BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The queen being the mother of all the bees in the hive, the bee-keeper finds a supply of queens to be very valuable. He can build up fresh colonies with them, and he can save, or improve, colonies that already exist by introducing young and vigorous queens to those that have lost their queen, or to those in which the laying power of the queen has become impaired through old age. Thus the population of the apiary and its yield of honey can be greatly increased.
Another and more important purpose of queen-rearing is the improvement of the bee. The methods by which domestic animals and cultivated plants have been rendered more useful or more beautiful in the estimation of man, namely, breeding by selection and crossing selected races and varieties, may be applied to bees. In breeding bees for improvement some of the greatest problems in bee-culture, such as disease-resistance, the increase of honey-yield, the improvement of temper, and the reduction of swarming, have been attacked. This important subject is dealt with in Chapter XI.
Bee-keepers who are unable to devote the time and attention to queen-rearing that it needs will find a good and simple method of obtaining a few queens described in Chapter III., which has been made as much as possible complete in itself.
The frame for combs mentioned in this book is the standard frame of the British Bee-keepers' Association (outside dimensions, \(8
rac{1}{2}\)in. deep by r4in. long, with top bar rjin. long, which is used throughout the British Isles). Most of the remarks, however, apply equally well to the sizes of frames that have been adopted as standard in other countries. It is advisable to have all the combs which are used in the queen-rearing apiary built from full sheets of foundation wired into the frames.
## II.-Queen-Rearing in Nature.
Queens are reared in Nature under three different conditions :--(1) When a colony is about to swarm ; (2) when the queen is failing ; and (3) when, through accident, the queen suddenly dies or gets lost.
**Queen-Rearing under the Swarming Impulse.** -- In May or June, when the hive is crowded with bees, and there are a large number of young bees being reared, about a dozen queen-cells, resembling inverted cups, are formed in the brood-nest, chiefly on the side and bottom edges of the combs. In some colonies these queen-cells are, after a time, destroyed, and no swarm eventually issues, but, in others, the queen sooner or later deposits an egg in each queen-cell. **If** the colony continues to prosper the egg is allowed to remain, and after three days a larva hatches from it.
The larva is supplied by the worker bees with a quantity of opaque white jelly, resembling flour paste, called "royal jelly," on which it floats and feeds (Fig. 1, A). At first the amount of royal jelly supplied to the larva is small, but it is soon greatly increased, and there is always much more of it than the larva can consume. Dufour and Schonfeld have shown that the royal jelly is produced in the chyle-stomach.* It has, therefore, been named chyle-food. It is chiefly produced by the young bees, which remain in the hive while the older bees do the honey-gathering. The queen-larva grows rapidly, and in five days after hatching it becomes full-grown. The mouth of the queen-cell is then sealed over by the bees with wax, and the larva lines the sealing with a layer of silk. A considerable quantity of the royal jelly is left unconsumed in the base of the cell. If the weather is fine, as soon assome of the queen-cells are sealed, the first swarm, consisting of the parent queen, accompanied by a large number of young bees, leaves the hive. The larva, after a short period of rest, changes to a pupa, which develops into a queen, which, seven days after the sealing of the cell, bites a disc off the tip of the cell and creeps out.
The queens are not all reared at exactly the same time, and several days elapse between the maturing of the first and of the last of them. The first hatched queen destroys those that are immature, unless the colony is strong enough to swarm again, in which case she is prevented by the workers from doing so, and she, and often one or two others, leave the hive with a second swarm. Third and fourth swarms, accompanied by late hatched queens, may go off a day or two later.
The queens are often forced to remain in their cells by the workers for a day or two after they would naturally hatch, and they are then fed through a hole in the capping just large enough for the passage of the queen's tongue. When a hatched queen meets another, a duel takes place, and the one stings the other to death. Thus, in the end, only one queen remains in each colony or swarm.
If the weather is favourable, this queen makes the first of a series of flights about the fifth day after hatching for the purpose of meeting the drone. The drones are now plentiful, having been reared in large numbers shortly before the swarming season. The period for the queen's flights is between ii.30 a.m. and z.30 p.m., when the drones are also flying freely. If the weather is favourable, she is fertilised in two or three days, and she usually commences laying about thirty-six hours after fertilisation.
The one impregnation is sufficient for life, and the queen does not again leave the hive unless it is to accompany a swarm another year. Queen-bases have been known to live as long as five years, but they are often worn out in three.
**Queen-Rearing to Supersede a Failing Queen.-** In the rearing of queens to supersede a queen whose egg-laying powers are failing, fewer queen-cells are started than under the swarming impulse, and they are very lavishly supplied with royal jelly ; also the young queens usually emerge, and the surviving one is sometimes fertilised and commences laying before the old one dies. The rearing of some of these queens is sometimes started in the manner described in the following paragraph.
**Queen-Rearing when the Queen is Accidentally Lost.-** Should the queen of a colony die or get lost accidentally, about a dozen larvae, not more than three days old, which would in the ordinary course develop into workers, are supplied with an abundance of royal jelly, and at the same time their cells are enlarged and formed into queen-cells (Fig. 1, B), with the result that they develop into queens. The explanation of this is that both queen and worker are developed from the female egg, and the worker larva is fed during the first three days of its existence on chyle-food similar to that supplied to the queen larva during the whole term of its existence ; but on the fourth day the worker larva is weaned, and a large quantity of honey is added to its food. The nature of the bee is such that this change to a less nonribing diet prevents the development of the reproductive organs, but causes the development of perfect organs for collecting food and for performing the manifold duties of the hive, together with the intelligence necessary to use them ; in other words, it makes a worker instead of a queen. Occasionally bees choose larvae over three days old for rearing into queens ; these produce undersized queens which more or less resemble workers.
**Approximate Duration of Stages in Development of a Fertile Queen \(\cdot\) Bee.**
egin{tabular}{l c c c} Egg &... &... &... & 3 days \ Larva (unsealed) &... &... & 5,, \ Sealed queen-cell &... &... & 7\(
rac{1}{2}\),, \ Virgin queen &... &... & 6 to 2.5, \ \end{tabular}
## III.--How to save queens reared under the swarming impulse: A method suitable for all Bee-keepers.
Bee-keepers who require only a few fertile queens may easily obtain them _by_ saving the queens that are reared naturally under the swarming impulse in their best colonies in the following manner :--
About a week after the first swarm has left the hive the colony is divided into nuclei, each containing one or two of the queen-cells. The best time to do this is when the oldest of the queens is almost ready to emerge. This is generally on the sixth or seventh day after the colony has swarmed, but, if the departure of the swarm has been delayed by unfavourable weather, some of the queens may emerge sooner, and then the operation should be done earlier. The dividing of the colony should not be delayed beyond the seventh day, for, if it is, one or more of the queens is very likely to go off with a swarm, or to destroy her immature sisters. On the other hand, if the operation is carried out much before the sixth day, there is a large amount of brood in the hive, and few bees yet hatched to care for it, so that comparatively few nuclei can, with safety, be made. The work should be carried out about 5 p.m., or, if the day is warm and fine, at 6 p.m., so that no bees can return to the parent hive the same day.
Each nucleus should consist of three combs with the adhering bees, placed in a separate hive and warmly wrapped up, the flight hole being reduced to the size of _z_in, by _z_in. There should be brood and at least one well-formed queen-cell in the central comb, and the other combs should contain plenty of honey. The bees being strongly attracted by the sealed brood and queen-cells, and a large number of them being too young to have taken their first flight, only a few of them will return to the parent hive the next day. There being no eggs or young larvae in the combs, the brood is not easily chilled. It is, however, important that there should be sufficient bees to keep the queen-cells, and whatbroad there is, warm, after all loss of bees has occurred. The nucleus that remains in the parent hive need contain only sufficient bees to cover one or two combs, because of the bees that will return to it from the other nuclei. (See _Forming Nuclei_, page 3**i**.)
Any spare queen-cells may be cut out of the combs and distributed to quenless colonies or nuclei, preferably to those from which a fertile queen has been removed one or two days previously.
Queen-cells and the combs containing them must not be severely jarred or shaken. To find the queen-cells, the beekeeper should, if necessary, brush the bees from the comb with a feather. In cutting out the queen-cells care must be taken not to damage them. For this purpose, plenty of the surrounding comb should be cut away with them, and those that are joined to one another should not be separated. Very small queen-cells, especially if they are crooked, should be rejected; they are likely to produce undersized queens. Very long and narrow cells are also likely to contain inferior queens; their inordinate length is due to the larva failing to reach at the proper time the stage at which the cell should be sealed, the luses lengthening the unsealed cell. Thick cells of medium length generally contain the best developed queens. The queen can often be seen inside the cell by holding it before a strong light. Before they have time to get chilled, the queen-cells "should be inserted, tip downwards, as in nature, between two combs of brood; they should be placed in the warmest part of the brood-nest. They need only be wedged between the combs sufficiently to prevent their dropping down, as the 'bees will soon fix them securely, but it is always advisable to place each queen-cell in a spiral wire protector (see Fig. 3), which protects its sides from being torn open by hostile bees. The projecting end of the wire is pressed into the middle of one of the combs in such a way that the queen-cell will hang in the centre of the cluster. A tin cover is slipped through the top of the protector.
Instead of pressing the end of the wire into the comb, I prefer to draw out two or three coils and to attach the end to a crosspiece, as shown in Fig. 4. The crosspiece rests across the top bars of two frames, and the queen-cell hangs from it by the drawn-out wire in the centre of the cluster. The queen-cell is thus easily inserted into, or taken out of, the nucleus without lifting out a frame. The wire itself may be bent to form the crosspiece.
**IV.--MODERNQUEN-REARING.**
(Queens reared under the swarming impulse are, of course, only obtainable from colonies that swarm, and then only during the swarming season, which lasts for about a fortnight in May or June. But, as we have seen, queens are reared from worker larvae in any colony in which the queen is failing or has been lost. By taking advantage of this fact the queen breeder is enabled to rear queens of any particular strain at any time during the season.
It will have been observed that in the production of a fertile queen there are two distinct stages--(r) the rearing and (r) the fertilisation of the queen. The queen breeder carries on these stages in separate hives. A number of queens are reared in a colony, then they are distributed to nuclei (smaller colonies), one to each nucleus, for fertilisation.
**V.--REARINGTHEQUENS.**
It is usually impossible to get queens fertilised before the middle of May, or later than the middle of September. It is, therefore, useless to rear them earlier than May or after the middle of August. Queens are most easily reared and most quickly fertilised in June and July, and the beginner may save himself much trouble and disappointment by confining his operations to these two months.
QUEST-REARING IN ENGLAND.
To rear the queens young worker larvae of the strain that it is desired to propagate are placed in artificial cups, and are given to a colony from which the queen has been removed, or in which she is failing, or to one in which some of the symptoms of loss or failure of the queen have been artificially produced.
**Preparing the Cops.--**Doolittle appears to have been the first to have made and used artificial cells for the purpose of commercial queen-rearing. His cell-cup is made and fixed in the following manner :--
The tip of a wooden stick (Fig. 5) that has been whittled and sandpapered to the shape and size of the inside of a queen-cell is moistened with water and then dipped into beeswax heated slightly above the melting point, to a depth of about \(\sin\)., six or seven times. The wax is allowed to solidify between each dip, and each time the stick is dipped a shorter distance. Thus a cup with a thin edge and heavy base is produced. The inside diameter at the mouth of the cup should be barely \(
rac{3}{\sin}\). It is important that the inside surface of the cup should be smooth and round. About a dozen of these cups are fastened by means of drops of melted wax about \(\sin\). apart on a bar of wood \(
rac{1}{\sin}\). thick and \(
rac{1}{\sin}\). wide. The bar is fixed horizontally in the lower part of a standard frame,
three or four inches from the bottom (Fig. 6). Comb or a block of wood fills the upper part of the frame.
By placing the cups slightly zigzag, a larger number can be fixed on the bar than by placing them in a straight line. The wax at the point of attachment should be thick, so that when the queen-cells are cut off the bar to be distributed to the nuclei the knife will not enter them.
Figure 6: Frame of cups (early style).
Wooden cups are now widely used, and they have several advantages over those made of wax. There is no danger of breaking them, and they can be used again and again. They consist of a cylinder of wood, one end of which is hollowed out and lined with bees wax. Various patterns of wooden cups are made and used in America, but they are all too stout for the economical rearing of queens in the cool climate of Britain.. Fig. 7 shows the dimensions of a simple form of cup designed by myself in rooz, which fulfils the needed requirements.
This cup is made of a non-resinous and fairly soft wood, such as willow or basswood, and is turned to the dimensions shown. The cups are waxed by pouring beeswax, heated only slightly above the melting point, into them with a spoon ; the cup is then immediately turned upside down over the melting pot, and jerked so that the surplus wax drops out. The cup is held a moment longer in the inverted position till the wax in it solidifies. The wax will then be found to have formed a smooth and even layer inside the cup.
For fastening the wooden cup to the bar, a method introduced by G. W. Phillips of fixing a sharp spike or nail-point into the base of the cup, so as to project 1in. to 1in., is a good one. It is a little difficult for amateurs to fix these spikes satisfactorily into the cups, and I have found that it is easier and more satisfactory to fix them into the bar instead.
In my apiary a special carrier, made as follows, is used, instead of a frame, to carry the queen-cells, because it occupies less room in the hive, an important advantage. Twelve or fourteen fine wire nails, 1in. long, are driven 2in. apart into a bar 1in. thick and 2in. wide (Fig. 8), so that the points of the nails project 1in. The bar is then nailed to one of the long edges of a board measuring 1in. by 4in. by 133ins. To the opposite edge of this board is nailed a strip 1in. by 3in. by 2in. ; this is the top bar by which the board is suspended in the hive. Small strips 2in. thick (pieces of section do very well) are nailed on to either side of the top bar
## 10 Queen-Rearing in England.
near the ends to provide the necessary spacing. This carrier may be made from an ordinary division board by sawing a strip 4in. wide off the lower portion of it.
**Renovating the Cops.--**Cups that have been used are prepared for use again _My_ breaking off the wax out-growth and picking out the more or less dried-up jelly, or the greater part of it, from the inside, with a nail. A wooden stick having its tip rounded to fit the inside of the cup is dipped into a vessel of water, then pressed hard into the cup and twirled, with the result that the inside surface of the cup is rendered perfectly smooth.
The water forms with the remains of jelly in the cup a milky solution which dries with a glaze which is much appreciated by the bees. To hasten the drying of the cups the excess of water may be shaken out and the cups may be stood out in the sunshine.
**Rearing the Queens in a De-queened Colony.--**An easy and satisfactory way to rear the queens, though not the most economical one, is to employ a de-queened colony and proceed as follows. Other methods will be described later.
Select a prosperous colony containing a fertile queen with the bees covering eight or ten combs, five or more of which contain brood, and in the morning remove the queen and all the combs containing brood, except the two that contain the greatest amount of sealed brood in proportion to the amount of unsealed brood, replacing the combs removed
## 12 Quel-Raring in England.
will do very well. The quill is sharpened to a point as broad as that of a "J" pen, but tapering more gradually, the tip to a length of \(
rac{1}{\kappa}\)in. being scraped to make it pliant, and it is turned up as shown in the illustration.
As regards size of larvae, I find that the lent larvae to take are those that measure about one-half of the side of the hexagon forming the cell, or, expressed in another way, those that are no smaller than a mginomette seed and not quite so large as a lettuce seed. Larvae that are scarcely larger than the egg are undesirable because the bees often destroy them, probably through failing to notice them, while, on the other hand, larvae that are larger than a lettuce seed produce undersized queens.
If the comb is a new one, a number of larvae of the right size will probably be found grouped together. The depth of the cells is reduced by shaving their mouths off with a knife. To lift the larva out of its cell the turned-up tip of the quill is brought to the bottom of the cell beside the larva and then scraped sideways over the bottom of the cell under the jelly supporting the larva. When it is brought just sufficiently far under the larva to raise it, the larva is lifted out with as much of the jelly adhering to it as possible and deposited in the centre of the cup.
QUESEN-REARIN: IN ENGLAND. 13
If one fails to lift a larvae out on the first attempt it will generally be found difficult to get it up without injuring it, and it is best to leave it and try another.
There is always enough jelly for one to lift and deposit with the larvae sufficient to form a bed for the latter in the cup, except when the bees are rearing an unusually large amount of brood in proportion to their numbers, and are
Transferring "Royal Jelly " to the Cups on Sharpened Matehes.
at the same time very busy in the fields. Then the supply of jelly is so scanty that it is necessary to prime the cups with jelly from an unsealed queen-cell freshly obtained from a hive. Two wooden matches are sharpened to a flat point. One of them is used to thoroughly mix the jelly by stirring it. As much jelly as possible is then brought out on this
## 14 Queen-Rearing in England.
match, off which it is picked, in little quantities, on the point of the other match and deposited in the bottoms of the cups. One queen-cell usually contains enough jelly to prime 40 to 60 cups, for only a minute quantity is placed in each cup. A large quantity - is worse than useless, for the bees are likely to suck it up and destroy the larva.
Sometimes the larvae of the right size can only be found in a tough old comb and scattered singly among cells containing older brood or pollen. Then some skill is needed to get them out without injuring them. But if one enlarges the mouths of the cells with a pocket knife, and is aided by a good light, practice soon makes even this an easy operation, though not a quick one. It is advisable to give a new comb occasionally and so gradually to work out the old comb.
The larvae should be given to the bees as soon after they have been placed in the cups as possible, not only because long exposure to the air is liable to chill them--the temperature of the brood nest being about 97 degrees \(\mathbf{F}\).--butalso because it may try up the jelly. But I have found that on a still day with a temperature of only 65 degrees no harm was done to larvae that had been exposed for half an hour. Care should be taken not to handle the cups near their mouths with perspiring fingers, nor to puff smoke over them, for the bees are likely to reject them if they detect strange scents in them. It is a good plan to give two carriers carrying altogether 24 to 30 cups to the queen-rearing colony, so as to make allowance for any larvae that may be destroyed.
A good batch of sealed queen-cells.
Next morning the cups are examined, and should any be found in which the larvae have not been bountifully supplied with jelly they are removed, for larvae that have been starved at the start will develop into undersized and inferior queens.
Although a colony covering eight combs is able to provide as many as two dozen larvae with sufficient food during the first 24 hours it cannot supply enough food to more than about a dozen during the second and third day of feeding, and any above this number must now be removed. They may be given to another colony if one in suitable condition can be found to take them. A colony covering over ten combs may, however, be allowed to rear 20 to 2+ queens, provided the two carriers are separated by a comb or two.
The queens will emerge during the tenth or eleventh day after the larvae were transferred. Consequently, to avoid the risk of a queen getting free and destroying the others, it is necessary to place the cells in separate cages or to distribute them to the nuclei not later than the evening of the ninth day after the larvae were transferred. How to proceed with this work is explained on pages 6 and 23-