The Rearing of Queens 
419 
Conditions under which queens are reared. 
There are three circumstances under which bees build 
queen cells naturally and in artificial queen-rearing it is 
necessary to bring about or to utilize some one of these condi¬ 
tions. (1) The most common condition is that found in the 
preparation for swarming (p. 62). (2) If a colony becomes 
queenless and if suitable larvae are present, queens will be 
reared. (3) If a queen becomes inefficient the workers will 
rear young queens to supersede her. It is believed that the 
best queens arc those reared under the swarming impulse 
and in supersedure. 
Saving natural queen cells. 
During the swarming season the beekeeper can often 
obtain a number of fine queen cells without any cost in time 
by taking queen cells from colonies preparing to swarm, 
provided the parent queens are of satisfactory stock. By 
placing these in colonies to be requeened, after the removal 
of the condemned queens, requeening takes place naturally 
and without further manipulation. Making a colony queen¬ 
less early in a honey-flow, like that from clover in the North, 
costs less perhaps than a period of queenlessness at any other 
time, in that the eggs' laid then are not of value as future 
honey gatherers. Furthermore, this may often be done in 
connection with dequeening to treat swarming. By keeping 
a watch for opportunities to utilize good natural queen cells, 
time may be saved by reducing the amount of artificial queen¬ 
rearing. 
Having natural cells built. 
The Miller method. — C. C. Miller advocates the follow¬ 
ing method: The breeding queen is kept in a two-frame 
nucleus so that all comb built will be of worker cells. Be¬ 
ginning at about the time queen cells are being built for 
swarming, on the same day each week a frame is inserted in 
place of one of the combs in the nucleus containing the 
