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Improved Queen-Rearing; or, How to Rear Large, Prolific, Long-Lived Queen Bees / The Result of Nearly Half a Century's Experience in Rearing Queen Bees, Giving the Practical, Every-day Work of the Queen-Rearing Apiary cover

Improved Queen-Rearing; or, How to Rear Large, Prolific, Long-Lived Queen Bees / The Result of Nearly Half a Century's Experience in Rearing Queen Bees, Giving the Practical, Every-day Work of the Queen-Rearing Apiary

Chapter 19: FEEDING WHILE QUEEN-REARING IS GOING ON
By Henry Alley
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About This Book

A practical manual for beekeepers detailing techniques for producing robust, fertile queen bees. It explains hive and brood-frame construction, three methods of cell-building, preparing and handling eggs and young workers, forming and feeding nuclei, and managing drones. The text covers queen care from rearing to mating and introduction, use of queen nurseries and frames, equipment such as drone traps and a tobacco pipe for smoke, and hive management to prevent honey candying. Emphasis is placed on step-by-step, experience-based procedures and apiary organization for both small- and large-scale queen production.

FEEDING WHILE QUEEN-REARING IS GOING ON

It should be understood that when queen-rearing is going on and no forage in the fields, feeding must be resorted to; a syrup composed of honey and granulated sugar will answer all right for food. Feeding not only keeps up the excitement, but the interest in the work the bees are doing. Keep up a liberal supply until the cells are capped.

During the past season I conducted some experiments in feeding clear honey and clear sugar syrup while cell-building was going on. The results of my experiments clearly show that sugar syrup with some honey is just as good to feed bees in queen-rearing as the best honey. This fact I could not believe until I had made the above experiment; therefore it will be seen that food has no influence whatever on the quality of the queens reared. Other conditions and circumstances do have a positive influence on the embryo queens; large colonies, thousands of young bees, plenty of stores of both honey and pollen, and then when the colony is put in fine condition for queen-rearing, the result is fine queens. Observe all these conditions if success is desired.