CHAPTER XXIII 
THE REARING OF QUEENS 
Unless the queen at the head of a colony is a good one 
it is useless to expect that colony to be productive. It 
therefore becomes necessary for the progressive beekeeper 
to pay considerable attention to the rearing of queens which 
fulfill the requirements for commercial success. The chief 
requirements are prolificness, vigor of offspring and purity 
of race. While ability in egg-laying is a character which is 
inherited, it is also influenced by the age of the queen and by 
the care she received during her development. Quietness 
in winter, reduction in swarming and gentleness are other 
desirable characters. 
Commerical queen-rearing. 
Queen-rearing has become a prominent specialty in 
American beekeeping and there are numerous beekeepers 
who devote almost their entire energies to rearing queens of 
various races for sale. To these specialists, beekeepers have 
in the past looked for the greatest advancement in the 
breeding of better stock, but it is becoming more and more 
evident that this work should not be left entirely to commer¬ 
cial breeders. In any event it is usually not economical for 
the extensive beekeeper to purchase all of his queens. Queens 
that have been shipped through the mails, especially those 
that have previously been laying heavily, are frequently in¬ 
jured to the extent that they never again fully show their 
former prolificness. Even if this were not the case, the cost 
of queens is almost always greater than is warranted by the 
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