thousand answers 
197 
Queenlessness. — Q. What is the best sign of a queenless col- 
ony in the spring? 
A. The best sign is to find no brood present when all other 
colonies have started brood. Even by looking at the outside, you 
may be suspicious if you find the bees of a colony carrying no 
pollen, or very little pellets, when other colonies are carrying 
loads of it. 
Q. Will queenless bees store honey? 
A. Yes, indeed. 
Q. I have two colonies that I know are queenless, and still 
they are busy carrying in pollen. Some say they will not do this 
when they have no queen. Is this so. If so, why do these carry 
pollen ? 
A. Queenless bees do carry pollen; but after they have been 
queenless for a time they have a surplus of pollen on hand and 
then they carry less pollen and smaller loads. 
Q. When a colony becomes queenless, what is the best way 
to requeen; give it a sealed queen-cell or a frame of brood, or 
what would you do? 
A. A cell just ready to hatch will gain about 12 days over 
giving a frame of brood, and a laying queen will be about 10 days 
better still, so if I hadn't the laying queen I would prefer the cell 
to the frame of brood. If it was very early in the season, I would 
unite with a weak colony having a good queen, rather than give 
a frame of brood. 
Q. I have a fine 10-frame hive with plenty of stores and of bees 
— but queenless. I dare not order a queen from the South, as a 
cold snap would kill her. If a frame of brood from another hive 
is introduced and a queen is reared, there are no drones for her 
to mate with. Laying workers may develop at any time. But I 
do hate to lose that colony. What would you do? (March. 
Missouri.) 
A. You are wise in thinking it best not to rear queens too 
early. Aside from the lack of drones, it is true that queens reared 
much before the time of swarming, and if drones are present, 
generally turn out to be so poor that they are often- worse than 
none. All the same, you can give the colony one or two frames of 
brood from some other colony, with a goodly proportion of eggs 
and unsealed larvae. Then within ten days kill all queen-cells 
started on this brood, and at the same time give a frame or two 
of fresh brood every ten days until conditions are right for rear- 
ing a queen, but allowing no young queen to emerge until then. 
You will do three things: You will keep up the courage of the 
