QUEEN NURSERIES TESTING QUEENS. 91 
or nucleus, by cutting out a corresponding triangular piece. Fig. 54 
shows a queen cell inserted in a brood comb. It is safest not to cut 
the cells out until they are within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of 
their full maturity. In case a nucleus or colony has not been queen- 
less long enough to make it ready to accept a queen cell, the latter 
may be placed in a cell protector made of wire cloth or of a spiral coil 
of wire and then inserted between the central combs of the hive. The 
lower end only of the protector is open, so that the upper portion of the 
cell — the part easily bitten open by the workers — is wholly covered. 
Queen nurseries on the general plan devised many years ago by Dr. 
Jewell Davis, of Illinois, are used to hold surplus maturing cells and 
the young queens, after emerging, for which colonies or nuclei are not 
ready at once. These nurseries consist of compartments about 1 J inches 
square, made of wood and wire cloth, and so arranged that they may 
be suspended in the center of a colony of bees, a frame being filled with 
them for this purpose. Each compartment contains a bit of soft candy 
to sustain the life of the queen in case the bees fail to feed her. Spiral 
coils of wire somewhat longer than those used as queen-cell protectors 
have been arranged with a metal cup for food, so that, in principle, 
they are the same as the compartments of the Davis queen nurseries 
and are used for the same purpose. 
The young queens will usually mate when from five to seven days 
old, flying from the hive for this purpose. If any undesirable drones are 
in the apiary they may be restrained from flying by means of excluder 
zinc over the hive entrances, permitting only workers to pass in and 
out. In a day or two after mating the queen generally commences to 
deposit eggs, and is then ready for use in the apiary or to be sent away 
as an " untested queen." To enable her to rank as a "tested queen" it 
will be necessary to keep her three weeks or a little longer in order to 
see her worker progeny and ascertain by their markings that the queen 
has mated with a drone of her own race. As both tested and untested 
queens are usually raised from the same mothers — the best in the given 
apiary — either may be obtained for honey production ; but for use as 
breeders only tested queens which have been approved in every way 
should be purchased, unless, indeed, the purchaser prefers to buy sev- 
eral untested queens, which can usually be obtained for the price of one 
approved and selected breeder, and do his own testing, trusting that 
among them one or more may prove valuable as a breeding queen. 
'•Warranted queens" are untested queens sent out with a guaranty 
that they have mated purely. If few or no drones of another race are 
in the vicinity of a breeder, he is tolerably safe in doing this. The 
proper plan is for the breeder to keep a record of the brood of all such 
queens and replace such as show that they have niismated. 
Exact records of the ages of all queens should be kept, and notes on 
the qualities of their progeny are desirable, while in some instances 
particulars as to pedigrees are valuable. 
