70 
“novice’s” gleanings in bee culture. 
contains ample room we may allow the 
queen to remain i n it a few days if the 
colony has queen cells not quite ready to 
remove. 
Again fifteen of these cages just fill a 
Langstroth frame, and when fastened with 
transferring clasps or some similar device 
until the bees wax them fast we have a 
very convenient nursery, just as good as 
if it was patented. The whole could in 
fact he made of one piece of wood if pre- 
ferred. While bees in with the cells are 
not positively necessary, we should al- 
ways put in a few unless in cutting the 
cell apart some of them get cut open. 
And here is a point new to us at least : 
In cutting apart three cells built all to- 
gether we supposed the central one would 
have to he destroyed, and we cut out a 
white queen, without wings or even legs, 
hardly; at a suggestion from P. G., the 
embryo queen wns laid on a leaf in one 
of the cages on top of the frames of a 
hive. Imagine our surpriseand astonish- 
ment at finding a few days after a full 
Hedged and colored queen as occupant, 
and stranger still to us was it to see her 
well received by a queenless colony in 
another hive, and the way she went to 
diving into the cells for honey the first 
thing, caused “P. G.” to christen her 
“Lunatic” and of course her queen. 
She is now a fine, large, yellow one. 
Now it has always been to us one 
of the things inexplicable why a queen 
was always well received in a hive from 
simply being hatched there, and it seem- 
ed almost like superstition that a whole 
colony of bees know whether a young 
queen, when seen crawling about on the 
comb, was hatched in the hive or was 
placed there. Those who have made 
futile efforts to introduce virgin queens 
will readily understand us. And we were 
still more surprised to find that our friend 
Shaw introduces virgin queens by caging 
them from twelve to sixteen hours, not 
more. The experiment, with “Lunatic" 
seemed to imply that the bees had no 
grudge against an infant queen, and to 
our great surprise and relief we have 
been for the past week putting queens 
just hatched into any hive with impunity. 
We simply remove a frame from the 
queenless hive and place the young queen 
among the bees, she instantly begins to 
search in the cells for honey, and so far 
we have hardly had a bee take any notice 
of them unless it was to attempt to drag 
such a puny, weak thing out of the hive 
when we cage her a few hours or until she 
is able to walk steady. These queens 
after a few hours seem perfectly at home 
and as we have had only one out of near- 
ly a dozen “turn up missing” we shall 
think it. safer and less trouble than to in- 
sert cells. A large number of cages can 
be kept in one hive and thus facilitate 
examinations; or indeed the whole top of 
the frames of a strong colony may he 
covered with cages so arranged that no 
bees can pass abeve them, and we can 
'then open the doors to put in cells, ex- 
amine queens or remove them without 
smoke, veil or anything of the kind. 
The top of a Langstroth hive will con- 
tain thirty of our cages, or a frame can 
bo made of strips of wood divided into 
apartments of the same material and the 
whole bottom covered with wire cloth, so 
that we can have sixty-three cages nearly 
two inches square each. Of course each 
one must have a separate door and to use 
all the apartments we would need a very- 
strong stock of bees, a two story hive re 
duced to one for instance, and the whole 
should be made very close and warm, 
with a soft thick quilt on top. Such an 
apparatus should be examined two or 
three times each day ; for to succeed in 
introducing the queens they should he 
removed almost as soon as hatched. Put 
three or four bees in with each cell taken 
from (lie hive on which it was built; these 
may be secured by holding the cell against 
a cluster of them. When a cell must be 
cut open in separating them, omit the 
bees, but it. must then he examined oftener 
and the young queen will soon die unless 
they have a drop of honey. 
Since writing the above we have actual- 
ly been using a fifty-four cage nursery- 
above the frames of a hive without doors 
at alt, but simply a piece of rather thick 
still' woolen cloth is tacked to one edge 
and spread over the cages, and with a 
quilt over this the cells are as warm as in 
the body of the hive. We used a two 
story “simplicity, 1 ’ reduced to one so that 
it is crammed with bees, and we can ex- 
amined the whole in one minute, for all 
that is to be done is to raise the lid and 
roll up the cloth and quilt. No fears 
need be entertained that, the queens will 
get together, for they instinctively stick 
to the wire cloth on the bottom of the 
cages, seeing the bees below. We need 
hardly add that not having a bee in your 
way to bother is a great relief, and we are 
certain that just as fine queens hatch out 
without any aid from bees being kept in 
with the cells, nor is it necessary to make 
any provision for food in the cages, as the 
queens should be removed and introduced 
in a few hours at most. 
The time occupied is less than that 
of inserting a cell, and we find it less 
risk; where we have waited until the un- 
queened colony had started cells, we 
have had no loss, and we have usually- 
succeeded, even when the old queen 
was killed and the young one put in on 
the same da^\ and even with the most, vin- 
dictive hy brids at that. To make a nur- 
sery as we have described, it is only nec- 
essary to make saw cuts across an inch 
hoard, two inches apart and half way 
through ; now, when strips are ripped off 
from this hoard just thick enough to fill 
the saw cut, it will readily he seen that 
they can be pushed into each other, so ns 
to form cages two inches square. Cover 
the under side with wire cloth, lay it on 
