24 THE REARING OF QUEEN BEES. 
be in the mating colony more than four or five days. If a queen cell 
be placed in a mating colony it means that for a day or two before the 
queen emerges, and for at least five days before she mates, the colony 
is unproductive; and commercial queen breeders can not afford 'such a 
loss. Such a method of introduction is easier, it is true, but certainty 
is not economical. In introducing from a nursery it sometimes hap- 
pens that queens are killed, but even this loss is not great enough to 
justify the method of introducing cells, especially since queens from 
cells are sometimes rejected also. 
The practice of putting a little honey on the tip of the queen cell 
when in a nursery, so that the emerging queen may have something to 
eat while gnawing her way out is not necessary, and has, when prac- 
ticed, sometimes led to the death of the queen by suffocation. 
MATING QUEENS. 
The best method of mating queens has perhaps been more discussed 
by bee keepers than any other phase of queen rearing, the bone of 
contention being the size of the colony which shall be used in mating. 
Some bee keepers insist that queens should be mated onty in full 
colonies, while others go to the opposite extreme and claim that only 
a handful of bees are necessary to care for a queen during this period 
of her life. 
COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT SIZES OF BOXES. 
A comparison of the cost of the two methods will help to solve the 
difficulty, for bee keeping is a business proposition, and bee keepers 
desire the most return for the least expenditure of either time or 
money. Mating in a colony means that that colony is without any 
new brood for about a week; and since during the summer season the 
life of the average worker is about six weeks, the loss resulting is 
about equal to one-sixth the cost of the colony used. This is to some 
extent made up by the increased activity in brood rearing after such 
a period of rest; but at any rate a colony can make no increase in size 
when queens are being mated, and there is almost always a loss. From 
this standpoint, then, the smaller the colony, the cheaper this part of 
the rearing will be; and if this were the only point to be considered 
there could be but one answer to the question. 
The time spent in manipulation is an important item, especially 
where large numbers of queens are to be reared. It is more difficult 
to introduce a queen into a large colony than into a small one, and 
this is a factor to be considered, since the chances for occasional losses 
of queens which may result in considerable loss of time are much 
reduced by the use of small colonies. In looking over mating colonies 
to see whether the queen is laying, there is everything to be said in 
favor of the small colony or ' ' nucleus. " There is less comb area to 
