6C2 
QUEEN-REARING 
Fully completed queen-cells built on wooden cell cups here described. 
The nurse bees are already supplied with 
pap; and with no young brood of any 
kind to feed they have royal jelly in any 
quantity to give the cups. A colony in this 
condition may be given 100 cells on two 
frames, which are placed in the center of 
the colony in places previously left vacant. 
If everything has been done right, nearly 
every one of the cells will be accepted; but 
the attempt should not be made to make 
such a colony start a second batch. When 
the cells are accepted they are taken out 
and placed in an upper story of a cell¬ 
building (or, rather, cell-completing) col¬ 
ony next to be described. 
While queenless bees will complete any 
cells given them, such cells will generally 
not be as good as those built under the 
swarming or supersedure impulse. For a 
cell-completing colony a two-story colony 
with an excluder between the stories is pre¬ 
pared. The lower hive contains the queen, 
but the brood is lifted into the upper story. 
The queen and bees below will begin rear¬ 
ing more brood. If no honey flow is on, it 
is important to feed, because otherwise 
these cell-builders will tear down the work 
so nicely started in the other hive. 
Under Feeding is described the Board- 
man feeder for slow feeding. After one 
feed is given another must be given the 
next day. If a day is skipped in feeding, 
the colony begins to feel that the honey 
flow has stopped, and apparently comes to 
the conclusion that there will be no neces¬ 
sity for continuing the work of cell-build¬ 
ing. When- feeding stops, it will often 
destroy work nicely under way. 
If feeding continues such cell-builders 
will take care of and build out about 15 
cells at a time. When the first batch is 
sealed, another batch of accepted cells may 
be given, and so on the process may be con¬ 
tinued thruout the season—provided, how¬ 
ever, the colony is kept up to the maximum 
strength by continuous feeding. 
In about 15 days brood is again lifted 
from the lower to the upper hive and the 
combs from which brood has hatched above 
are put below. Brood must be kept above to 
keep cell-building going on. 
NURSERY CAGES. 
The illustration shows a batch of cells 
taken from one of these cell-builders. In 
large queen-breeding establishments there 
will be 40 to 50 cell-building’ colonies 
kept constantly at work; but the ordi¬ 
nary beekeeper who desires a few queens 
of his own will not need to keep more than 
one such colony more than a few days. 
The cells are now ready to be placed in 
nursery cages. This, it will be seen, is 
practically a modified Alley cage. A sur¬ 
plus of cells often occurs in queen-rearing 
— that is to say, a lack of queenless nuclei 
or colonies to take them. One should ar¬ 
range to have more cells than he will prob¬ 
ably be able to use, to provide for bad 
weather, when cells will be destroyed or 
young virgins will be missing. At such a 
time, if one has extra cells or virgins that 
