THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL 
185 
given as a starter in the super, otherwise the 
comb would have in it a course mid-rib of wax 
which would practically spoil it. Pieces of per- 
fectly clean comb may be used in section-boxes, 
if preferred. 
Where narrow strips of foundation are used 
the bees will build downwards in the natural 
way, but where large sheets are employed they 
generally build from the bottom before the top 
has been strengthened, and thus often cause the 
foundation to break away from the frame. This 
may be obviated by using very stout foundation 
and giving additional strength at the top by an 
extra quantity of melted wax, or by using 
wired frames. 
QUEEN-CELLS ABOVE PERFORATED 
HONEY-BOAEDS. 
ALSO SOMETHING IN REGARD TO FRIEND DOOLITTLE'S 
NEW BOOK, 
Any one would suppose, Mr. Editor, by your 
foot-notes at the end of J. D. Fooshe’s article, 
page 490, that you must have read my new book 
on queen-rearing rather carelessly, for in it I tell 
that queen cells will be completed when placed 
over a populous colony at any time of year when 
the bees of any colony are sufficient to enter 
such upper story, as to their numbers, where 
there is a queen-excluder between upper and 
lower stories. You seem to think that the 
swarming fever has something to do with the 
matter ; but such is not the case, as I have 
proven for years, and especially so during the 
past three or four weeks of scarcity of honey, 
during which bees have been on the verge of 
starvation, yet in no case where I have put pre- 
pared cells above a queen-excluding honey-board 
have the bees failed to carry out and complete 
the cells, perfecting them to the fullest extent, 
so that queens reared in such cells have come up 
to the highest type of perfection, even though 
the colony below were living only from “hand to 
mouth.” The bees in the upper stories seem to 
be placed in the same condition, or at least feel 
that they are, as when they are about to super- 
sede their queen on account of old age, in which 
case all are aware that bees will rear good queens 
no matter what time of year it is, or whether 
honey is coining in or not. In all of my six 
years’ experience with the plan given in my 
book, I have never failed to have queen-cells 
completed when placed in an upper story over a 
queen-excluding honey-board (which plan is 
similar to that given by Mr. Fooshe), except late 
in the fall, when bees had gone into that 
quietude which they go into after the honey 
season is past. If we wish cellB then, we must 
feed the bees so as to arouse them to activity, 
when they will complete queen-cells, so that as 
good queens will hatch from them as any which 
can be produced during the summer season, or 
in the height of the swarming season. I am not 
gumsing at any of this, but speak it after a 
practical experience along this line for the past 
six years. 
The plan as used by Mr. Fooshe, of getting 
the queen-cells under way before putting them 
in the upper story, is practically the Alley plan, 
as given in his book, which you in your head- 
lines call “ an improvement on Doolittle’s plan.” 
That just as good queens can be reared in this 
way as by the plan of making cells of wax, 
which I outlined, I have no doubt ; but the 
objections to it are, 1. That one or more colonies 
must be kept queenless to start these cells, which 
the colony having an upper story on are to bring 
to completion. A queenless colony without 
brood, as he describes, is of no value in the 
apiary, as a honey -producer : while in the way 
I work, no colony is kept queenless a moment on 
account of queen-rearing, but all are at work in 
sections or for extracted honey, just the same as 
if I were not rearing any queens at all. 2. _Mr. 
Fooshe has to cut his nice worker combs up into 
strips, on which the bees build the cells. Where 
one makes a business of rearing queens this is 
quite an item : for after we have our combs all 
1 perfect in our hives it is a pity to spoil them by 
cutting out long strips for queen-rearing. By 
making the wax cups, no combs need ever be 
cut, where the vision of the operator is good 
enough to see to the bottom of the cells to take 
the larva out in transferring. The third objection 
is the most serious to me of the whole ; and that 
is, that by his plan the cells must be handled 
very carefully or else they are easily mashed ; 
and in any event a piece of the strip of comb 
must accompany each cell when it is detached 
or separated from the bar of wood to which it 
was fastened, which hinders it (the cell) from 
being used successfully in the queen-cell pro- 
tectors. 
Again, unless he kills a part of the eggs or 
larvie with a match, as does Alley, he will have 
many cells built logether. so that a part must be 
destroyed in separating them. By using the 
wax cups, the cells, when completed, can be 
picked off the stick whore they were built, about 
as you would pick peas from a pod, while the 
base of them is sufficiently stout so that the 
queen-cells can be pressed into the combs of 
queenless colonies so they will be a fixture 
wherever you wish them, thus saving the cutting 
of combs in placing the cells in the hives as we 
used to do, and as is pictured out in many of 
i our books. 
In nearly all of the comments on my book, I 
see many suppose that the book was written for 
queen-breeders, who follow the rearing of queens 
as a business ; but this is a mistake. The book 
was written for the sole purpose of benefiting all 
in the bee-business, from the man who counts 
his colonies by the thousand down to the 
amateur who has but two or three. All parties 
want queens for any case of emergency which 
may come up, or for the purpose of superseding 
those which are past their usefulness, or are not 
of the “blood” which they wish, or to give to 
the parent colony after the old queen has gone 
out with the swarm, so that second swarming 
may be prevented. How handy it is, then, to 
rear such queens in an upper story, get them 
fertilized in the same by slipping in a perforated 
