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<strong>Better</strong> <strong>Queens</strong> <strong>by</strong> <strong>Jay</strong> <strong>Smith</strong><br />
experience that only poor queens would result from such stunted cells and<br />
have taken my knife and shaved off hundreds of them and destroyed them.<br />
Had we been using our present system, the bees would not have accepted<br />
more than ten or a dozen in place of a hundred but would have finished them<br />
in perfect manner. To be extra conservative we try to give the bees<br />
in the starter hive not more than half the number of cells they would accept.<br />
Therefore, as stated, thus far our system is foolproof as far as getting good<br />
cells started but from now on the beekeeper must take over, for as the cells<br />
now have been started the bees you give them to will try to finish them<br />
whether or not they can do a good job at it. Unless the bees that are to finish<br />
them are in the best of condition and strong in numbers you can still produce<br />
poor cells. The queenless colony that is to finish the cells must contain at least<br />
five pounds of bees and several combs of mostly capped brood. If no nectar<br />
is coming in, this colony must be fed liberally. Again, to be extra conservative,<br />
we have two colonies to finish the cells that have been started. If this is<br />
properly done you can produce cells every bit as good as those built <strong>by</strong> the<br />
bees during swarming. Bees must be added to keep up their strength. It is<br />
some help to them <strong>by</strong> giving them the cells with the bees that are with the<br />
cells. When more bees are needed the starter hive is dumped in front of the<br />
finishing hive.<br />
Nurse Bees<br />
Let us digress for a moment and discuss nurse bees. Some who have made a<br />
study of the subject tell us bees are good nurses at three or four days of age.<br />
Well if they have caught them in the act and really have the goods on them I<br />
will have to retract, but even so maintain that, if they are nurses at that tender<br />
age, they are might poor ones. I asked one professor, who claimed these<br />
young bees were good nurses, how he came to that conclusion. He said he<br />
had observed the young bees putting their tongues into cells where the young<br />
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueenswpics.htm (70 of 119)20-12-2006 21:42:55
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