MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 185Put in the cellar the hives containing the drones and the youngqueens. After it is too late in the day for other drones to fly,take out the cellared hives, and incite them to fly by feeding.You may be a little more sure of this if the cellaring has continuedtwo or three days. You may also succeed by taking themout in the morning, so as to get them to fly before other dronesareout.Q. I shall want to clip the queen's wing when she becomesfertile. When should this be done?A. She is likely to begin laying when about ten days old, althoughit may be a day or two less, and it may be several daysmore. Do not clip her till you are sure that she is laying regularlyin the combs.Queen Nursery.—Q. I want to ask about the Stanley nurseryfor queens. I have Dadant, Hutchinson and Root on bees, butnone of them has anything about it. I would like to know whereone can be procured or how made. I am anxious to have one.A. The essential part of a Stanley queen-nursery looks likea cartridge shell for a gun. The shell is made of excluder-zinc,and is 2 inches long, with an inside diameter of three-quarters ofan inch. The perforations of the zinc run transversely. It issimply a piece of excluder-zinc 2.35 inches long and 2 inches wide,rolled up into cylindrical form and soldered together. The twoends are closed by common gun-wads. The workers have freeentrance to the cylinders, while no queen can enter to make anattack. In the little experience I had with them I found that theyoung queens were sometimes killed by getting caught in theslots, but not often. They have, on the other hand, the advantageover other nurseries that the workers can have free access to thecells, and it is claimed, especially in Europe, that the close contactof the workers has a very important influence on the occupants ofthe cells. A number of these cartridges—I think 48—may be containedin an ordinary Langstroth brood-frame, and be put betweenthe brood-combs in a hive. They can probably be had fromthe inventor.Queens, Northern and Southern Bees.—Q. Would it do tosend to Texas, or other warm countries, for queens? Would theystand the cold up here in New York state and be hardy?A. So far as I know, queens from the South do just as well asthose reared farther North, and are just as hardy.It is well known that, in general, each region has plants and