be made that this nucleus box i- 
the best in use. It is described merely a- a guide to queen rearers, 
and any other style of box which combines the good feature- of this 
one will do equally well. 
No one can deny that queens may he mated in hive- -mailer than a 
full colony, but a question sometimes arises a- to whether the queens 
are a- vigorous and prolific after being mated from small boxes. To 
this, it may be answered that the successful mating of a queen depends 
on the drones which rlv in the air: and this is in no way influenced by 
the size of the hive. It take- very few worker- to feed a queen — wit- 
ness the mailing boxes — and this i- the only function of the accompa- 
nying bees. If then a queen is herself strong and vigorous, and meets 
an equally vigorous drone, -he will he successfully mated, will he just 
a- prolific, and will lay just as lone-, when kept in a -mall colony to 
mate as in a full-sized one. From a practical standpoint it may be 
answered that queens mated in -mall nuclei when put to the test have 
actually proven as good as those mated under other circumstances. 
This i- after all the true te-t to he used. 
PHENOMENA IN MATING. 
In from five to ten day- after the emerging of the young queen 
from the queen cell, she leaves the colony for her mating tiie-ht. The 
first flights of a queen from the hive are very short, ami. like young 
worker-, -he flies in circles near the entrance, as if fixing the location. 
Several such flights may he taken before she really take- a lone- one. 
Finally, however, she leaves the entrance and flies in ever-increasing 
circle- upward, and. if there are drone- in the apiary or near by, -he 
i^ usually mated. The height to which she flic- and the distance from 
the hive at which she meets the drone depend entirely on circum- 
stances; it may he near at hand or even a couple of miles away. This 
i- a matter very difficult of observation, naturally, but the mating has 
often been observed by chance. It i- a very simple matter to see the 
first circle- of the virgin on Leaving the hive entrance, and if drone- 
are plentiful it is not hard to see that many of them -tart after her. 
Anyone can verify so much; the rest depends on chance observations. 
From dissections of virgins and fertile queens, it ha- been found 
that, in mating, the -permatheca or seminal receptacle i< tilled witli 
spermatozoa or male sex cells. The spermatheca i- a very minute sac 
