190 
£>r. Miller's 
swarm, go to the hive each evening after the bees have quieted 
down, put your ear to the side of the hive and listen for the pip- 
ing of the young queen, which you will hear as soon as she issues 
from her cell. You will have no difficulty distinguishing her sharp, 
clear tones, even if you have never heard a queen pipe before. 
The other virgins in their cells will quahk in reply. Now go to 
the hive next morning and cut out all cells, but look sharp 
that none of the virgins escape which have gnawed open the cap- 
ping of the cell, but are kept prisoners by the workers. In “Fifty 
Years Among the Bees” I have very fully detailed the way in 
which I rear queens for my own use, a plan I would use if I had 
only half a dozen colonies. I think it might pay you well to get 
the book just for that part alone. 
Q. Is there a better way of rearing queens for an amateur 
without queen-rearing tools, when queens are wanted before the 
swarming season? If so, please explain. (Iowa.) 
A. You don’t need any special queen-rearing outfit for ten 
queens a year, nor for 100. I’ll tell you how you can rear just as 
good queens as can be reared from your stock, with no other 
outfit than what every beekeeper is supposed to have on hand. 
Take a frame out of the hive containing your best queen, and 
put in its place a frame with a starter an inch or so deep. A week 
or so later you will find the bees have filled the frame three-quar- 
ters full, more or less, with new comb, with larvie well advanced 
down to eggs around the outside edge. Trim off the outer edge 
that contains only egg9, leaving the larvas. It isn’t easy to be 
exact about this, and it isn’t very particular, only don’t cut away 
any of the larvae; no harm if you leave some of the eggs. Indeed, 
it Is not absolutely necessary to cut off any of the comb; only 
that outer margin is in the bees’ way. Now put your prepared 
comb in the middle of a strong colony from which you have re- 
moved the queen, and in nine or ten days cut out the cells and 
give them to nuclei. In about two weeks later you ought to find 
most of them changed into laying queens. You see, it isn’t a 
very complicated matter, and needs no special outfit. 
You note that I give no date as to when you are to do these 
things. I can’t, because it may be three weeks later one year than 
another. But be sure not to begin too early. In your locality, if 
you were to begin in March you wouldn’t get one good queen out 
of twenty. Figure so as to give the brood to the queenless colony 
when the bees are working prosperously in the fields. In your 
