IN commencing to rear queens, you will first want some small rearing boxes, or miniature hives, about four and one-half inches wide, by eight inches long, and five inches deep, inside measurement. Use inch board for the hives. Make for each hive three moveable comb frames,[6] suspended the same as in the brood section of the Controllable Hive. Make the under side of the top bar flat, instead of triangular, as in the large comb frames. Take a piece of old comb, and cut to fill each one of the small frames. Take from a pint to a quart of bees in a populous stock (in the height of the breeding season this will do harm) without the queen. Confine the bees in a light box, in the top of which there is an inch hole, closed to confine them to the box, for if not confined they would return to the old stock, as the queen is not with them. Having secured your bees in the box, go to a stock and lift out a comb containing eggs, just deposited. They may be known by their appearance. They are but a tiny speck at the bottom of the cell, about one-sixteenth of an inch In length, slightly curved and perfectly white in color. They remain in this form two or three days, at the end of which time they change to the form of a grub or maggot. After this change it is a risk to depend on them for queen raising, so be sure to secure for your purpose eggs. Cut from the brood comb a piece about two inches long and one-half inch wide, using a very sharp, thin knife, so as not to mutilate the comb. Cut out a piece from the center comb of the miniature hive, and fit in its place the piece containing the eggs. The middle of a warm day is the best time to do this work. It is best to have one of the comb frames of the miniature hives filled with honey, to furnish food for the bees for a few days.
[6] This frame is shown In the engraving, representing the different kinds of cells, in [Chapter I].
As soon as you have fitted the piece containing the eggs in its place in the miniature hive, put on a close-fitting cover. Do not nail it as you will want to look at it every few days. Close the entrances to the miniature hive, so no bees can escape. Now open the hole in the top of the box in which the bees are confined, and set the miniature hive containing the eggs over it quickly, allowing no bees to escape. The bees will then pass from the box up into the miniature hive, cluster on the comb containing the eggs, and immediately commence the rearing of queens from the eggs thus furnished them. Keep the bees confined to the miniature hive for about thirty-six hours, Give them their liberty at first about one hour before sunset. If you do not confine them for the time stated, they will return to the hive from which you took them, but if so confined, they will forget their old home, and adhere to the miniature hive, the same as an ordinary swarm hived in the usual way. They will rear queens from the eggs given them by constructing queen cells, so arranged as to take in one of the eggs in the piece of comb furnished them often constructing three or more cells. In about six days, open the miniature hive, and you will find these cells nearly or quite finished. Occasionally a case occurs where they do not rear queens when thus furnished with the means, but such cases are rare. If you find each one made separate you can, if you choose, with a sharp, thin knife, cut out all the cells but one, and give them to other rearing boxes not supplied with eggs, or which have failed to rear queens from the eggs furnished them. If you leave all the cells in the miniature hive as constructed, the first queen that hatches will destroy all the others. She will visit each cell, gnaw an opening in the side, curve her abdomen and insert her sting into the opening, and sting the rival queen to death while yet in her cradle. The worker bees will then enlarge the opening, and drag out the lifeless body. The victorious queen now reigns over the little colony, the same as in a large and natural swarm.
In from three to five days after hatching if the weather is fine, the young queen will leave the miniature hive, and take a flight in the open air, to meet the drone for the purpose of fecundation. If successful, she will commence to lay in about two days. She may then be introduced to a full stock at any time desired. Recollect it will be useless to rear queens where there are no drones.
When stocks are liberally fed early in the season, drones will appear correspondingly early. And if from a stock well supplied with drones, you remove the queen, the workers will not destroy the drones in that hive until they have obtained another fertile laying queen. With this idea in view, viz:—early and liberal feeding to produce drones early, and depriving a popular stock (well supplied with drones) of its queen the last of the season, we can have drones sufficient for our purpose from early spring until late in the fall.
I have in several instances, for the purpose of securing drones very early in the spring, deprived a populous stock, containing a large number of drones, of its queen, very late in the fall, and wintered them queenless. In this manner the drones were permitted by the bees to remain and winter with the swarm. Early in the spring they were re-enforced with hatching brood from popular stocks, but were permitted to rear no queens, in order that the drones might be preserved. As soon as drones appeared in the other stocks, this stock was furnished with a laying queen and it was as prosperous as the best.
By this plan drones may be kept through the winter, if their services are required very early in the spring, before we can raise them from the best stocks by judicious feeding, which very rarely can be done. The bees for rearing queens are usually obtained from populous hives, such as will hardly miss a pint or quart from their numbers, great care being exercised not to remove the queen. The best time to get the bees is in the middle of the day. Go to a stock and first find the queen. Set the comb she is on to one side. Put your light box (prepared as before described with a hole in the top) on a sheet near by, with one edge raised an inch. Take one or more combs from the hive (being careful not to get the one with the queen,) and shake the bees from them down beside the box, which they will readily enter. When you have bees enough in the box, close it so none can escape. You now have the bees ready to put in the miniature hive, as before directed.
I think I have given such instruction as will enable any one, after a little practice, to rear queens successfully.[7] I will follow it with such information as will insure success in introducing queens into full stocks of bees.
[7] By taking brood for rearing queens only from such stocks as exhibit the greatest industry, mildness of disposition, vigor in withstanding the cold etc., I find I am able to greatly improve the desirable qualities of my bees from year to year. This systematic course of treatment has produced swarms possessing very valuable characteristics. It is surprising to note the difference in profits and ease of management, between bees that have always been left to take their own course, and such as have had their most desirable traits cultivated and improved to the greatest possible extent for a term of years. The difference is almost as marked as between the savage in native wilds and the most intelligent and highly educated member of society.