THOUSAND ANSWERS 
191 
locality that probably means that the bees should not start to 
build queen-cells until white clover begins to yield, or any time 
later; and, of course, the empty frame must be given to your best 
colony a week or so earlier. 
Q. Is the nature, quality, color, etc., of queens affected by the 
bees that rear them from the egg? That is, if I give a cross 
colony eggs from a queen whose workers are gentle, to rear a 
queen, will the workers of the queen reared be gentle if she is 
fertilized by a drone from a gentle colony? 
A. It is held by some that the character of a queen is ma- 
terially affected by the nature of the nurse-bees that rear her. It 
is certain that a young queen poorly fed will not be so good as 
one that has a bountiful supply of best food. That is, perhaps, 
the chief reason why the attempt to rear queens very early in the 
season is generally a failure. But take two royal larvae, one fed 
by nurse-bees of the most vicious temper, the other by the 
gentlest of all bees, each being alike lavishly fed, and it is hard 
to understand that there should be any great difference in temper 
of the young queens, if both had the same mother. 
Queens and Swarms. — Q. When a first swarm issues, how long 
is it before the young queen emerges in the hive? 
A. The first afterswarm issues about 8 days after the prime 
swarm (perhaps sooner, perhaps later), and the young- queen 
probably emerges the day before that, say about a week after the 
prime swarm. 
Q. Is a queen on the outside or inside of a swarm which is 
clustered on a limb? 
A. She may be anywhere in the cluster, and sometimes the 
bees will cluster and the queen not with them at all. 
Queens, Shipping. — Q. Do you think that queens that come 
through the mails are as good as those not caged? 
A. Certainly it would not be safe to suppose that a queen 
will be improved by a journey through the mails. She may not be 
injured at all by such a journey, and the injury may be serious. 
Even in a case where a queen is greatly injured by being mailed, 
she may be a very profitable investment. Suppose you have a 
strain of very poor bees, and you order a queen of a strain of bees 
that will store double as much as your bees. She is so badly in- 
jured in the mails that she is slow about beginning to lay, lays 
very sparingly, and gives up the ghost before you have had her a 
month. All the honey stored by her progeny, if sold at a high 
price will not amount to as much as you paid for the queen. If 
